Plane Crash Kills 42

Nov. 17, 1959: Investigators speculate on whether a bomb exploded on a National Airlines DC-7B that crashed in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 42 people. Ultimately, no cause was ever determined. ... And  Gene Sherman reports on border drug traffic.   Jack Smith writes: "It is easy enough to find statistics suggesting that we are soft -- mentally, physically and morally. More people are in hospitals. More people are swallowing pills. More people are in jails. More people have tics and syndromes. The New York Yankees are falling apart and the heavyweight champion of the world is a Swede." Robert R. Kirsch says John Gosling’s “Ghost Squad” is “a must for every true crime buff.” ”Mother, May I Go Steady?”

Nov. 17, 1959 Jeane Hoffman had a typically interesting story about all the wannabe teams hovering around Los Angeles. The Chargers—yes, they started in L.A.—were the closest to reality. Then there were the Stars (baseball) and Jets (basketball), teams that had to overcome several factors to become real franchises. The Chargers looked like the real deal, heading to the Coliseum in 1960. "We get fourth choice in Coliseum dates but that's enough for seven home games," said Tom Eddy, assistant to Barron Hilton. The Stars were lined up with names like Branch Rickey as president of the Continental League and Mark Scott, host of TV's "Home Run Derby," as team vice president. But where to play if they really got going? Hoffman said the Stars were talking to Walter O'Malley about playing in the Dodgers' yet to be built ballpark "but if he doesn't let them in they'll have to go to Orange County—or to court." As for the Jets, who apparently had Bing Crosby involved, they were confident that an L.A. franchise would come their way. Said Len Corbosiero, "If we can't get a new franchise, we hope to move out an established team." --Keith Thursby

Family Killed in Kansas Farm Town

"The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call 'out there.' Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, a ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes. The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them." --Truman Capote, “In Cold Blood.” Nov. 16, 1959: Intentionally avoiding a direct endorsement until the Republican National Convention, Republican leaders show their support for Vice President Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential race.

Monte Montana! Ty Hardin! Jerry Mathers!

Ferd’nand invents the Man Cave.

Back when stock cars were really stock. Elmer Musgrave wins a 100-lap race at Ascot Stadium in a 1958 Pontiac. Rodger Ward is second in a 1958 Ford.

Reporters Walk Out on Rockefeller

 

New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller’s plan for separate news conferences for print and broadcast reporters backfires when the TV and radio crews in Los Angeles walk out on him.   Louie Malle’s New Wave film “Lovers” is just plain immoral, Philip K. Scheuer says. “Bruins Tiff Wolfpack?” Keith, can you translate that for me?

Nov. 13, 1959: Smog clouds the view on Broadway, looking south from 1st Street ... And a temporary employee with the U.S. Forest Services admits setting the Angeles Crest fire that burned 14,000 acres and killed two firefighters.

Beating Victim Identified

A Senate subcommittee hears testimony about drug traffic from Mexico. Reading may become a lost art!

Nov. 11, 1959: Here’s a name that may sound familiar to people who follow the Black Dahlia case: Lillian Lenorak. You may recall that Mary Unkefer, a jail matron from Santa Barbara who befriended Elizabeth Short in 1943,  wrote a letter to the district attorney’s office in 1950 about transporting Lenorak from the home of Dr. George Hodel to the psychiatric ward at Santa Barbara General Hospital. Unkefer’s letter is one of the most disturbing items in the district attorney’s files on the Black Dahlia case. I would caution that accounts of Lenorak’s death describe her as extremely volatile and mentally unstable, with a history of stormy romances. Reports of her death say that she was threatening to jump out of a moving car during an argument with Frank Back over why he wouldn’t give her a key to his house. Keep in mind as you read these letters that this lady is not a typical, well-grounded, middle-class suburban housewife but a chronic patient of mental hospitals and adjust your skepticism accordingly.     Note: The above page was too long for my scanner so I had to scan it in two pieces and paste it together    To be sure, this is a vivid account. The question anyone should have is to what degree it's reliable. Sgt. Bill Bentley also wrote a letter to district attorney's investigator Walter Sullivan about Lenorak. Bentley's version isn't nearly as dramatic but perhaps more reliable.

