Sgt. Willie Burns had a Tommy gun on the bench in front of him when his 18 handpicked candidates arrived at the 77th Street station on the edge of Watts. It was a cool evening in November 1946, and the men came in topcoats and hats. Burns wore his low, almost over his eyes, like the bad guys.
Years later, he told a grand jury: "My primary duties were to keep down these gangster killings and try to keep some of these rough guys under control." But he hadn't given his fellow LAPD cops any hint of why they'd been summoned that night. Now he laid it out.
Boris Pasternak wins the Nobel for "Dr. Zhivago" and rejects the award under withering criticism from the Soviet government.
In Rome, 52 cardinals gather to select the next pope ... Arthur Godfrey's helicopter "crash-lands" when it was a foot off the ground ... 83 men remain trapped in a Canadian coal mine ... and an RAF Vulcan bomber explodes over Detroit.
A man is in critical condition after trying to shoot a police officer during a supermarket holdup in San Pedro. Officers responding to a silent alarm at 1355 Avalon Blvd. found two gunman holding three employees. Officer M.E. Smith shot one robber in the chest after the gunman tried to fire his .45 and Officer Les Brewer wrestled a .38 away from the other robber.
For a slightly more updated ensemble, also from Oviatt's, consider this jacket sold to Sen. Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1955. Bidding starts at $350. What size? The vendor doesn't say. I mean you wouldn't wear it, would you?
Our mystery guest has 66 credits on imdb and is an Oscar winner. Update:
This is Gregg Toland with his first wife, Helene Barclay. They later divorced and he married Virginia Thorpe in 1945.
Los Angeles Times file photo
Here's another picture of our mystery fellow.
Los Angeles Times file photo
Update: Toland poses with Loyola High School junior Bob Mathewson during Boys Week activities at the Goldwyn studios, 1948.
Congratulations to Calum McFarlane, Sam O'Neal and Alexa Foreman for identifying him. I'll wait until Friday just to give other folks a chance.
"The Best Years of Our Lives"
And here's some of his work. Many people have recognized him now. Congrats!
UCLA Special Collections has Toland's annotated script from "Best Years," but it's difficult to locate in the library's incredibly clunky online catalog.
"Citizen Kane"
Yes, as everyone finally guessed, this is Gregg Toland, who died of a heart ailment at his home, 1257 Sunset Plaza Drive, in 1948 after returning from scouting locations in Sonora, Calif. He was 44.
Note that in "Best Years" and "Citizen Kane," the music (Hugo Friedhofer/ Bernard Herrmann) and the photography tell the story, with minimal dialogue.
Photograph by the Los Angeles Police Department, Dec. 4, 1950
D.R. No. 324-936. The photographer didn't initial his work.
Photos give a glimpse into LAPD history
An archive of images spanning from the Prohibition era to Woodstock -- which was once slated for destruction -- exhibits the evolution of the city and policing.
By Andrew Blankstein Times Staff Writer
Photograph by the Los Angeles Police Department
Investigators stand with a body in the Los Angeles River, Feb. 17, 1955. Note the D.R. number (547-627) and the initials of the photographer, R.Rittenhouse.
A man lies on the tiled floor illuminated by the afternoon sun as blood streams from a head wound, out an open door and onto the sidewalk.
The grisly incident, immortalized by one of the Los Angeles Police Department's crime scene photographers, was shot inside a dark hallway in July 1932, after a deadly shooting at a Vermont Avenue jewelry store.
Another vintage black-and-white image, circa 1955, shows several detectives in fedoras and overcoats standing over a dead body in the rain-swollen Los Angeles River.
Still another offers a tight shot of a sofa and blood-stained newspaper, leaving the clear impression that an unseen victim met an untimely end.
The prints are part of an immense photographic archive discovered earlier this decade that was tucked away in a corner of the LAPD's downtown evidence storage facility.
Once slated for destruction, the collection of nearly a million pieces -- the majority of them film negatives -- span from the Prohibition era to Woodstock, a period of prolific growth in Los Angeles.
A Los Angeles Times clipping on the Gordon Northcott case.
