The reading list at the Daily Mirror HQ is long and quirky: "Never So Few"
and "Go Naked Into the World" by Tom T. Chamales, "Muscatel at Noon" by
Matt Weinstock and EBay's latest contribution to my shelf of books by
W.W. Robinson. Then there's the desiderata, like "The Bridal Night of
Ronald and Thusnelda."
What jumped to the top of the list is Lawrence Lipton's "Holy
Barbarians," a 1959 chronicle of the Beats in Venice, which I encountered
somewhere in the clips, possibly a Weinstock column, although I
can't find it now.
The
book
showed up in the mail a few days ago courtesy of EBay, so I've been
playing Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and some Coltrane all weekend to
create the
right mood while I read it. To do the job right, I suppose I should
have a set of bongo drums somewhere, hang netting and sea shells on the
walls and fill the place with stale marijuana smoke, but I'm not that
much of a stickler for authenticity.
The former husband of mystery novelist Craig Rice, Lipton was born in
1898, so he was about 60 when he wrote the book, roughly the twice the
age of the beatniks who considered him an elder statesman of their
disaffiliated generation.
Lipton
was the Boswell of these Beats, capturing their lives in exquisite and
often excruciating detail. It's fair to say that the book wasn't
written as much as it was tape-recorded. Many conversations, some of
them quite long, are merely transcribed from tapes Lipton made of his
friends.
Behold, actual hipster talk (Page 102):
"It
isn't art or intellectualism, it isn't genius that's got me hooked.
It's the life. Do you have any idea what it's like out there? Sure, it
isn't Main Street any more. Sinclair Lewis' Gopher Prairie is a thing
of the past. So is Zenith City, for that matter.Squareville is modern
now. It's got network television and Life magazine culture. You can
tune in the Metropolitan opera on the radio. You can stay out late and
come home drunk once in a while without being hounded out of town. You
can play around a little, if you're discreet about it, without too much
talk. The drugstores carry paperback editions of Plato and Lin Yutang.
"But
the tension! Wages go up three cents and coffee goes up ten. So they
pipe sweet Muzak into the supermarkets and you go around in a daze
loading up that cute little chromium-plated cart without looking at the
price tags. And let most of it rot in the refrigerator before you get
to it. Last year's car is out of style before you finish paying for the
tail fins. It's a rat race. Who's got time to laze around in the sand
for an hour, or take a quiet walk by the ocean in the evening, or watch
a sunset?
"Here I can get away from it for a while, at least
evenings and weekends. I can do without things. God! do you know what a
relief that is? Not to have to keep up with anybody. Nobody to show off
for. The people at the office, they don't even know where I live. I
tell them I live in Santa Monica. That's close enough, and it sounds
respectable. It's got the same telephone exchange as Venice, so nobody
suspects anything.
"This is the one place I've ever lived
where you can take your skin off and sit around in your bare bones, if
you want to. Only the rich, surrounded by acres of land and iron
fences, can enjoy anything like that kind of privacy. That's what I
mean by being hip. And staying cool."
Barbara Lane is part
time square and part time hipster, but her heart is in Venice West. "In
town, at the office, I work. Here I live," she will tell you. "It's
like having one foot on each side of the tracks. But that's the only
way I can make it."
Notice that there isn't a single "daddy-o." In fact, there isn't one in the entire book. If you think James Ellroy's novels are written in authentic hipster talk, you'll be shocked that their speech is so ordinary -- though they do ramble.
I
have more to say about "Holy Barbarians," but I'm only halfway through
it. You might want to read along. The book is available for free from
archive.org in pdf and plain text format.
Is it worth reading? Consider these gems:
Page 20: By which I meant, I suppose, pretty much the same thing that
[Kenneth] Rexroth meant when he wrote, apropos of Bird and Dylan,
"Against the ruin of the world, there is only one defense -- the creative
act."
Page 103: Like Jack Kerouac says in On the Road, "Mexico is a whole nation of hipsters!"
The rest of the world may peer into a darkened crystal ball, but at the Daily Mirror, we know what the future has to bring.