Nation Observes Armistice Day

Nov. 11, 1919: Among the activities planned in Los Angeles for the first anniversary of the end of World War I is a "war pageant showing a night battle scene in all its phases." Interestingly enough, a similar re-creation of combat was staged at the Coliseum after World War II.

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Nov. 10, 1959

Evelyn Is a Real Old Hand at Drum Beating     I'm not one to go around saying I told you so.    But I did.     Three years ago I warned you about Eloise's alter ego, Evelyn Rudie.     I told you that she was an artful woman.  That behind that saccharine smile of innocence was one of the most calculating, wily women of Hollywood, Zsa Zsa Gabor not withstanding.     This I knew long before Miss Rudie's unscheduled flight east to consult Mamie about her Hooper rating.     Shortly after television and Evelyn were born, I had the occasion to interview the child star on a TV show.     Miss Rudie was 6, going on 7, at the time.  And I was practically old enough to be her father.  Or at least her older brother.     But you know Hollywood.     About a week after the show, I received a thinly disguised letter of affection from the tyke.     Being a married man, I naturally ignored it.  In fact, I destroyed it immediately.     When one has a wife one just doesn't leave that kind of perfumed mail spread all over the living room coffee table.     Then, a few days later- it was the first week in February -- came note No. 2.  This one didn't beat around any bushes.     It asked, bluntly, did I want to be her Valentine?     And it was signed, "Love, Evelyn Rudie."     Assuming that this thing she felt for me was nothing more than childish infatuation, I decided to play it as a big joke.     I was at a Sunset Strip restaurant with a group of friends when I let it drop, during a lull, that I'd been getting these letters.     "She seems so sincere.  I'd hate to hurt the poor child.  But, really -- the difference in our ages," I said.  "It would never work."     As I said it, Leo Guild, a notorious eavesdropper who worked for the Hollywood Reporter, appeared over my left shoulder.     "WHO seems so sincere?" he asked, not very casually.     Envisaging Evelyn and I being linked as the latest twosome in tomorrow's editions, I answered him:     "I was just telling the folks here, Leo, that Evelyn Rudie has been sending me the most intimate letters, and I'd just hate to hurt the poor-"     "Evelyn Rudie?" he interrupted.  "You been getting those letters, too?"     My face fell.  "Too?"     Guild nodded.  "She's been doing that for years."     "Years?" I cried.  "She's not even 7 yet."     "Well," he qualified, "for a few years, anyway."     "And," he added, "she just sent me a note asking if I'd be her Valentine."     This, I dutifully reported to you three years ago.  Evelyn Rudie is a sneak.  She double-dates, but without an extra girl.  Just to get her name in the columns.     This Mamie Eisenhower routine, I'm convinced, was strictly another one of her publicity schemes.

Wife Stabs Bob Crosby

Nov. 10, 1959: June Crosby stabs her husband, Bob, with a 10-inch letter opener during a fight. She tells Beverly Hills police that she grabbed the letter opener to fight him off after he pushed her down during a violent argument. Her husband says she fell when they were struggling over the letter opener. "We've had family arguments before," the bandleader says. "I guess this one just exploded. She seemed to go into a rage. She was so hysterical. The first thing I knew she came at me with both her fists." The Times says most marijuana and 50% to 75% of the heroin coming into Southern California is from Mexico.

Sheriff Peter Pitchess says authorities are hampered in fighting drugs by the exclusionary rule -- limiting officers' authority to search a person and seize evidence based on probable cause -- and the requirement that narcotics informants be named in open court.

Simone Signoret visits Los Angeles with her husband, Yves Montand. She is "small and plump and charming and intelligent," The Times' Philip K. Scheuer says.

Heavyweight champion Ingemar Johansson poses with Times sports writer Jeane Hoffman.

Cops Pose as Beatniks to Catch Drug Suspects

Like, dig the crazy berets on the fuzz, daddy-o!

