Mystery photo

Posted on June 2, 2008 by lmharnisch
2008_0602_mystery_pix
Los Angeles Times file photo
Well?

  • Lily Pons? (Layne Nielson) Absolutely right. The other individual has nothing to do with the music world and should be a bit of a challenge.

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Dodgers TV marathon

Posted on June 2, 2008 by lmharnisch
1958_0502_omalley
Photograph by the Los Angeles Times

From left, Danny Thomas, Walter O’Malley and Bill Frawley at the "Dodgerthon."

June 2, 1958

By Keith Thursby
Times staff writer

1958_0602_cover Now batting for the Dodgers, Ronald Reagan.

The future president and California governor certainly stood out in a long list of celebrities and politicians who took part in a five-hour TV show backing the Dodgers and Proposition B. Other familiar names included Dean Martin, Danny Thomas, George Burns and Debbie Reynolds.

So much for equal time — this was five hours on local television to promote a ballot measure on the June 3 election to endorse the city’s deal with the Dodgers for a stadium at Chavez Ravine.  The Dodgers, finishing a road trip in Chicago, would get back in town just in time.

According to a story in The Times, the program started at the Channel 11 studios, "then the bevy of entertainers and sports figures went to the airport where they met the team upon its arrival from Chicago after its 1-0 victory."

Reagan was quoted extensively in the story, which makes for fun reading since his political career isn’t too far in his future.

"Sure, Walter O’Malley got a good deal when he was offered Chavez Ravine as a site for his ballpark," Reagan said. "Any deal to be good must be fair to both sides, not just to one.

"For years we have been watching golf courses and other recreation areas destroyed to make room for subdivisions and factories. Where is a baseball stadium to go, in the suburbs, away from the freeways?"

I can’t imagine a viewer lasting five hours, even if you had nothing better to do that night. Five hours seems more fitting for the telethon of telethons, Jerry Lewis’ annual fundraiser to fight muscular dystrophy. Lewis, of course, was also part of the Dodgers’ night.

He noted that 8,000 children with muscular dystrophy had attended events at the Coliseum, and another ballpark would be a good thing for Jerry’s kids.

keith.thursby@latimes.com

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June 2, 1908

Posted on June 2, 2008 by lmharnisch

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Above, a dramatic story from Central Avenue … Mayor Harper reacts to a Times expose on illegal gambling in the city … Robert T. Hale of the Anti-Fakers Society of Los Angeles County tells county supervisors that granting exemptions to a tax on mediums and fortune tellers will enable scam artists to move outside the city limits and continue operations … Jacob Hohn, a rancher in Watts, is accused of seducing a 17-year-old girl under a promise of marriage.

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Wild record for Dodgers

Posted on June 1, 2008 by lmharnisch
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June 1, 1968

By Keith Thursby
Times staff writer

1968_0601_sports Don Drysdale’s 1968 season would never happen in 2008.

A starting pitcher allowed to finish complete game after complete game? You’ve got to be kidding. What about the high-priced closers who automatically enter a game now with their team ahead in the ninth inning? No manager would allow them to sit in the bullpen, watching a starter throw up to 150 pitches.

This was a different era. Drysdale came into the game against the Giants with four consecutive shutouts. One more shutout would set a new National League record and put him within striking distance of one of the game’s great standards, Carl Hubbell’s scoreless streak of 46 1/3 innings.

Drysdale and the Dodgers won, 3-0, to continue his streak but it was a wild ride into history thanks to an unlikely call by an umpire.

The Giants loaded the bases with no outs. Drysdale hit Dick Dietz with a 2-2 fastball, seemingly the end of the shutout streak. But umpire Harry Wendlestedt said Dietz didn’t try to get out of the way and called the pitch a ball. After Manager Herman Franks was thrown out in the ensuing and inevitable argument, Dietz hit a shot fly to left and the runners held.

Ty Cline was next and according to the game story by The Times’ Dan Hafner, first baseman Wes Parker dug out his hot smash and threw home to get a force and keep the shutout intact.  Jack Hiatt popped to Parker.

The Dodgers celebrated and talked about the call.

"I never saw the play called before, but then this is the first time I ever saw anyone deliberately get hit by a ball," Manager Walter Alston said.

Catcher Jeff Torborg said the umpire "showed real guts" then added, "Come to think of it, Dietz had guts too. He stuck his elbow in the way of a fastball."

Hafner’s story included pregame notes that serve as a time capsule. Sen. Eugene McCarthy was campaigning in California and played some catch before the game with pitcher Mudcat Grant. Hafner noted that Grant was a supporter of Sen. Robert Kennedy.