In 1959, Los Angeles won the series and we lost Errol Flynn and Raymond Chandler. Nikita Khrushchev paid us a call. Schoolchildren designed 50-star flags to welcome Hawaii and Alaska into the U.S. And a municipal judge named David Williams wonders why the LAPD mostly arrests African Americans for gambling; 5,210 blacks compared with 482 whites for 1958.
It's going to be quite a year--stay tuned!
Flynn discusses his 1959 trip to Cuba.
Raymond Chandler's obit runs on Page 4 of The Times.
Baby Boomers rotted their minds with "Clutch Cargo."
While their parents listened to Miles Davis--or Arthur Godfrey.
And Jack Kerouac turned up on Steve Allen's TV show.
Above, Walt Disney gave his parents a home at 4605 Placidia Ave., Toluca Lake, for their golden wedding anniversary. According to The Times, a faulty furnace connection let carbon monoxide into the house. Disney's father, Elias, was found unconscious but survived, The Times said.
Wildfires cross Mulholland and head for Encino, a mile from the homes of Al Jolson, Joel McCrea, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Phil Harris, The Times says.
The federal debt sets a record: $38 billion.
At left, the Nazis ban jazz, effective Jan. 1, 1939, saying that it is only fit for Jews and Negroes.
I'm sorry to note that one of my favorite downtown blogs, "View From a Loft," is going to be mothballed. Through "Loft," graphic artist Ed Fuentes explored downtown Los Angeles as only a resident can.
He writes:
HELLO, I MUST BE GOING:
Despite an ongoing effort from a strong social and professional network
of supporters, the loft is no longer home. Technically, I have the end
of the month to catch up and retain what has been my residence for ten
years (and workplace for a bulk of those ten years), but for now every
possible solution has been exhausted.
Today is the 30th Anniversary of 'The Heidi Game', a Landmark Moment in Television Sports History
Timeline
1:05: Jets take a 32-29 lead on a 26-yard field goal by Jim Turner. Raiders' Charlie Smith returns kickoff to Raider 22-yard line.
:50: Raider quarterback Daryle Lamonica hits Charlie Smith on a 20-yard screen play. With a 15-yard facemask penalty tacked on, the ball moves to the Jet 43.
NBC Cuts Away to Heidi
:42: Lamonica to Smith on a 43- yard TD pass. Oakland leads, 36-32.
:33: On the ensuing kickoff the Raiders' Preston Ridlehuber picks up Earl Christy's fumble and runs in for a touchdown, making the final Oakland 43, New York Jets 32.
By JERRY CROWE TIMES STAFF WRITER
17 November 1998 Los Angeles Times
She was only 10 years old, a cute little first-time actress starring in a made-for-television adaptation of a classic children's story about an orphan living with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps.
But when Jennifer Edwards appeared on television screens 30 years ago tonight, she was unwittingly transformed into an object of scorn by many football fans.
As the title character in "Heidi," she was caught in the cross-fire between a bumbling TV network and infuriated fans and became forever linked with the most infamous gaffe in TV sports history.
"Like it was my fault," she says today, a 40-year-old mother of two (and grandmother of one) looking back with amusement and amazement at the riotous episode that remains to this day the quintessential TV sports blunder.
"Heidi" secured its place in history when NBC, the network that developed the Johanna Spyri-penned tale into a two-hour movie, put it on as scheduled at 7 p.m. in the East, inciting a thunderous backlash by cutting away without warning from the deciding final 50 seconds of a frantic 43-32 comeback victory by the Oakland Raiders over the New York Jets.
"The Heidi Game," as it came to be known, was a watershed moment in TV sports because it signaled to all the networks the new elevated status of sports on television. And the game's stature only continues to grow; last year, "the Heidi Game" was voted the most memorable regular-season contest in NFL history--never mind that it was an AFL game.
The venomous reaction to the network's switch to "Heidi" was so instantaneous that NBC's switchboard couldn't handle the calls. According to legend, its fuse was replaced 26 times.
As syndicated columnist Art Buchwald later wrote, "Men who wouldn't get out of their chairs during an earthquake rushed to the phones to scream obscenities."
NBC President Julian Goodman issued a public apology.
