January 21, 1959: Paul Coates — Confidential File

Posted on January 21, 2026 by lmharnisch

CONFIDENTIAL FILE

Smut Purveyor Reaps Harvest

Paul Coates, in coat and tieIn the smut business, the biggest losers are the customers.

They shell out something (more than 1 million dollars a year) for nothing.

But they’re not the only ones who come out on the short end.

A couple of years ago, I printed a letter received by an 11-year-old boy here in town.

It was the typical pitch to peddle nude photos, written as a “personal” note.

It said, in part:

“Maybe it isn’t proper for a girl to write to a strange man this way, but I hope you don’t mind . . . Continue reading →

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January 21, 1947: ‘Model Prisoners’ Slip From Custody at Night to Commit Burglaries

Posted on January 21, 2026 by lmharnisch

Jan. 21, 1947, Comics

Note: This is a post I did in 2006 for the 1947project.

Marley Griggs and his sidekick Oliver Gebhart had the perfect alibi for the burglary of a market on Western Avenue—they were already in custody 60 miles away.

The men were model prisoners at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Road Camp No. 5, where Griggs was serving time for forgery and Gebhart was sentenced for burglary of a safe.

Continue reading →

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January 21, 1907: L.A. Hosts First Car Show on the West Coast

Posted on January 21, 2026 by lmharnisch

January 21, 1907
Los Angeles

Mayor Arthur C. Harper addressed the crowd for a moment, reminiscing about a teacher who used to tell his pupils that someday, long after he was gone, people would get around Los Angeles in self-propelled vehicles.

And with that, Harper threw the switch, illuminating 10,000 electric lights at Morley’s Skating Ring on Grand between 9th and 10th Streets and beginning the insanity, formally unveiling the automobile in the first car show not only in Los Angeles, but on the West Coast.

Continue reading →

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January 20, 1947: ‘Good Night. Sleep Peacefully With Compliments of Jacks’

Posted on January 20, 2026 by lmharnisch


florabel_muir_headline_happy

Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.

I was talking with Siegel about seven o’clock on the Friday evening of his death. He called me at the office of Hollywood’s Daily Variety, for which I was then writing a column. He said he wanted to thank me for a review I had given the floor show at the Flamingo that week.

“I’m planning a whole new advertising campaign and am using your description, ‘the fabulous Flamingo,’ prominently in all the ads,” he told me. “I’m cutting prices in the rooms, too, and have just signed the Ritz brothers to open in September. I’m paying them $25,000 a week ($236,604.65 USD 2005), but I think they’re worth it.”

Continue reading →

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January 20, 1947: Virginia Mayo Disappears!

Posted on January 20, 2026 by lmharnisch

Jan. 10, 1947, Comics

Note: This is a post I wrote in 2006 for the 1947project.

With the city in the grips of the Black Dahlia murder, Los Angeles wonders, where is Virginia Mayo? Or at least some publicist worries enough to feed the item to Louella Parsons at the Examiner. Without knowing for certain, the second story looks like a Times rewrite of the gossip column, which provides juicy details about Mayo’s poisoned dog, her exact address and the implications that she’s a home-wrecker, but is very thin on any real news. Basically, Mayo and her mother went on a trip. End of story.

Bonus factoid: Mayo and O’Shea got married July 2, 1947. He lived at 14633 Magnolia in Van Nuys. O’Shea, who starred in “Mr. District Attorney” and “Underworld Story,” died of a heart attack in Dallas in 1973 while getting ready to join a touring company of “40 Carats,” starring Mayo.

Second bonus factoid: Mayo’s apartment was 1.3 miles from the home of Dr. George Hodel at 5121 Franklin Ave.

Continue reading →

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Black Dahlia Book Club for January 2026

Posted on January 20, 2026 by lmharnisch

Welcome to the first session of the Black Dahlia Book Club! I finally got tired of talking about George Hodel and Steve Hodel (at this point, I know Steve’s monologues from memory) so I decided to spend some time looking at the portrayals of the Black Dahlia case, starting with the October 1948 issue of True Detective, which touched off the Leslie Dillion debacle. I consider myself first and foremost a historian of the Black Dahlia case, and think it’s important to examine the source material in detail to emphasize the challenges of researching the murder of Elizabeth Short.

The next Ask Me Anything on the Black Dahlia case is February 3. The next Black Dahlia Book Club session will be February 17. I’ll announce the subject a week before.

In this session, I discussed: Continue reading →

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January 20, 1907: Architectural Ramblings

Posted on January 20, 2026 by lmharnisch

A Brainerd home at 1158 E. 41st St., Photograph by Larry Harnisch/LADailyMirror.com

Note: This is an encore post from 2007.
Los Angeles
January 20, 2007

What we do know about H.J. Brainerd is that he built a fair number of “portable homes.” What we don’t know, except in one case, is exactly where he put them.

Continue reading →

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Ethel B. Higgins, Photographer and Botanist

Posted on January 19, 2026 by lmharnisch

Ethel_Higgins_03
Ethel B. Higgins in an undated photo, courtesy of the San Diego Natural History Museum.