'Changeling' revisits a crime that riveted L.A.
The Walter Collins case would end up becoming the O.J. Simpson drama of its day.
By Rachel Abramowitz Times Staff Writer
One of the most notorious crimes of Jazz Age Los Angeles began quietly enough with a lost boy.
But the Walter Collins case would end up becoming the O.J. Simpson drama of its day, a horrifying crime that inspired a media frenzy and captivated the Southland. What started as the real-life tale of a missing child would eventually take on a much larger significance in the then-burgeoning city. Though the details may have faded into the miasma of time, its commentary on corruption and abuse of authority, on female empowerment and on the ultimate price of justice, continues to echo throughout the canyons of L.A.'s collective memory.
Every time I revisit the saga of the Siqueiros mural at Olvera Street, I always discover something new. This time, while reporting an update for my Culture Mix column on plans to once again exhibit the long-lost mural, I discovered that the famed Mexican artist had actually started work on a replacement for “America Tropical,” which had been whitewashed soon after completion in 1932.
Hollywood director Jesus Trevino had visited David Alfaro Siqueiros in Mexico for a documentary he did in 1971, inspired by the desire to restore the mural to public view. The director remembers Siqueiros Mural_2 saying: “Before you start spending all this time refurbishing, why don’t you just let me do a new one?” So the artist started “America Tropical 2,” working in his Cuernavaca studio where the mural panels could be ingeniously raised and lowered through the floor so he didn’t have to climb on scaffolding the old-fashioned way.
Homes by Lautner, Neutra aren't fetching the prices they once brought.
Tim Street-Porter
Lautner's 1949 Schaffer house.
By David Hay Special to The Times
Classic houses by Modernist architects -- once relatively immune to swings in the real estate market -- are no longer able to fetch the premiums they once commanded, if recent prices are any indication.
John Lautner's 1949 Schaffer residence in Glendale, originally listed at $1,958,000 in the spring and then reduced to $1,775,000, has been reduced again, to $1,573,000.
The architect's 1947 Gantvoort house in La Cañada Flintridge, which sold for $2 million in 2004 and again in 2007, recently dropped its price to $1.65 million. It has been on the market since February.
Here's a disgusting little item on EBay: a more or less anatomically correct Black Dahlia doll--and yes I have cropped the photo. In theory, such objects violate EBay's policies, but the company rarely takes action on my complaints about Black Dahlia snow globes, photo books, sculpture, paintings, etc.
Clifford Rue was a man who was ahead of his time and behind on the payments to his bookie.
A
former Marine who changed his name from Rubenstein for business
purposes, Rue had been working at his father's liquor store when he
persuaded some friends to join him in an unusual venture.
Rue
was one of those men who couldn't get enough sports statistics. If he
were alive today, he would probably be in a dozen fantasy leagues
and spend all his time on a computer.
But in the 1950s, access
to sports information was far more restricted. Rue badgered
sportswriters and newspaper editors for updates until he wore out their
patience. So in 1955 he persuaded some friends to come up with enough
money to begin a free sports information service.
According to
Time magazine, Rue's Sports Information Results hired 17 researchers to
answer 18,000 sports questions a day. Queries included "What's the
largest football score ever run up?" or "What is the maximum speed of
a duck?" To make a profit, the service sold ads that were played over
the phone before callers got their answers.
After an initial
success, the venture apparently went under. Rue began working at the
Seville, a nightclub at 7969 Santa Monica Blvd., and operated a credit
business called Trans-National Budget Plan. He and his wife were also
doing some remodeling at a dress shop she planned to open at 12236
Ventura Blvd.
Along the way, Rue ran up gambling debts until he owed
$4,200 ($29,803.65 USD 2007) to Morris "Goldie" Goldsworth, a bookie
who split his time between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. But while he was
losing money to Goldsworth, he had also won $700 from a wholesale
jeweler named David Solomon.
On the afternoon of Oct. 16,
1958, Solomon visited Rue, who was at work doing some remodling at his
wife's dress shop, and paid $200 on his debts.
Later that day, Goldsworth arrived at the Ventura Boulevard dress shop in what The Times described as a hardtopped convertible.