The New York Times ran a front-page story.
A network edict was born: Never preempt an exciting game by switching to regularly scheduled programming.
CBS News poked fun at the situation by jokingly "revealing" the last minute of "Heidi": She married the goat keeper and lived happily ever after.
Sports columnists across America weighed in, many vilifying the young orphan.
A less vocal minority, however, defended NBC's decision.
Living in England at the time, Edwards was unaware of the situation until she read all about it after a Hollywood publicist sent her the press clippings and letters.
"The uproar was so tremendous that I remember getting huge stuffed Manila envelopes of fan mail and hate mail at the same time," says Edwards, the daughter of producer-director Blake Edwards and stepdaughter of singer-actress Julie Andrews. "It was quite extraordinary. . . .
"But it was bizarre in the sense that you were either loved or hated. I remember clippings from newspapers calling me things like, 'The little brat in white stockings.' Like I had something to do with it. And I couldn't quite fathom that. I couldn't quite understand why I was being personally attacked."
*
Who was at fault?
Nobody ever took the blame.
Dick Cline, whose job as NBC's broadcast operations control supervisor was to make sure the network got the right show on the air at the right time, says he was only following orders that had been handed down to him days earlier in a meeting of NBC department heads:
Leave the game and go to "Heidi" at 7 p.m.
It seemed logical. Timex had bought the advertising time for "Heidi," and the movie was touted by the New York Times as the best program on TV that day.
"I didn't do anything wrong," says Cline, who still works NFL games as a director on CBS telecasts. "I'm not guilty. I did what I was supposed to do. Joe Namath & Co. didn't get the game over in time, so I went to 'Heidi.' "
Unbeknown to Cline, Goodman, NBC's president, had given the order a few minutes before 7 to stay with the game, but the message never got through to Cline in New York.
That's because all phone lines within a six-block radius of NBC headquarters had gone dead when a telephone exchange had gone out. It was later theorized that the circuits were overloaded by scores of fans calling the network to demand that the game stay on past the top of the hour, and scores of mothers insisting that "Heidi" come on as scheduled.
The game had been a classic AFL shootout, with the Jets' Namath and the Raiders' Daryle Lamonica throwing 71 passes for 692 yards.
There were six lead changes and ties through the first 59 minutes, the Jets taking a 32-29 lead on Jim Turner's fourth field goal, a 26-yarder, with 65 seconds to play.
The Raiders returned the kickoff to their 22-yard line.
Lamonica connected with halfback Charlie Smith on a 20-yard pass play, and a facemask penalty put the ball on the Jet 43-yard line.
Cut to commercial, followed by station identification.
And then . . . "Heidi."
All of NBC's affiliates east of Denver cut to the film.
While the Raiders mounted their comeback in the Oakland Coliseum, fans who had been watching the game saw a little girl in pigtails making her way to her grandfather's house.
When the phone lines came back up, calls flooded the NBC switchboard. Some who couldn't get through called the New York Police Department, tying up what was described as "the most elaborate emergency call system in the world" for several hours. Others called the New York Telephone Co. and the New York Times.
Back in Oakland, Lamonica hooked up again with Smith, this time on a 43-yard touchdown pass that put the Raiders ahead, 36-32, with 42 seconds to play.
Namath had time to rally the Jets but never got the chance.
Teammate Earl Christy fumbled the ensuing kickoff and the Raiders' Preston Ridlehuber recovered the ball at the two-yard line and dived into the end zone.
The Raiders had scored twice in nine seconds and pulled out a heart-stopping victory.
About 80 minutes after the game, NBC tried to ease the situation by running crawlers across the bottom of the screen giving the final result.
But it blew that too.
One was flashed as Heidi's paralytic cousin, Klara, summoned the courage to try to walk.
"When it comes to doing the wrong thing at the wrong time," wrote the New York Times, "NBC should receive a headless Emmy for last night's fiasco."
Even those viewers lucky enough to see the end of the game were short-changed--NBC came back from a commercial after Smith's 43-yard touchdown.
Many viewers didn't learn the score until long afterward.
