« April 8, 2007 - April 14, 2007 |
Main
| April 22, 2007 - April 28, 2007 »
April 21, 1957
Los Angeles
I think about his hands. I don't know, but I would imagine that at the age of 78,
they were old and worn from a lifetime of custodial work for Los Angeles County.
Gnarled, maybe, with age spots. I like to think you can tell more about
some people by their hands than by their face. This is mostly guesswork, but I
wonder what story his hands would tell.
Were his nails all ragged or did
he keep them neat and smooth? Were his fingers short and stubby or long and
thin? Did he have a wedding ring or was he one of those men who didn't wear one
for fear it would get caught in the machinery he used?
We just don't know.
He would have been born about 1879, and I picture him in school holding a pencil
and figuring sums. We know he could read and write because of his last note.
It's fairly certain his hands gripped the reins of a horse and buggy; maybe he
held the steering wheel of an automobile, or maybe he took the streetcar. I
think of him as a young man in his 20s, filling out a job application. At that
time, many county jobs were gotten through political patronage, but that's just
a guess.
At
some point in the next 28 years, he met a woman named Adelaide Houston, who was
15 years younger. I have no how they met, but I picture him holding her
hand and putting a wedding ring on her finger.
Then I picture his hands holding his son, Roger, who was born about 1928.
Maybe he pitched a ball to his son and hugged him when he graduated from high
school.
All along, those hands picking up a mop bucket and pushing a broom for the
county. Washing windows and scraping gum off the floor. Shaking hands when he
retired.
And then opening the door to the doctor's office for him and Adelaide.
Comforting her when the doctor told them she had cancer, just like him.
Those worn hands, opening his wallet to get for medicine at the drugstore, and
paying the rent for the apartment at
834
N. Huntley Drive in West Hollywood.
The
hands, which figured sums in school so long ago, writing a three-page letter to
Roger, sealing it in an envelope and leaving it on the coffee table.
Then dialing the telephone to the hotel in Hollywood where Roger worked the
graveyard shift while going to law school at USC. There was a letter on the
coffee table, be sure to mail it, he said.
Finally, the old, worn hands picking the gun as he walked into the bedroom where
Adelaide was sleeping.
When Roger came home that morning, he found his parents' bodies on the bedroom
floor.
The note said: "If we continue spending our money to keep ourselves alive, there
won't be anything left for you to go to law school."
Note:
The
State Bar of California does not list an attorney named Roger M. Vivian.
Email
me
April
21, 1957
Los Angeles
Although
Easter has passed in 2007, it has just arrived in 1957. One way Los Angeles
marked Easter weekend was by arranging the lights in City Hall so that they
formed a cross. I'll apologize in advance for the poor quality of the pictures,
but take a look, because we are not likely to see this again.
The first example is from 1930, two years after City Hall opened. The practice
continued at Easter and Christmas for more than 40 years. (Below, Easter 1957 and Christmas 1962).
In 1959, Mrs. Gordon L. Mann (remember, this is the era when married women had
no first names) wrote a letter to The Times, invoking the Founding Fathers and a
Christian nation in protesting plans to keep City Hall's windows dark
because of construction work. Her argument prompted a rebuttal from John R. Goy
on religious freedom.
Then,
in digging through the clips, I encountered the incomparable Jack Smith.
In 1971, he wrote about the annual press release announcing that the Board of Public
Works would present the cross in lights on three sides of City Hall. And yes,
I'm quoting an official City of Los Angeles press release:
"In a world of war and unease, among people who pray and plead for
peace, there will shine again this Eastertime the lighted Cross atop the
three sides of City Hall as a herald of the day when died a man who was born to
bring peace to the world....
"He died on a wooden cross he had carried himself up the hill of the
skull--called Golgotha--and none was to help him save Simon as he stumbled and
fell under his heavy burden. And they crucified him, the soldiers of Rome....
"Therefore, to illumine the story of his death and the lasting lessons learned
from his life, the Board of Public Works, on a directive from Mayor Sam Yorty,
today ordered the lighting of huge crosses on the high faces of City Hall
... to mark the advent of Easter and to bring a brightness into the hearts
of men troubled by the times....
"And as he was outstretched and pinioned to the cross to form a living crucifix,
so will the outflung arms of the lighted cross high above the city's strife
serve as a sign of the universal appeal of the words he spoke in forgiveness of
his enemies and of the love he bespoke for all mankind....