Police
found his car four days later parked at 3809 Rhodes Ave. A neighbor
complained that the convertible had been left in front of his house and
in answering the call, Officer E.C. Hayes noticed that blood had dripped
from the trunk onto the back bumper. While he was waiting for
detectives to respond, Hayes removed the backseat and saw a body.
Morris
Goldsworth, 52, had been shot and beaten in the head. His pockets were
turned inside-out. All that police found on him were a white
handkerchief and half a pack of cigarettes. Further investigation revealed dried flecks of paint on the body. Police Chief William H.
Parker immediately announced that Goldsworth's death was a mob killing
and turned the investigation over to Chief of Detectives Thad Brown.
In
tracing Goldsworth's last movements, detectives interviewed Rue, 34, who
told them that the bookie left the shop after being paid the $4,200
gambling debt.
Under further questioning, Rue admitted killing
Goldsworth. He said he offered the bookie $200, but that Goldsworth had
drawn a gun and demanded the entire amount. Rue grabbed a hammer and
hit Goldsworth, then took the bookie's gun and shot him with it. For
good measure, Rue hit him with the hammer again.
Rue said he
wrapped the body with dropcloths that some painters had left in the back of
the dress shop and hauled it out to the car. He planned to dump the
body in the desert but got lost on Rhodes, which is a dead-end
street, and abandoned the car four blocks from the shop. He walked back
to the shop, burned the dropcloths, and painted the floor red when he
couldn't clean Goldsworth's blood off the concrete.
While he
was being questioned, Rue pried a piece of metal molding from a desk
and later that day he tried to kill himself by slashing his neck with
it.
The next day, police took him back to the dress shop and filmed him
as he reenacted the killing. Investigators searched the route from the
dress shop to where the car was parked, but never found the gun.
According to grand jury testimony, the
bullets recovered from Goldsworth's body had no "land and groove"
markings. LAPD ballistics expert Sgt. William Lee said the bullets must have been too small for the gun and were therefore fired "with insufficient
force." Coroner's investigator Dr. Frederick Newbarr said Goldsworth
died from the hammer blows and that the gunshot wounds were only
superficial.
Rue was convicted of second-degree murder on Feb.
27, 1959. Although The Times didn't report the sentencing, he may have
been released from prison. A 1972 Times story refers to a company
called Credit Security Insurance, which was reorganized after the death
of its former president, Clifford Rue. California death records say a man named Clifford Rue died July 24, 1972, at the age of 48.
Despite Rue's confession, Police Chief Parker
continued to see the Mafia's influence in Goldsworth's death and some
websites include it in a list of mob killings.
Footnote: As of 1955, the
biggest football score was 222-0 (Georgia Tech over Cumberland
University, 1916). The maximum speed of a duck? It depends on the wind.
Professor A. Victor Segno sends out a "success wave" (artist's conception).
Take a cool sponge bath every morning immediately following the regular
physical and breathing exercises. A warm bath should also be taken once
or twice a week in the evening, just before retiring. Give your entire
body a sunbath frequently."
--"How to Live 100 Years," A. Victor Segno, Los Angeles, 1903
Worst-dressed women of 1967 are: Barbra Streisand Julie Christie Elizabeth Taylor Julie Andrews Carol Channing Raquel Welch Ann-Margret Jane Fonda Vanessa Redgrave Zsa Zsa Gabor
On the other hand, he likes: Audrey Hepburn Katharine Hepburn Merle Oberon Marlene Dietrich Sylva Koscina (now there's a name I haven't seen in years).
Blackwell calls Fonda "Stretch pants on angel food cake." What does that mean?
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.
Keith Thursby. Keith has been an editor at The Times in news, sports and design since 1986. The Rams moved to St. Louis on his first day as assistant sports editor of the paper's Orange County edition. He grew up in Norwalk and lives in Irvine.
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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.
Keith Thursby. Keith has been an editor at The Times in news, sports and design since 1986. The Rams moved to St. Louis on his first day as assistant sports editor of the paper's Orange County edition. He grew up in Norwalk and lives in Irvine.