About an hour after the game, Jet Coach Weeb Ewbank phoned his wife in New York.
"Congratulations," she said.
"For what?" he asked.
"On winning," she said.
"We lost," he told her.
Ninety minutes after the game, NBC's Goodman issued an apology to football fans: "It was a forgivable error committed by humans who were concerned about the children who were expecting to see 'Heidi.' I missed the end of the game as much as anyone else."
The headline in the New York Daily News the next day summed it up: "Jets 32, Raiders 29, Heidi 14."
The NFL inserted language into its TV contracts guaranteeing that, in the future, games of visiting teams would be shown to their home markets in their entirety.
Cline was stunned.
"I was surprised to see it in the New York Times the next day," he says. "And I was surprised to hear [NBC news anchor] David Brinkley report on it, calling me 'the faceless button-pusher in the bowels of NBC.' I took exception to that. I wasn't a button-pusher."
So why didn't he do the logical thing and stay with the game?
"If I had done what was logical, I would have been fired the next day," he says.
Instead, he adds, he was promoted about a month later.
Namath and the Jets didn't lose again that season, defeating the Raiders, 27-23, in a rematch for the AFL championship at New York before shocking the football world with their 16-7 victory over the NFL champion Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
*
Edwards, who lives in Brentwood with her husband Mark Schneider and their 5-year-old daughter, Hannah, is dumbfounded that "the Heidi Game" is still remembered.
"What's fascinating to me is that, to this day, even young men in their 30s remember being kids and seeing their fathers throwing things at the TV set," she says. "It's really amazing. . . .
"I remember being at my friend Howie Mandel's house 10 years ago for a pool party and him running out of his guest house and saying, 'You're on TV. You're a great moment in sports.' "
Many years ago, the actress says, the producers of "The Love Boat" television series talked about putting together an episode starring Edwards and Namath and spoofing the "Heidi Game."
Edwards has continued to work as an actress, appearing in about 15 feature films and numerous television shows. She recently completed filming on an episode of "The Nanny" and a TV movie starring Burt Reynolds.
Her biggest role?
"Probably 'Heidi,' " she says. "In the sense that it's the one thing that people seem to associate with me and because of its impact."
She says she is still asked about it frequently.
"In fact," she says, "fairly recently somebody mentioned it and a fairly young up-and-coming actor said, 'Oh, my God. That was you?' And I was surprised that he knew about it because he was probably only about 30. He said he remembered his father and his grandfather talking about it."
Edwards, though, still doesn't understand how anybody could get so worked up over a game.
"That's the thing that kind of blows my mind," she says. "I live with a devout Laker fan and I know for a fact that if anything like that happened during a Laker game, our television sets would be hurled from the nearest window--and not being involved in sports myself, that's an unusual emotion for me to understand.
"But, then again, if you did it to 'ER,' I would probably have the same reaction."
Hank Williams' obituary in The Times, Jan. 2, 1953
October 28, 2008
By Robert Hilburn
More than a half century after his death, Hank Williams remains so revered as a songwriter that his gifts as a singer are often underappreciated. But one of the strengths of "The Unreleased Recordings," a remarkable new CD boxed set released today, is the way it showcases the brilliance of his vocal skills.
Besides his singing prowess, the three-disc package, which features 54 radio show performances, also underscores Williams' musical influences, including his affinity for gospel songs and his playful personality
he Daily Mirror overlooked the death of "Blind Tom" Wiggins, reported June 28, 1908. Blind Tom played the piano, but he was more than a pianist. He wrote music, but he was far more than a composer. Blind Tom was a sensation and a curiosity, a force of nature. I'm not even sure what term we would use for him today; perhaps "childlike genius" would be the most appropriate.
Whatever Blind Tom was, the piano was his connection to the world. According to accounts from the period, he could use the piano to reproduce any imaginable sound. He was apparently capable of mimicking performances of other pianists and seemingly never forgot anything -- at least about music.
And as you might expect, living in the 19th century, being African American and developmentally disabled, Blind Tom did not have an easy life.
Blind Tom performed in Los Angeles and Santa Ana several times and drew large crowds, according to The Times. Above left, a program from one of his concerts.
