Movie star mystery photo

Los Angeles Times file photo

This is another photo of our mystery guest, who was misfiled as Veda Ann Borg. So sorry, only one guess was even vaguely warm. Not Lucille Ball and not Vera Hruba Ralston.... This is going to be a toughie.

And the original photo of the mystery woman who is not Veda Ann Borg. Congratulations to Jerry Sondler for recognizing Sam Nassi with the Reagans. This was a tough one.

Movie revival -- 2001: A Space Odyssey

Oct. 12, 2008, 6 p.m. The Edison downtown. Tickets $20. Stanley Kubrick's film, written with Arthur C. Clarke.

Los Angeles history--Nuestro Pueblo

Grateful family erects frontyard shrine The doctor said Generosa Bruno was dying and there was nothing to save her. 'You might pray,' he told her family. And they did. 739 Yale St. in 1938 and, below, Yale Street via Google maps' street view.

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Los Angeles votes in recall election, September 16, 1938

City voters decide on removing Mayor Shaw Judge Bowron predicts that he will win the election by 85,000 votes. In fact, he took an early lead and defeated Shaw by 100,000 votes, The Times says.

Above, a political ad for Mayor Frank Shaw. I'll have to check his photo file to see if he shaved off his mustache, which gives him an unfortunate resemblance to someone else in the news in 1938.

The Times makes yet another appeal to retain corrupt government and preserve the status quo. Judge Fletcher Bowron is enthusiastically supported by "Communists and radical labor agitators," the editorial says.

Legionnaires convention begins Sept. 16, 1938, a historic day for Los Angeles and the world. The Harry Raymond bombing and the trial of Police Capt. Earle Kynette culminate in the successful recall of Mayor Frank Shaw and the reform administration of Fletcher Bowron. In Europe, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain meets with German Fuehrer Adolf Hitler over the fate of Czechoslovakia. "The 'freezing' of the dramatic bargaining with war or peace in Europe at stake gave Europe a brief breathing spell and appeared to have put off for six days at least the catastrophe that millions fear," the AP story says. Clerk denies election is fixed. 350 mph at Bonneville Salt Flats

Los Angeles history -- stage

T.C. Jones, male actress 'T.C. Jones is the greatest female impersonator I have seen and heard since Julian Eltinge -- and that's going back a long way.' -- Philip K. Scheuer, Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times file photo T.C. Jones in "Mask and Gown," 1958.

He was one of the newest -- and certainly one of the freshest -- of the "New Faces of '56," a Broadway show directed by Paul Lynde with sketches by a variety of writers, including Neil Simon and his brother Danny. His name was Thomas Craig Jones, but he was best known as T.C. Jones and he was, according to The Times' Philip K. Scheuer, "the greatest female impersonator I have seen and heard since Julian Eltinge -- and that's going back a long way." In an August 1958 Times story, Charles Stinson described Jones as "a husky, medium-sized fellow in his 30s with a Yul Brynner coiffure and a most affable manner." Times movie critic Kevin Thomas said in response to my query: "The 1950s were his decade. He was a terrific entertainer, more a male actress, as Charles Pierce described himself, rather than a traditional female impersonator. His rendition of his signature song, 'Ten Cents a Dance,' was unforgettable, really wrenching." Jones was a Navy veteran and a graduate of Carnegie Tech who appeared on Broadway in 1944 as a dancer in "Sadie Thompson," starring June Havoc. Before becoming a female impersonator, he had worked as a nightclub emcee, standup comic, dancer and actor. He was married, The Times says, and his wife, Donnie Dickson Jones, told Stinson "I keep his wigs in order." "One night when I was doing stock," Jones said, "another of the players brought me some comic sketch material that was hilarious. The only catch was that it more or less required a woman to deliver it. He suggested I do an impersonation. I told him I didn't know if I could bring it off. I had never done any female impersonations and I was starting a career as a male comic. "I finally agreed to try it, though, and it surprised me and went over big. Strangly enough it was in a revue called 'I'm Not Myself Tonight' and I haven't been most nights since." In "Mask and Gown," Jones portrayer Bette Davis, Tallulah Bankhead, Mae West, Judy Holliday, Marilyn Monroe, Katharine Hepburn and Ethel Merman. "It is curious, in passing, how impersonators always latch on to the same handful of stars to lampoon," Scheuer said. "They are the most distinctive!" And, yes, he did Judy Garland too. The Times said in 1965:  "Judy Garland and her rendition of 'Over the Rainbow' will never be the same after the telling treatment of Jones." The Times said: "Mrs. Jones has done a splendid job in picking out the proper attire for her husband's vignettes. Her choice of wigs and outfits matched the mood perfectly." Los Angeles Times file photo T.J. Jones in 1965. He often ended his act by removing his wig to show his bald head. Although Jones said he planned to return to Broadway in a male role in the fall of 1958, the show apparently fell through and he continued as an impersonator for most of his career, although he did appear in a male role in the 1964 production of "Three Nuts in Search of a Bolt" with Mamie Van Doren.    Jones made several records  and occasionally appeared on television, including a Jackie Gleason TV special in 1960 and a cult episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." He was in the 1968 Bob Rafelson film "Head," starring the Monkees. Writing in 1973 on a reappraisal of the film, Charles Champlin said: "One of the lads slugs female impersonator T.C. Jones, then argues with director Rafelson whether it's right for the image. (The grips and extras shy away from him as from someone unclean.)" Jones died Sept. 25, 1971, at the age of 50. The Times did not publish an obituary on him.  He is also featured in a 1955 article in the Mattachine Review, "The Other Side of the Coin."