One New York detective even wrote poetry to fit in with the beats! Jack Webb’s cult classic about the newspaper business is about to open.   Los Angeles Times file photo Jack Webb, left, William Conrad and James Bell in “—30—.”

"A Doctor Must Marry His Profession ... Nothing Else!"

Elgin Baylor scores 64 points, an NBA record, as the Lakers beat Boston, 136-115.

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Nov. 7, 1959

Public Unexcited About Rigged Shows I'm home.     And if you've been following my dispatches from the Mysterious East, I'm sure you're aware by now that there is really nothing mysterious about it at all.      I suspect that Commodore Matthew C. Perry, who started those shy rumors about the intrigues of the Orient, was -- as are many men of the sea -- prone to exaggerate.      Actually, all that the people of the Mysterious East needed was a good Ugly American like me -- with notepad, copy pencil and  a vague knowledge of what Freud was trying to get across -- to unmask them.     But as I say, I'm home now.  And that's all water under Toko-Ri.     And in the land of the Occident, the topic of the day is quiz shows.     Or, to be more specific, "deceptive" quiz shows.     I see by the large type on the front pages that a U.S. House subcommittee is in a state of shock over the lost morals of our nation.  It's members are righteously indignant.     But from what I've learned by talking to people of much less prominence, there's very good evidence that the public just doesn't give a damn that the programs were rigged.     They more or less expected it.  The revelation was barely greater than it would have been  if they'd been informed that professional wrestling isn't on the up-and-up, which I hope by now everybody knows it isn't.     To support my rather hasty theory, I found an article yesterday in the Nov. 2 issue of Broadcasting magazine.  It's title: "The Public: Calm in Eye of the Storm."     It reveals the results of a Sindlinger survey on public attitudes toward the quiz show investigations.     To the question "Did you watch any of the quiz shows when they were at the height of their popularity last year?"   89.2% answered yes.     And 85.9% of those who watched said they enjoyed them.       Next came the significant question:     "Even though contestants on quiz shows are helped, have you found the quiz programs educational and entertaining enough to want to see them on television again?"     Here, five persons answered yes to every three who answered no.     And only 39.2% of those surveyed felt it was a good idea to take quiz shows, rigged or not, off the air.     Somehow, in these answers, shines a reflection of our times.       We are -- no doubt about it -- living in an age of deception, an era of sham.  Everything isn't what it seems to be, but we know it and we're not concerned.  We expect it. Commercial 'Gamesmanship'     In fact, we've particularly based our economy on it.     We don't really believe the ads that say one cigarette has less harmless ingredients than another cigarette, but that a company is spending thousands upon thousands of dollars to make us believe it doesn't offend us in the least.  That's commercial "gamesmanship."     But now that a Congressional investigative team has dragged our morals and ethics out of the closet for an airing, I can't help but get the feeling that, as a nation of supposedly intelligent people, maybe we've been rationalizing our mores a little too much.

House Committee to Investigate Payola

Nov. 7, 1959: A U.N. group finds no proof that Laos had been invaded by communist troops from North Viet-Nam but discovers that Laotian rebels were supplied by Viet-Nam Reds. You may hear more about Viet-Nam in the days ahead -- much more.   A House committee investigating rigged TV quiz shows turns its attention to payola. Here's a clip from a wonderful satire by Stan Freberg (with Jesse White). Stan Freberg, Payola Blues

Students swarm Vice President Richard Nixon during an appearance at Los Angeles City College, The Times says. A little more than a week later, Vincent Stones' father, Kenneth, was killed in a car accident. In March 1960, Joanne Elizabeth Selby was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the drowning of her nephew.

Girls go bad in two foreign films, "Night Girls" and "Flesh and the Woman."

Carving a turkey is more difficult than it looks for Ferd'nand.

"Powell 47-Sec. Kayo Victim" and "Indians 4-Point Pick to Scalp Bruins Today." Now there's two headlines you won't see anymore ... and "Cuppers?"