You may remember my post on Elvis Presley's concerts at the Pan-Pacific
Auditorium, based on contemporary reviews by those two keen observers
of popular culture: Wally George and Hedda Hopper.
I'm sorry to say I did a very poor job of capturing what actually
happened and I've been too pressed for time until now to set the record
straight.
In fact, Presley put on a graphic, controversial show. The performance
was so raunchy that the LAPD vice squad filmed Presley's second concert
for possible legal action. I'll never be able to look at the RCA dog in
the same way after reading what Presley did with a statue of the
company's emblem. Poor Nipper!
Here's Dick Williams' review from the Mirror, which touched off an incredible controversy and caused Presley to curb his performance. "That's the worst he's ever been," socialite Judy Spreckles sobbed after his more conservative show.
Sexhibitionist Elvis Presley has come at last in person to a visibly
palpitating, adolescent female Los Angeles to give all the little
girls' libidos the jolt of their lives.
Six thousand kids, predominantly feminine by a ratio of 10 to 1, jammed
Pan-Pacific Auditorium to the rafters last night. They screamed their
lungs out without letup as Elvis shook, bumped and did the grinds from
one end of the stage to the other until he was a quivering heap on the
floor 35 minutes later.
With anyone else, the police would have closed the show 10 minutes
after it started. But not Elvis, our new national teenage hero.
If any further proof were needed that what Elvis offers is not
basically music but a sex show, it was provided last night. Pandemonium
took over from the time he swaggered triumphantly on stage like some
ancient Caesar, resplendent in gold lame tux jacket with rhinestone
lapels, until he weaved off at the end of his stint.
It was almost impossible to hear the music despite a turned-up public
address system. A cloud of thumping drums, whining guitars and Elvis'
hoarse shouts rose like some lascivious steaming brew from the bare
stage (except for a banner plugging his next picture, "Jailhouse Rock")
and filled the auditorium.
The only way I knew what Elvis was singing was by asking the youths
sitting next to me. They somehow recognized every number. It started
with "Heartbreak Hotel" and wound its way through all his popular
record hits from "Hound Dog" to "Don't Be Cruel." There is but scant
difference in any of them. Only the wild abandon varies.
Hundreds of little girls brought their flash cameras although what they
expected to get sitting far back in this vast barn of a place I don't
know. Constantly, amidst the high, sustained screaming, the thumping,
clapping and wild shouts, innumerable flashes kept going off so that
the darkness was intermittently lit as if by lightning.
The whole panorama, from the frenzy on stage to the far reaches of the
jammed bleachers which seemed a mile back at the rear, looked like one
of those screeching, uninhibited party rallies which the Nazis used to
hold for Hitler.
Scores of police circled the auditorium and at the slightest hint of
trouble plunged in ominous pairs up the aisles toward the offenders.
There have been too many Elvis "concerts" which ended in riots in the
past to risk any trouble.
Elvis worked with two guitarists, a drummer and a pianist plus the
Jordinaires, a quartet of young harmonists who were lost in the hubbub.
He attempted almost no talking after his initial muttered, "Friends, I
want to introduce yuh to the members of muh gang." Most of the time he
was weaving over the stage like a horse with the blind staggers.
He wiggled, bounced, shook and ground in the style which stripteasers
of the opposite sex have been using at stag shows since grandpa was a
boy.
He used frequent contrived sensual gestures such as constantly hitching
up his pants, fooling with his belt buckle and yanking down his coat to
elicit further wild screams from his audience.
He played up to the mike stand like it was a girl in a gesture which is
expressly forbidden by the police department in every burlesque show in
Los Angeles County.
The wilder Elvis got in his pelvic gyrations, the more frenzied his
audience became. Inevitably, he announced midway, sweat pouring down
his face, that he was "all shook up."
The madness reached its peak at the finish with "Hound Dog." Elvis
writhed in complete abandon, hair hanging down over his face. He got
down on the floor with a huge replica of the RCA singing dog and made
love to it as if it were a girl. Slowly, he rolled over and over on the
floor.