Hollywood welcomed artists long before the film industry descended on the town. Many were women, pioneering in music composition and publishing like Carrie Jacobs Bond, or in photography, like Ethel Phoebe Bailey Higgins. Virtually forgotten today, she served as Hollywood’s top artistic photographer in the early 1900s, before becoming one of California’s leading botanists in the 1930s and 1940s.

Ethel and her parents George and Mary moved to Los Angeles after he retired in 1900. Born in 1846, former Quaker George was heir to an oilcloth factory and investor. Ethel, their only daughter, was born 1866 in Vassalboro, Maine. Thanks to her family’s wealth and social status, she pursued higher education, attending the Wesleyan Seminary and Female College at Redfield before teaching high school in Massachusetts. She moved across country with her parents at the age of 34, looking for new adventures and horizons. Continue reading →

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January 19, 1959: Matt Weinstock

Posted on January 19, 2026 by lmharnisch

Life in Beverly Hills

Matt WeinstockDuring a lavish party in a Beverly Hills home the host guided a group of guests to a huge shelfful of glassware in the trophy room.

“Of course you know about Bruges glass,” he said proudly. “It’s unbreakable. Here, I’ll show you.” He tipped a glass off the shelf. It shattered into fragments.

“That can’t be!” he exclaimed.

He tipped another and it too crashed. He shook his head in utter bafflement and tipped another. Crash.

“I can’t understand it!” he shouted hoarsely, “These glasses have been
in the family for generations! We’ve been the victims of a hoax!” Continue reading →

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January 19, 1959: Paul Coates — Confidential File

Posted on January 19, 2026 by lmharnisch

CONFIDENTIAL FILE

Way Out Back, a Head of Hair

Paul Coates, in coat and tieSee that picture down the column a few lines?

The one of the smiling, bushy-haired boy?

That’s me.

I’ll concede that it wasn’t taken yesterday. But if you want to get technical, I wasn’t born yesterday either. Which doesn’t make sense. However, I warned you not to get technical.

Columnists have certain inalienable liberties. One of which is the right to decorate their columns with vintage photographs of themselves.

At most, it’s petty deceit. And I certainly don’t stand alone in my guilt. Continue reading →

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January 19, 1947: Watch Out for His Left Jab!

Posted on January 19, 2026 by lmharnisch

Jan, 19, 1947, Tarzan
Note: This is an encore post I wrote in 2006 for the 1947project.

Reluctant holdup
victim finds
left jab useful

Sometimes even the boys in the legal beak-busting business don’t fare so well when they run up against the unorthodox style of a southpaw.

Clinton W. White, 2641 Rose View Ave., a Southern Pacific conductor, was thankful today that he was a lefthander when a couple of strong-arm lads tried to rob him, he told police.

One tried to pin White with a half-Nelson of the right arm, he said. So he swung a sharp left and floored his opponent. While the other man fled, White once more called on his left to retire his attacker.

Booked on suspicion of robbery was a man who gave his name as Clarence W. Hartnett, 47. The attack took place at Avenue 64 and Pasadena Avenue, the conductor said.

Continue reading →

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January 19, 1942: Lombard’s Body Recovered From Crash

Posted on January 19, 2026 by lmharnisch

Jan. 19, 1942, Carole Lombard

Jan. 19, 1942, Comics

January 19, 1942: The Times’ Gene Sherman reports from the scene of the crash that killed Carole Lombard and 21 others:

“The totally demolished luxurious Douglas DC-3 Skyclub presented a grim, sorrowful picture on its rocky resting place. Wreckage was scattered in a radius of 500 yards and some of the victims were strewn around the waist-high snow. Bits of the plane, personal effects of the passengers, including handkerchiefs, overcoats and other apparel, were strung from the branches of stunted pine trees like macabre Christmas ornaments.

The two motors of the plane lay 50 feet apart, both to the left of the debris. Both wings had been sheared off. The tail assembly had been cracked off the fuselage, leaving the twisted, blackened cabin at the foot of a V-shaped crevasse.”

“Suspicion” starts tomorrow at the Pantages in Hollywood and RKO Hill Street.

Jimmie Fidler says: How many photographs have you seen of Irene Dunne with her knees crossed? Continue reading →

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January 19, 1907: A Conductor Throws Caution to the Winds

Posted on January 19, 2026 by lmharnisch


Note: This is an encore post from 2007.

January 19, 1907
Los Angeles

Despite his ill health, Harley Hamilton drove himself to conduct a concert by the Los Angeles Symphony because he believed so much in bringing the music of Tchaikovsky (or in those days, Tschaikowsky) to the public. The concert at hand is West Coast premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4.

“Harley Hamilton, too ill to leave his house, is just finishing his arrangements for the work of the symphony orchestra,” The Times says of his labors on the concert series.

Continue reading →

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on January 19, 2026 by lmharnisch

Main title: Lettering over tinted photo of an oil field, with workers.