"And the lights burning bright on City Hall will grow dim and flicker and die as
Easter morn again comes gently to the city with the message his believers form
gratefully with their lips and repeat in their hearts as has been their wont for
2,000 years: He is risen."
Now
that's quite an official press release and it's probably not something we would
expect to see today.
But of course being Jack Smith, he's got a twist. And I'll get to that in a
minute.
 In 1976, Judge Norman R. Dowds barred the display in a preliminary injunction
sought by S. Dorothy Metzger Fox, who said the cost of the lights was an illegal
use of tax money. In 1977, the state Court of Appeal overturned the ban. The
state Supreme Court took up the case, and in 1978 upheld the ban.
Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird wrote in a separate, concurring opinion:
"It does not take foresight to see that this situation is fraught with dangers
of political divisiveness."
In the dissenting opinion, Justices Frank K. Richardson and William P. Clark
said: "The 30-year practice has passed unchallenged either by the general public
or by any individuals or groups, religious or otherwise....
"The record before us totally fails to demonstrate that the display either
encouraged or inhibited any particular religion in Los Angeles or anywhere
else."
The
decision generated its own dispute and figured in a 1979 investigation as
to whether the high court delayed several controversial decisions until after
the Nov. 7, 1978, elections.
A report by the state Commission on Judicial Performance found that another of
the controversial decisions--overturning the "use a gun, go to prison"
law--could have been returned five months before the elections if Bird had not
decided to write a separate concurring opinion. The sensational investigation
ended in November 1979, when the commission found no wrongdoing by the state
Supreme Court.
And as for the author of the annual Easter press release, David Soibelman, who
emigrated from Russia, spent his retirement writing for The Times, the Santa
Monica Outlook and the Buffalo, N.Y., Jewish Review until his death in 1998 at
the age of 94.
Email
me
April
20, 1957
Los Angeles
By Matt Weinstock
ONLY IN L.A.--A woman about to board a Metro 91 bus at Hollywood Blvd. and Vine asked, "Do you go on La Brea?" (Some turn on Fairfax).
The driver said no.
She asked: "You don't go on La Brea?"
He said: "No, lady, I don't."
She got on, started to put her fare in the box when the driver said firmly:
"Lady, I said I didn't go on La Brea!"
She deposited her fare and said pleasantly: "Oh, that's all right--I didn't
want to go there."
Which is one reason bus drivers acquire that harried look.
April 19, 1957
Los Angeles
It seems incredible, but The Times never ran an obituary on
Charles
E. Fuller, who helped found
Fuller
Theological Seminary and was one of the pioneers of radio evangelism.
Broadcasting live from the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium, and later in
recordings made at a Hollywood studio, Fuller was on the radio for 43 years,
until his death in 1968, preaching "salvation, personal conversion and the life
hereafter," The Times said.
He was born in downtown Los Angeles, and his father, Henry, ran a furniture
store. The Fullers moved to Redlands, where the family planted the
first Valencia orange in 1886, The Times said. He graduated from Pomona College
in 1910 and turned to religion in the 1920s after working as a manager at a
citrus firm.
Fuller began his broadcasts in 1925 when he was at the Calvary Church in
Placentia, with coast-to-coast transmission beginning in 1949.
The broadcasts featured
Rudy
Atwood, sometimes called the dean of gospel pianists, and the choir, male
quartets and male and female soloists, with listeners' letters read by Fuller's wife, Grace.
"Its appeal is the universal appeal of the Scriptures," Fuller said of the
broadcasts. "I preach a simple yet eternal message of the Gospel."
Fuller said he and Harold John Ockenga got the idea of founding a theological
seminary after his encounters with other ministers across the United States.
"In traveling about the country, I met evangelists who themselves believed
firmly in the Gospel and who were dedicated to their preaching of it. But they
did not have the full understanding of theology and were frequently no match in
theological debate. And, too, they could not meet with business and professional
leaders on an equal footing."
Fuller, who lived at 1180 Oxford Road, San Marino, above, went to his heavenly home on
March 19, 1968. The Old-Fashioned Revival Hour ended in October 1969 after 44
years.