The little brunette of maybe 15 sitting in front of me bent her head
and covered her eyes, whether with embarrassment, fright, sickness or
excitement, I know not.
I do know this is corruption of the innocent on a scale such as I have
never witnessed before. For these are children to whom Elvis appeals,
preconditioned, curious adolescents, who are artificially and
unhealthfully stimulated. Their reactions would shock many a parent if
he or she could see this display. They are not adults who can take his
crudities and laugh or shrug them off.
The boy next to me, bent forward on his seat taking it all in, turned
briefly to me between numbers. "He's great," he enthused. "He's simply
great, isn't he?"
The same lesson in pornography will be repeated tonight, barring an
interruption by the Police Department, which is unlikely, in view of
the fact that they might have a riot on their hands.
He came out of nowhere, barely a blip on the nation's radar in 1955
(according to Proquest, he wasn't mentioned even once in The Times that
year). But by 1957, he was an unstoppable sensation.
So when
Elvis Presley performed his first live concert in Los Angeles at the
Pan-Pacific Auditorium, The Times carried two reviews, perhaps sensing
a pivotal moment in American pop music.
Then again, maybe not.
One review was by Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, by then
(Lord help me) 67 years old and accustomed to dealing with pliant movie
stars hungry for good press.* The other review was by (Lord help me)
George Walter Pearch, a.k.a. Wally George, 25, whose column, titled
"Strictly off the Record" and then "Court of Records," appeared in The
Times from 1957 to 1961 and heavily favored 1940s big band music.
The Times clips from the 1950s are a feast of Elvis trivia (What
famous movie star was booted off the university track team because he
refused to trim his Elvis-like sideburns? What famous Presley movie was
briefly titled "Treat Me Nice"?).
The 1957 stories are especially
illuminating as to how unaware people were that Presley's career was
merely beginning. He was compared to faded singers like Frankie Laine
and frequently came out second best to singers promoted as his rivals:
Pat Boone and Ricky Nelson.
But all those citations (including ads, news stories and TV listings, Presley's name
appeared in the paper 163 times in 1956 and 286 times in 1957, according to Proquest) are far
beyond the limits of this blog. So I'll stick to the concert.
Unfortunately, The Times apparently didn't send a photographer, so we have no pictures of what went on.
Before
the performance, Presley conducted a news conference before a fairly
hostile group of reporters in a back room of the Pan-Pacific. He was
wearing a black shirt, gold evening jacket and a rhinestone belt,
according to George.
Hopper and George noted that Presley was polite. Hopper called him "young, likable, wanting to please."
"He
was a pleasant, mild-mannered person who might have been any other
22-year-old young man," George wrote. "He was quiet, polite, somewhat
shy and made sure to sprinkle in plenty of 'sirs' when he answered
newsmen."
Here's the Q&A, reconstructed from George's articles:
Q: Unknown. A: "I don't sing. I yell."
Q: Do you intend to change your presentation due to national criticism? A: "I can't. It's all I can do."
Q: When will you write more songs? A: "That's all a hoax. I can't even read music."
Q: What about your guitar? A: "Can't play it--use it as a brace."
Q: "What's your emotional power over women?" (Asked by a female reporter). A: "Gosh..." replied Elvis, whispering something inaudible into a mike provided for the occasion.
Q:
"Read this!" snapped another reporter, shoving a magazine article into
Elvis' hands. It was an article written supposedly by Frank Sinatra
attacking the institution of rock 'n' roll music. A: "I admire the man, he has a right to his own opinions," carefully replied the blackshirted Elvis. Q: "That's all you have to say?" A: "You can't knock success."
Q: Are you considering marriage? A: No, he's enjoying playing the field too much.
Q: How long do you intend to wear your 2-inch sideburns? A: Until Uncle Sam makes him shave them off, perhaps soon. He's 1-A.
Q: How much money are you making? A: Over $1 million a year, he's not sure of the exact figures.
Q: What do you think of rock 'n' roll? A: "It's the greatest ever, mainly because it's all I can do!"
For the statisticians among the Daily Mirror readers, Presley performed
for 50 minutes and sang 18 "of his biggest hits," including "Heartbreak
Hotel" and "Jailhouse Rock." The audience was estimated at 9,000.