This week’s mystery movie was the 1973 Columbia film Oklahoma Crude, with George C. Scott, Faye Dunaway, John Mills, Jack Palance, William Lucking, Harvey Jason, Ted Gehring, Cliff Osmond, Rafael Campos, Woodrow Parfrey, Larry D. Mann, John Dierkes, Hal Smith, Karl Lukas and Wayne Storm. Continue reading →

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January 17, 1947: Big Bill Tilden Gets Jail for Morals Case Involving Teenage Boy

Posted on January 17, 2026 by lmharnisch

Jan. 17, 1947, Li'l Abner

Jan. 17, 1947, Bill Tilden

Note: This is a post I wrote in 2006 for the 1947project.

January 17, 1947: William (Big Bill) Tilden, 54-year-old internationally known tennis star, yesterday was sentenced to serve nine months in the County Jail with a road gang recommendation by Juvenile Judge A.A. Scott for contributing to the delinquency of a 14-year-old boy.

Judge Scott excoriated Tilden for his actions, declaring: “You have been the idol of youngsters all over the world. It has been a great shock to sports fans to read about your troubles.

“I am going to make this an object lesson, no only to other persons tempted to do similar things, but also to parents who are too busy to concern themselves in determining what type of persons their youngsters are associating with,” Judge Scott commented.

Continue reading →

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January 17, 1907: The Changing Face of the City

Posted on January 17, 2026 by lmharnisch


Note: This is an encore post from 2007.

January 17, 1907
Los Angeles

On a trip from Utah to visit his daughter, H.E. Gibson keeps getting lost as he wanders around Los Angeles. No, it’s not because Gibson is 80, for his mind is still sharp. It’s because he hasn’t been back since 1848 and things have changed just a bit.

Even the old familiar landmark of Ft. Hill is covered with homes, he says. About the only spot in town he recognizes is the Plaza, where he keeps returning to get his bearings.

Gibson came to California with the “Flash Emigrant Colony” to establish Mormon settlements. The group couldn’t raise the money to buy Rancho Cucamonga, so they bought a parcel of land in San Bernardino, The Times says. Continue reading →

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January 17, 1863: U.S. Lifts Ban on L.A. Paper Accused of Treason

Posted on January 17, 2026 by lmharnisch

image
Read the entire Los Angeles Star of Jan. 17, 1863, courtesy of USC and the Huntington Library.

January 17, 1863: The Star notes that after a year of being banned from the U.S. mails for publishing treasonous articles in support of the Confederacy, it will once more be available through the mail.

Mr. Humphries, who lives near San Gabriel, celebrates having the entire family, “down to the youngest grandchild” together “under the paternal roof.” “Dancing was kept up with great spirit until daylight.”

Joseph Winston is married to Dona Maria J. Bauchet.

Gov. Stanford, in his message to the Legislature, wants to raise the tax by 23 cents on $100. The Star does not approve.

A sample of the Star’s editorial:

Continue reading →

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January 16, 1959: Matt Weinstock

Posted on January 16, 2026 by lmharnisch

Saved by the Knell

Matt WeinstockIn everybody’s life there is a dark, unforgettable moment when it doesn’t appear he’s going to make it. A downtown group somehow got around to discussing the this topic over coffee, and Ken Bromfield Jones, Title Insurance employee and spare-time TV actor, recalled his big near miss.

In 1942 he was in command of a gun post on HMS Londonderry, convoying ships north of Ireland. During a German air attack he was shot through a lung. Hours later, he was removed to a hospital ashore.

In the night he came out of a sedative. He felt no pain, only extreme lassitude. As in a dream he heard a nurse say, “He’ll be on the slab by morning.” Continue reading →

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January 16, 1959: Paul Coates — Confidential File

Posted on January 16, 2026 by lmharnisch

January 16, 1959: Mirror Cover

CONFIDENTIAL FILE

Someday, Butch H., Try to Be Forgiving

Paul Coates, in coat and tieSome stories I’d rather not print.

And when I first heard about what a bunch of grown men and women were doing to a kid named Butch Harris, I filed the information into that category.

It was a little too unbelievable, too grimy, to put in a newspaper.

That was three months ago. At the time, Butch and some classmates of his had accepted an invitation to all boys at 87th Street School, here in downtown, to join the Cub Scouts.

But not Butch. He was ignored — subtly like a sledge hammer. Continue reading →

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January 16, 1947: Teachers Call ‘Song of the South’ Racist Propaganda

Posted on January 16, 2026 by lmharnisch

image
Jan. 16, 1947: Chef Tubbs is opening a restaurant at 1305-7 E. Olympic Blvd.

Olympic and Central, Google Street View

Olympic Boulevard and Central Avenue, via Google Street View.

Jan. 16, 1947, Los Angeles Sentinel

January 16: Local 27 of the American Federation of Teachers, meeting in Washington, called the Disney feature film “Song of the South” “insidious and subtle propaganda against the Negro.”

According to Paul Cooke, head of Local 27, actor James Baskett was “hampered by having to portray the fixed conception of the Negro — a lazy, hat-in-hand, spiritual-singing inferior ‘old rascal.’ ” Cooke also criticized the film for the theme of “the Negro in service to white people, the Negro apparently whose only thought is to help solve the problems of white people.”

 

Continue reading →

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