Movie revivals -- Rosemary's Baby/Chinatown

Sept. 20, 2008, 7:30 p.m. American Cinematheque at the Egyptian. "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown." Tickets are $10/$8/$7.

 

Muslim leader attacks series on harems, September 7-15, 1958

U.S. Woman Tells of Life in Moslem Harem --September 1958 Ever wonder about life in a harem? Here's your chance to find out what it's like. Just go with this young American explorer on her most exciting adventure -- behind palace walls into the closely guarded inner sanctum where wives and concubines live. Above, Jane Dolinger's two-part series provoked this response from Shukar Ilahi Hussain of the Los Angeles Mosque. Unfortunately, The Times wrote almost nothing about the Los Angeles Mosque in the 1950s. There's also very little information in The Times on Shukar Ilahi Hussain (or Husain, as we sometimes spelled his name). Dolinger later turned her experiences into a book titled "Behind Harem Walls." In researching Dolinger via Google, I contacted one of her friends, Gail Howard, who writes of Dolinger and her husband, Ken Krippene: Yes, she is the same one and only Jane Dolinger. Jane told us that she never encountered a man while she was "behind harem walls" doing research for her book and interviewing the women. Except for her harem experience, Jane and Ken always traveled together. They were a great team. Their books and articles were well researched because they spent time in the actual locations from which they spun their fascinating stories. My sister, Terry, posed for photos in an Indian sari doing yoga postures, carrying water from the well, sweeping the dirt in front of a mud hut with thatch roof where she supposedly lived alone in some isolated place in Ecuador. The story with these photos appeared in newspapers all over the world. The copy Jane sent us was in Arabic so we don't know exactly what it said. (My sister was a television writer and producer living in New York City when she wasn't traveling with me.) Jane and Ken had a knack for weaving fanciful fiction from exotic locales that captured the imagination of their readers. My Ecuador web site has attracted people looking for Jane Dolinger, one who fell in love with Jane and one in love with a character in her book, the Jaguar Princess. After Ken passed away Jane remarried. In 1992, Jane was planning to return to the Amazon for more adventures. Sad to say, the last we heard from Jane was in 1994, while she was at a clinic in Germany in a last ditch effort to cure her terminal cancer. She died shortly after. Losing this daring, high-spirited friend who was ready to go anywhere in the world at any time was very sad. There were very few women in the 1960's who were as adventurous as we were. Gail Howard Travel writer Jane Dolinger and her husband, writer Ken Krippene, in a photo dated July 23, 1961, courtesy of ecuadortraveladventures.com.

'Five weeks in a harem was enough for me.' 'Inside, there was laughter, music and girlish gaiety.' 'Man needs a  woman for his every mood.' 'Someone had cast an evil eye upon me.'