Unfortunately,
not a note could be heard because of the shrieking audience, according
to Hopper as well as George, who also blamed a "frightfully poor audio
system."
"The screams came in a sort of rhythm like a great storm at sea so you couldn't hear a word he was singing," Hopper wrote.
"It wasn't an audience of just kids; whole families were there, nice
people. Dozens of policemen surrounded the stage but turned their backs
on Elvis to watch the audience and see that no one moved. They were
told if they got up or walked down the aisle toward Elvis the show
would be over."
"He smiled and the crowd screamed," George wrote. "He nodded his head
and they made as if to overrun the stage. The musical group behind him
struck a chord and Elvis opened his mouth as if to sing--nothing was
heard."
"Elvis rolled over and over on the floor, still clutching the mike,"
Hopper said. "but his performance isn't sickness. He knew what he was
doing.... You felt he was mentally saying to himself: 'Do you know an easier way of making a million a year?' "
She added: "In former days police would have been looking at the
performance [instead of watching the crowd]. I've seen performers
dragged off to jail for less."
And after it was all said and done, it sounds as if Hopper and George may have warmed to Presley:
Hopper wrote: "Elvis' audience got the emotional workout of their lives and screamed
their undying love for the greatest phenomenon I've seen in this
century."
After coming to Presley's defense against enraged critics, George said:
"Well, we don't particularly like his style either. But after observing
him closely at a press conference we feel that, as a person, he's not
too bad a kid."
I would like to salute the first Elvis impersonator apparently recorded in The
Times: A student dressed up like Elvis caused a riot at Corona High
School on March 6, 1957, during the school's weekly assembly. Students
began shrieking "We want Elvis!" The Times said, forcing Dean of Boys
Wayne Taylor to recruit every male teacher to quiet the crowd.
The student's name? Tony Colosimo. Wherever you are, Tony, here's to you!
We will never know what really happened on the night ad executive Guy F. Roberts was shot to death in a Santa Monica motel room because everyone involved was lying to cover
up the truth and--except for the detectives who coerced a phony
confession--wildly drunk.
The newspapers finally published an
account that was fairly factual, but only years after a young man was
wrongly convicted in the killing. I would like to think that at least
some good came out of all the injustice.
The main characters are:
Nina C. Miles, who at the age of 37 was about to make Roberts her seventh husband. She and Roberts were living in the motel at 2801 Santa Monica Blvd.
where the killing occurred. Nina had moved in with the victim two weeks
earlier after living for several years with one of his friends, William
"Billy" Miles. Between the killing and the trial, she and William got
married in Tijuana.
Charles L. Guy III, Nina's son by her first husband, who had
already served time for drunk driving. Although his mother had moved
out, Charles was still living with William at 419 Hill St., Ocean Park.
Charles L. Guy Jr., Nina's first husband, a prosecutor in Dunn, N.C., who had been estranged from his son for many years.
An unidentified investigator with the Santa Monica Police Department, most likely Detective Ward Bell or Robert Holborow, who obtained a coerced confession.
Here's what happened: Although she has been living
with Roberts for two weeks and plans to marry him, Nina and Charles
conclude an evening of bar-hopping by going to the cocktail lounge
where William plays the piano, having left Roberts asleep in the motel
room.
Charles and William argue and Charles leaves in Roberts' car. When
William finishes his set at 12:30 a.m., he and Nina go to his home and
have more drinks. Nina finally leaves by taxi but stops along the way to have another drink.
About
2 a.m. she finally returns to the motel room and gets some money off
the top of the dresser to pay the cabdriver. She comes back, sits down
on the bed and only then notices that the room
has been ransacked, that there's blood everywhere and that Roberts has
been
killed with a shotgun blast that tore away the left side of his
face.
"Men's
and women's clothing was strewn about the room," the Mirror said.
"Bureau drawers were opened and their contents scattered, indicating
that they had been ransacked. Blood was spattered about the room. A
trail of it led to the bathroom where an attempt had been made by the
murderer to clean up. Tooth powder was spilled on the floor and wash
basin."