"May
we stand, please, and sing 'Heavenly Sunshine.' My what a privilege it is to
send out this heartwarming, cheering chorus across the nation on 'Heavenly
Sunshine.' As you do, sing through the first time, turn around and shake hands
with as many people as possible. Glad to see so many here today at the Long
Beach Municipal Auditorium. And now all together on 'Heavenly Sunshine.' "
Email
me
April
19, 1957
Los Angeles
 Dear Walter,
We
all know that the lease on
Ebbets
Field expires in 1959. How would you like a nice 78-acre parcel in Flushing
Meadows, 12 miles from Midtown Manhattan, for the Dodgers?
Forget this Chavez Ravine nonsense, just a stone's throw from downtown Los
Angeles. So what if California has freeways. Wouldn't you rather pay a 25-cent
toll for using the bridge or the tunnel? And wouldn't you prefer a 5% amusement
tax here in New York rather than nothing out there on the West Coast?
Look, we'll build you a nice, Space Age ballpark. With a dome. A really nice
one.
Just keep an open mind, OK?
Sincerely,
Robert Moses,
New York City Park Commissioner
ps. What's this I hear about some outfits called the California Baseball Club
and the Dodgers Rookie Baseball Club incorporating in Los Angeles?
April
19, 1957
Los Angeles
 Jerry
Giesler, one of the most prominent attorneys in Los Angeles, was chosen to lead
the war against Confidential magazine during a meeting of the
Beverly
Hills Bar Assn. at the
Beverly
Wilshire Hotel.
Giesler, who handled the cases of countless celebrities, including
Errol
Flynn and
Lili
St. Cyr, bitterly attacked the studios for not protecting their stars but
"running to cover" when any of them were accused of wrongdoing.
"They talk a lot, but they do nothing," Giesler said. "I know. So each
individual will have to stand alone. No matter who, no matter how right he or she may
be.
"When it's over, they may get a pat on the back. They are congratulated, and
taken back into the fold. But while they're on the battlefield, they never hear
a word."
In outlining
Confidential's method for avoiding libel suits, Giesler explained
that the editorial content was prepared in New York and but the magazine was printed in Chicago. The
publishers sold the copies before they came off the presses and had no
connection to the chain of printers, distributors, wholesalers and retailers
that provided Confidential to all those people who claimed they only read it at
the beauty parlor or the barbershop.
Giesler said he had brought lawsuits in California against Confidential on
behalf
Robert
Mitchum,
Lizabeth
Scott and
Doris
Duke, but had to refile them in New York, where crowded court calendars kept
them from being heard for years.
Because Confidential did not do business in California and couldn't be sued in
the state courts, Gieseler said the only solution was legislation and called on
Atty. Gen. Pat Brown to go before the Legislature to get a bill that would allow
legal action.
To be continued...
Email
me
April
19, 1957
Los Angeles
 Your name is Jay. You are 55. You grew up in the San Fernando
Valley--15224 Willard Way in Van Nuys, to be specific.
You were adopted at birth by a couple named Strickland: Jane and her husband,
Edward, a fourth-grade teacher at the Isabelle Buckley School, 4477 Woodman
Ave., in Van Nuys. There were other children in the home: Danny, who would be 61
now; Cynthia, 58; and Celeste, 52.
As far as your foster parents were concerned, you were an exceptionally bright
youngster. "I defy anyone to find a smarter little boy than this one," your
father, Edward, said. "He's really adopting us," your mother said.
There's one other thing we know: You were a little harder to place than other
foster children because one of your biological parents was white and the other
was Chinese.
The rest is guesswork, because I can't seem to find any trace of you. So I'm
left to wonder what it was like for you growing up in the 1950s. Was it the
standard baby boomer childhood with a coonskin cap, a hula hoop and trips to
Disneyland? How was high school? Did you get drafted and go to Vietnam or
have a student deferment? And how about a family?
Maybe someone reading knows the rest of the story. I'd like to know what became
of that bright 5-year-old named Jay.
Email
me
April
18, 1957
Los Angeles
By Matt Weinstock
Dist. Atty. William O. Weissich of Marin County has announced that he plans to
ask all persons with access to San Quentin's death row to take lie-detector
tests to find out how Caryl Chessman smuggled out a book manuscript, his fourth.
Six persons already have taken the test, but one of the four prison chaplains
has refused, saying, "If the word of a man of God is not enough, he might as
well take off his clerical gowns and bury them."
A man now working in L.A. who served some time in San Q. is irked by the D.A.'s
announcement. It is not only a grandstand play, he says, but silly and stupid.