As for Drysdale, his next start would be at Dodger Stadium against the Pirates on June 4, election night in California.

keith.thursby@latimes.com

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June 1, 1968

Posted on June 1, 2008 by lmharnisch

1968_0401_lbj

1968_hhh_detailJohnson’s announcement throws the spotlight on Democratic Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey avoids the nation’s primaries, leaving them to Sens. Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.), a vocal critic of the war who was the first to announce his candidacy, and Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.), the former attorney general under brother President John F. Kennedy who entered the campaign after McCarthy’s strong showing against Johnson in New Hampshire (42% to 48% for the president).


 

 1968_columbia_sds_2 Background: On March 31, 1968, his popularity battered by the Vietnam War, the surrender of the Navy spy ship Pueblo to the North Koreans, unrest on college campuses and a poor showing in the March 13 New Hampshire primary, President Lyndon Johnson stuns the nation in a televised address: "I shall not seek and will not accept the nomination of my party for a second term as your president."

1968_rfk_button In The Times pages below, three days before the June 4, 1968, California primary, Kennedy campaigns against McCarthy in San Francisco. Kennedy criticizes President Johnson’s approach to peace negotiations with the North Vietnamese, which Kennedy says erroneously depends on "a naive faith in our military power" to bring the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong to their knees. Kennedy advocates pulling U.S. forces back to South Vietnam’s population centers.

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May 31, 1958

Posted on May 31, 2008 by lmharnisch
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At left, Marshal Dillon and Miss Kitty! But wait, there’s roller derby: the San Francisco Bay Bombers vs. the Los Angeles Braves!

Talk about mind-rotting nostalgia: "Heckle and Jeckle," "Mighty Mouse" and "Howdy Doody."

And, hmm…. "Bowling Time" or "Topper"? Oh, I think I’ll watch "Topper."

Tough choice at 8 p.m.: Gale Storm, Perry Como or Spade Cooley.

On second thought, I’ll wait until 8:30 p.m. for "Have Gun, Will Travel."

Best of all: "Perry Mason."
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May 31, 1938

Posted on May 31, 2008 by lmharnisch
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1938_0531_roberts Floyd Roberts of Van Nuys, who gained much of his experience on the dirt track at Ascot, wins the Indianapolis 500.

Roberts averaged 117.2 mph in a four-cylinder car (at left) built and owned by Lou Moore and designed by Harry Miller, both of Los Angeles.

In Oakland, Earl Ortman of Los Angeles sets a record in closed-course speed flying, 265.539 mph.

James Bailey Cash Jr., 5, is kidnapped from his bed in Princeton, Fla. The FBI searches for clues in the abduction and killing of 12-year-old Peter Levine of New Rochelle, N.Y., as the boy’s mutilated body is cremated. (Franklin Pierce McCall is convicted of killing the Cash child and executed in the electric chair. The Levine kidnapping was never solved.)

And rumors spread in Vienna as the Nazis round up hundreds — perhaps thousands — of Jews, according to incomplete reports.

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May 31, 1908

Posted on May 31, 2008 by lmharnisch
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Above and at left, the "white and many-pillared mansion of commerce" opens at Broadway and 8th in Los Angeles.

According to The Times, Hamburger’s Department Store was the largest building on the West Coast and had California’s first escalator.
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In 1923, Hamburger’s was sold to the May Co., which renovated the building in 1924.

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May 30,1958: ‘Crisis in Morals’

Posted on May 30, 2008 by lmharnisch

May 30, 1958: Movie ads for Vertigo and King Solomon's Mines

The Times runs a 12-part series titled “Crisis in Morals.” The author, Howard Whitman, is identified as a “noted writer and commentator.” After filing stories from wartime London in 1944 and the D-day invasion, Whitman returned to such fare as “Smoldering Youth” (1946), “Sex Education Grows Up” (1948) and “What Makes Good Girls Bad?” (1949).

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May 30, 1908: Snake Stops Traffic

Posted on May 30, 2008 by lmharnisch

May 30, 1908: A large gopher snake causes a frenzy in downtown Los Angeles.

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May 29, 1938

Posted on May 29, 2008 by lmharnisch

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 Above, what Los Angeles was reading in 1938–and a shoutout to the Zombie Reading Program over at This Book Is for You…. "When there’s no more room in closed stacks, the out-of-print will rise up and walk the earth."

At left, a curious and sensational murder case. Arrested in Chicago on charges of killing a white woman with a brick, an African American named Robert Nixon confesses to a series of similar killings in Los Angeles.

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Nixon (above, a typical headline from the Chicago Tribune) is eventually convicted and electrocuted while his alleged accomplice, Howard Green, is extradited to Los Angeles in the fatal beating of a 12-year-old Marguerite Worden while Nixon killed her mother, Edna.