"Detectives
said there was 'considerable evidence' of a drinking party. Beer cans
and a whiskey bottle and glasses were found in the rubbish can and
sink."
Santa
Monica police obtained a confession from Charles by warning him that if
he didn't admit killing Roberts, they would charge his mother.
"I went back to the motel and had a couple more drinks," Charles said
in confessing to the crime. "Roberts was still sleeping. The next thing
I knew I went out to get a shotgun from the car. Then all I can
remember is I saw blood on Roberts. I don't actually remember any
shooting, but it must have been me.
"I respected Roberts more than my real father. Roberts and I were the
best of friends and I was all for his marrying my mother. The reason I
went with my mother was to protect her from Miles. He had broken her
nose once and I didn't know what he would do when she told him she was
going to marry Roberts."
According to Santa Monica Police Detective Ward Bell, Charles said: "I don't know why I did it. I was very fond of him."
According to Santa Monica Police Detective Robert Holborow, Charles
said: "I don't understand why I killed him. It should have been
[William] Miles."
Because it doesn't make much sense for anybody to kill someone they
respect rather than someone they dislike, Nina offered incriminating
testimony about her son:
According to Nina, Charles said: "Gee, mom, I'm sorry. I don't know why
I did it." She also told reporters: "It all adds up. I know who did it.
But I can't say. I think Sonny [her son] had something to do with it.
He's all fouled up."
Charles' father was granted permission to come to Los Angeles to handle
his son's defense. After two days of arguments, the judge had ruled
that Charles' coerced confession was inadmissible, but even so,
Detective Holborow testified that during a police interrogation,
Charles had admitted killing Roberts. The judge declared a mistrial.
In his second trial, Charles said he left the bar after arguing with
William because he was upset with his mother for continuing to see her
old boyfriend while she planned to marry Roberts.
"She would write on the mirror at Mr. Miles' house, 'I love you' and
then she'd go up to Mr. Roberts' place and write the same thing on the
mirror. It was a mess," Charles testified. William had repeatedly
rambled on about "teaching Roberts a lesson," Charles said, adding that
William claimed Roberts had also "tried to steal one of his former
wives."
Jurors found Charles guilty of involuntary manslaughter in December
1957. While conceding that his son would probably serve prison time,
Charles Guy Jr. said he hoped to gain custody of his son upon his
release and planned to take him back to North Carolina.
"That's fine with me, Dad," Charles said. "That's the day I'll be looking forward to."
Although she was the main witness for the prosecution, Nina did not
attend the reading of the verdict against her son. She told reporters:
"I'm heartbroken. I know Sonny is guilty but I know he wasn't in his
right mind. I don't blame Sonny for what he said [about her] during the
trial. I know he had to do it."
In 1963, Paul Coates wrote about what Nina told him as he was covering the trials:
Before the case went to court, she told me a curious, rather chilling thing.
"I'd like to help my son," she said, "But I can't do it. I don't dare."
I asked her what she meant.
"After it happened," she explained,
"I talked to my family in North Carolina. I was warned that if the
family name was dragged into the trial, I'd have my conscience to live
with for the rest of my life.
"I'm too afraid of my father to cross him," Mrs. Miles added. "Even if it would help my own son. It's always been that way."
Coates also quoted a letter Charles had received from his father:
"God willing, you someday
will come home here. People will welcome you and you can make the kind
of name that when you marry will be carried proudly by your children,
just as I am proud that you carry my name. I will never be ashamed that
you are my son and that I named you after myself and your grandfather.
He said you would come back someday to the people who really love you.
And believe me, you will."
While he was being held at Vacaville, Charles recorded some songs. They
were released by Capitol Records on the album "The Prisoner's Dream."
Time magazine said he had the power "of a young, white Leadbelly."
Charles was released from prison in 1963 and returned to North Carolina. Aside from a single, he apparently never made any more recordings.
Long out of print, reissues of "The Prisoner's Dream" are available from
specialty houses.
Nina C. Miles, who attempted suicide in 1958, died May 2, 1977, at the age of 57.
The family name was presumably protected to her father's satisfaction.
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.