And he told me how a man in condemned row when he was up there got out mail at
will, without help from the prison staff. He is certain Chessman, who expertly
writes Gregg shorthand, uses the same method.
Men on the row can buy tobacco, candy and cookies from the commissary out of
their allowance of about $15 a month ($107.48 USD 2006).
The man in question wrote his letters on the inside of candy bar wrappers. These
were swept out each morning with the other trash--cigarette wrappers,
newspapers, magazines. A guard escorted it downstairs, where a trash cart worker
picked it up and it was hauled to the incinerator and ostensibly burned.
But one of the cons, perhaps the one at the incinerator, would pick out the
candy bar wrappers and give them to another con, perhaps a typist clerk. From
this point it was no trick at all to smuggle a letter out of prison. Remember,
several hundred men work outside the prison--at the hog ranch, doing road work,
cleanup jobs. The trick was getting the letter out of condemned row.
To make it easy for his cooperative pals, the man in question always used the
same candy bar wrapper--ironically, a Baffle bar.
April 18, 1957
Los Angeles
Someone at The Times had a sense of
humor to place a story about a drunk driving case next to an ad for
Southern Comfort. There really wasn't much news to it, just the son of
a Hollywood star, in trouble for being drunk once more.
The
arc of his life is not a pretty one. The Times' earliest stories are
about birthday parties with other children of other celebrities. Then
the stories turn dark: Injuring himself slightly when he was 16 and out
in his expensive convertible, hitting two cars at Willoughby and Hudson
avenues in Hollywood.
At 19, he eloped to Tijuana with the first
of his three wives. His furious father threw him out of the house at
910 N. Rexford Drive and cut off his $70 weekly ($524.97 USD 2006)
allowance. He and his wife split up and reconciled several times until
she finally divorced him three years later.
He was arrested
for drunk driving, being drunk and disorderly, and charged with holding
up cabdrivers, although the jury deadlocked in that case.
Here and there, he turned up in a few movies and TV shows: "Screaming Eagles" and "Tank Battalion"; "Laramie," "Wagon Train" and "Gunsmoke."
And he appears as Johnny Paradise with George Raft in "Some Like it Hot" in scenes set at a resort that was actually the Del Coronado.
By the
time he was 38, he was so ill that his lawyer warned the judge he might
not survive a 90-day jail sentence for drunk driving.
And in February 1974, at the age of 40, Edward G. Robinson Jr. was dead.
Somewhere
in the midst of all his arrests, Robinson found time to write a book,
"My Father/My Son," which was serialized in the Mirror, despite
terrible reviews.
In a biting commentary, Robert R. Kirsch
wrote: "If Edward G. Robinson Jr. ever reads this book with the eyes of
an adult it should seem apparent to him that at least some of his
difficulties stemmed from his unwillingness or incapacity to make his
own way. Though he deeply resents it, he has done very little to
prepare himself for what he says are his ambitions and ideals.
"He might try changing his name and making his own way as a start."
Email me
Cliff Dektar was a copy boy for The Times in 1943. He worked for the Mirror from 1950 to 1956, when he left for ABC-TV.
On Jan. 2, 1951, Photographer Bud Gray and I were working the overnight Mirror radio car 91... after 2:30 a.m. the streets really are quiet until around 5 a.m. We had stopped at Hollywood Receiving Hospital and were headed north on Wilcox...I was driving.
The police radio came alive...69 meet 66 at Hollywood and Vine. Well, 69 was a sergeant and 66 was a district radio car and this was a most unusual call at 4:30 a.m. ... so I decided to drive by since it was only a few blocks away.
Amazing... standing on the corner by the Broadway Hollywood was Mickey Cohen... wearing his hat as usual... and waving his hands with an LAPD Officer Tommy Hutton. He was agitated.
I nudged Bud, made a U-turn on Vine and parked across the street in front of the Owl drugstore.
I turned off the ignition and strolled across Vine and listened... no note taking.
"If you'll take off your badge and come into the alley and fight me fair and square, I'll give you my wife and my car," growled Mickey.
(The blue Cadillac and his wife were parked a few feet away).
Officer Hutton had written Mickey a traffic citation for not proceeding on a green light--he had stopped to purchase a newspaper.
 Mickey refused to sign the ticket.
The sergeant arrived and explained to Mickey that by signing, he did not admit guilt, only to appear.
"If you don't sign, Mickey, we will take you to jail," the sergeant explained.