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May 29, 1908: Concert Pianist Put on Chain Gang in Crackdown on Gays

Posted on May 29, 2008 by lmharnisch

Portrait of Peje Storck, pianist

Peje Storck via EBay.

November 19, 1903: Peje Storck performs with the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra

Peje Storck performs with the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra.

We will have to trust the Los Angeles Times when it says Peje Storck was a famous pianist of his day. According to The Times, the pianist arrived in town in 1903 with English violinist Herbert Ritchie, who studied with violin virtuoso Eugene Ysaye. (The Times refers to Storck as Norweigian in some articles in and Swedish in others).

The duo performed many concerts in Los Angeles and received glowing reviews in The Times. “Mr. Storck’s art is finished, his tone limpid, lucent, pure, his intellectual force unusual, his execution flawless and his mental attitude that of a poet and idealist,” The Times said Nov. 21, 1903.

But we will have to trust the Los Angeles Police Department that Storck was gay–of course even as late as the 1940s, newspapers didn’t dare use words like “homosexual.”

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May 28, 1958

Posted on May 28, 2008 by lmharnisch

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 Above and at left. two World War I planes are parked with a Super Sabre to publicize a flight to Pittsburgh for an air show. Times aviation writer Marvin Miles noted that the planes had machine guns, Vickers on the Nieuport 28 and Spandaus on the Fokker D-VII …

Also: A three-column picture of Charles Stack and his mother, Rosemarie Bowe, while his father Robert Stack is filming a movie in Spain … A witness tells a state Senate panel that the Mexican border should be closed to those who don’t have passports or visas to curb drug traffic.
"It is no coincidence that a flood of heroin started coming in when the Communists completed consolidation of the Orient," Robert A. Neeb Jr. says.

And the Biltmore Theater at 5th Street and Grand is sold after a 34-year run. The site, at left, was used for expansion of what is now the Millennium Biltmore Hotel. (Note: Google’s street view gets horribly confused if you try to follow 5th Street from Spring to Grand in downtown Los Angeles).

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May 28, 1938

Posted on May 28, 2008 by lmharnisch

Ray_pinker_1938_0504_lat

Photograph by the Los Angeles Times

Police chemist Ray Pinker with the steering wheel from Harry Raymond’s car, in a photo from the trial of Police Capt. Earle Kynette dated May 4, 1938.
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At left, here’s where we see corruption spread through City Hall like cancer: Allegations that defense witnesses in the trial of Police Capt. Earle Kynette were given city jobs. Although one witness denies any such deal, it’s interesting to see how many defense witnesses happened to have jobs with the Health Department.

With the jury excused, the judge asks the defense attorneys how much longer they need to present their case.

"It is very obvious that the jury paid little if any attention at all to the testimony that has been offered here this morning. I believe that they think we are wasting their time. I think it is wise to find out where we are going."

–Judge Thomas L. Ambrose

Also: Chief James Davis’ rock garden is dedicated at the Police Academy … downtown is wreathed with colorful banners for the Shriners’ convention … A witness in a lawsuit says he conferred with Joe Shaw, the mayor’s brother, about a Mexican radio station but declines to reveal whether the station was going to broadcast gambling results.

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May 28, 1908

Posted on May 28, 2008 by lmharnisch

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Above and at left, I’m not sure which is more remarkable, the story about Kate Welsh, the sister of prizefighter Fred Welsh, or the byline: Louise M. George.

As late as the 1950s, reporters rarely got bylines, so it’s impossible to tell who wrote a story, making it especially difficult to determine how many women writers were working in a newsroom in the early 20th century. The usual assumption is that they were rare and relegated to the women’s pages.

But Louise M. George is not only remarkable for being a newswoman, even more noteworthy: she wrote about boxing. Not just this story, but a few others as well. Don’t get me wrong, she also wrote a fair number of society stories, but she made occasional ventures into sports.

Here’s a sample of her writing about Kate Welsh: "… the boxers (I believe that is the polite name) had on shockingly few clothes but every man straightened himself and forgot the coarse jest on the tip of his tongue when this slip of a girl drew near."

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May 27, 1938

Posted on May 27, 2008 by lmharnisch

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Photograph by the Los Angeles Times, dated April 13, 1938
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Above, the defendants and their attorneys in the Harry Raymond bombing … At left, more angry exchanges between Deputy Dist. Atty. Eugene Williams and Police Capt. Earle Kynette …

Also: The mayor of Santa Monica, accompanied by police, orders the gambling ship Rex to cease operations. The order also applies to water taxis ferrying people to the ship … A furious brawl breaks out between strikers and police at the Goodyear plant in Akron, Ohio, injuring more than 100 people …  And Congress begins the investigation of un-American activities after Rep. Martin Dies (D-Texas) reports on gatherings of Nazi sympathizers in the U.S. At one Nazi "camp," a speaker advocated the assassination of President Roosevelt, Dies says, without identifying the camp or the speaker.

