
Theatre has enlightened and entertained audiences for centuries as it weaves the tales of life and love through both the comedic and dramatic talents of myriad actors. While most stage acting involves the danger and electricity of live performance, sometimes it employs only the voice to bring characters to life, such as in puppetry.
Puppetry and marionette work come alive solely through the magic of performers’ skills in voice acting. Both have entertained people young and old for eons, either through the slapstick anger of Punch and Judy shows, or the technical skill of real theatrical performance. Los Angeles possessed its own unique form of puppetry work in the early 1930s with Ellsworth Martin’s Theatre Mechanique, a sophisticated blend of old and new technologies for stage enthusiasts in what some newspapers at the time called “the world’s smallest theatre.”
Mary Mallory’s “Hollywoodland: Tales Lost and Found” is available for the Kindle.

Matt Weinstock is on vacation until September 7




The Times publishes a war map by Charles Owens.








Splash!
When visitors wonder why Jim Wallin, Arcadia planning commissioner, has no diving board for his swimming pool, he tells them about his big impulsive moment. Not long ago a nephew from out of state, a husky lad of 21, visited him and kept practicing triple flips, striking the water with a tremendous splash.
August 13, 1959: Did Miss Japan have plastic surgery?
She was a pretty little girl with natural blond hair and baby-blue eyes with stars in them.