Finally, Mickey signed, walked and entered his car, and drove south on Vine.
Meanwhile Bud Gray had set his Speed Graphic so he could shoot from the hip without focusing.
Bud shot four photos... all were excellent.
We jumped back into the radio car, called the office and sped to 2nd and Spring with the photos.
By the time reporters in the police press room heard about the incident, everyone was gone, Mickey, the police and the few spectators.
We had a real beat... four good photos and details... all Page 1.
I thought of how wild Aggie Underwood, city editor of the Herald-Express, would be, as the Mirror guys had beat her team, again.
Email me
 April 16, 1957
Los Angeles
Everyone seems to be wondering what became of Evelyn--everyone except her husband, Leonard. The way he tells it, on May 8, 1955, they took a car for a test drive along Mulholland, came back to their home at 217 N. Bentley Ave. in Bel-Air and she asked him to go to the store and get some tooth powder.
When he got back, she was gone. He found her car a few days later and decided he might as well sell it. He also figured that since Evelyn, at least in his version, used to disappear frequently on drinking binges, there was no point in filing a missing persons report.
Her friends and her brother, E. Raymond Throsby, began asking questions about where Evelyn might be, but never got any answers. Finally, they went to the district attorney's office with a complaint.
The questions became more awkward, and eventually the police were asking what had become of Leonard, who was released from custody even though he was under indictment for murder. His car, a 1948 maroon coupe, was found May 5, 1956, at 2214 Washington Ave., with a bullet hole in the windshield in front of the driver's seat and another in the interior.
At first, it seemed that Leonard had met an unfortunate fate. Police were unconvinced, however, since it was clear that the bullets had been fired from inside the car, and the search for L. Ewing Scott was on.
Scott remained a fugitive until April 15, 1957, when he was arrested in Windsor, Canada, while returning from Detroit with a new car. He had been passing himself off as Lewis E. Stewart and a customs agent noted that he had the same initials as the fugitive. Under Canadian law, an individual doesn't have to give fingerprints unless he is charged with a crime, so Scott refused and his identification was delayed briefly.
He hadn't been idle while he was on the run. As Leonard Spencer, he had been courting a teacher in Barrie, north of Toronto, police said. He had also been living in Ontario, Montreal and Oakville, sometimes using the name R.E. Scott.
To be continued...
Billie Holiday, 1957, "Fine and Mellow"
Email me
April 15, 1957
Los Angeles
The Times features the new courthouse rising at 1st Street and Hill in the Civic Center. After cataloging the materials (Italian marble, red granite from Texas and ceramic veneer from Springfield, Calif.) The Times' Ray Herbert notes the architects, who include Paul Revere Williams, J.E. Stanton and Adrian Wilson, and says the building is designed to last 250 years.
Did The Times note that Williams was first African American west of the Mississippi to be a certified architect? No. Did The Times note that Williams was the first black member of the American Institute of Architects? No.
Let's move on.
The Times says that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a proposal for a new courthouse the day after the Long Beach earthquake in 1933. Bureaucracy being what it is, in addition to a lack of money, disagreement over the location and World War II, the groundbreaking was delayed until March 26, 1954.
One of the most interesting aspects of the new courthouse is the massive civic works project to lower Bunker Hill. The Times says that 520,000 cubic yards of dirt was removed in excavating the site of the courthouse. But it also says the Grand Avenue entrance will "abut on 15 feet of solid earth under Grand Avenue until the street is lowered."
I have heard all sorts of figures thrown about for how much Bunker Hill was lowered--anything from 30 feet to 90 feet. This is the first reliable figure I've come across.
The courthouse formally opened Oct. 31, 1958.
Of course, I always think of the building as an establishing shot for "Perry Mason." But that's just me. (And no, there aren't any windows like the one used in this opening sequence for the TV show).
|
|
Blogs
Subscribe to this Blog - What is RSS?
Larry Harnisch. The leading Black Dahlia expert and a collaborator in the 1947project, Harnisch has been a copy editor at The Times since 1988. He has appeared on many TV shows discussing the Dahlia case, notably "James Ellroy's Feast of Death."
Join him for a spin through old Los Angeles in the Mirror's radio car. Keep your eyes open for Mickey Cohen and Tempest Storm. It's quite a ride.
The reporter's badge belonged to Sid Hughes (1908-1958), legendary reporter who worked at nearly every newspaper in Los Angeles.