On the jump, extensive quotes from Kynette’s testimony under questioning by Williams.

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Mystery photo

Posted on May 27, 2008 by lmharnisch


2008_0526_mystery_pix

Los Angeles Times file photo
Well?

  • Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons? Alas no.
  • Margaret Dumont? Sorry, no.
  • Doris Kenyon and Theda Bara? (Alexa Foreman). Theda Bara yes! Very good. Doris Kenyon, alas no.

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May 27, 1908

Posted on May 27, 2008 by lmharnisch

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 Above, time to start planning summer getaways to Tahoe … At left, fruit peddler Leonardo Vett, accused, along with his wife, of stealing diamonds from local jewelry shops.


"Vett looks like a Jew but says he is an Italian," The Times says in one of those stunning details that fill early 20th century newspapers, adding: "His wife, a pretty little woman with soft, dark eyes and a wealth of dark hair, cannot speak a word of English."   

Also, Police Sgt. Sebastian (I wonder if this is future Police Chief Charles Sebastian) is blockading stores in Chinatown suspected of running opium dens on the side–at least to white customers. White men are willing to pay more for drugs than Chinese American customers and blocking the whites has forced several stores to close, The Times says.

What about Chinese American opium addicts? Apparently that’s not considered a problem.

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Starring Wrigley Field

Posted on May 27, 2008 by lmharnisch


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May 27, 1958

By Keith Thursby
Times staff writer

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Even without a team, Wrigley Field was always ready for its closeup.

The ballpark had more than its
share of film and TV credits during its years in Los Angeles, from the
"The Pride of the Yankees" to "The Munsters."  Wrigley Field also was
the location for the television show "Home Run Derby," where major
league hitters competed for up to $2,000 an episode. Yes, it was a long
time ago.

In 1958, Wrigley Field became a
location for the musical "Damn Yankees."  The story focused on a
longtime Washington Senators fan who gets his wish and is transformed
into a slugger leading the hapless Senators past the hated Yankees. Of
course, it’s not that simple and there’s dancing and singing.

Writing in The Times, Jeane
Hoffman pokes some fun at the Dodgers while describing the action.
Writes Hoffman: "There was the thought that the Dodgers, lounging in
last place, might profitably emulate … the dancing on toes, split
leaps and graceful whirls. But then things are bad enough."

Hoffman mentions star Tab
Hunter as the only "player" who looked at home on a baseball field.
Also noticed was Bob Fosse, a 30-year-old dancer taking Casey Stengel’s
place as manager of the Yankees. Calls himself a choreographer, Hoffman
writes.

You could say that. He
eventually won eight Tony Awards for choreography, another for
direction, and won an Academy Award as best director for "Cabaret".

As for the Senators and
Yankees, the real variety returned to Wrigley Field in 1961 when the
Angels played their first season in Los Angeles.

keith.thursby@latimes.com

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Dodgers Dig In

Posted on May 27, 2008 by lmharnisch


May 27, 1958

By Keith Thursby
Times staff writer

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Walter O’Malley wanted it clearly understood he wasn’t going anywhere.

"The players and our staff want to stay in Los Angeles. We like the location, the weather, the fans and the attendance records," O’Malley said during a news conference covered by The Times’ Al Wolf. "We plan to be in Los Angeles permanently. I pledge myself to try to keep major league baseball here."

O’Malley was responding to statements by National League President Warren Giles, who apparently was concerned that Los Angeles voters might reject Prop. B in local elections June 3. The ballot measure was a vote on the contract already forged by the Dodgers and the city to build a baseball stadium in Chavez Ravine.

Giles said that if voters turned down Prop. B, thus turning down the contract and putting the new stadium in jeopardy, he would recommend finding another city for the Dodgers to call home. According to Wolf’s story, it would take at least a 6-2 vote by National League owners to force the Dodgers to move.

It’s hard to imagine why Giles made such a fuss. Forcing the Dodgers to move after barely a season in Los Angeles would call into question further attempts to expand or move west. And abandoning Los Angeles would leave the San Francisco Giants as the only West Coast team. That would make for some awkward road trips for teams traveling west.

Perhaps he was only trying to suggest baseball fans get out and vote. The Times’ story noted that Giles sent O’Malley a telegram insisting that he only wanted to state the facts in the case.

O’Malley was asked about his plans if Prop. B was defeated.

"I have no plans for the simple reason that I can’t conceive of the proposition losing," he said. "I am playing this thing right down to the wire without considering any possible alternatives."

keith.thursby@latimes.com

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