 The killing of Joyce Gayle Walker on the cover of the final edition … View Larger Map ... and a bylined version by Howard Hertel and Jack Smith. |
| Nov. 27, 1964: The death of Joyce Gayle Walker is one of the more haunting killings of the 1960s. I’m not sure it was ever solved. I can’t find any follow-up stories on it. |
 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?” |
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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 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?
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."
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| Los Angeles Times file photo Errol Flynn and Beverly Aadland in a photo published Oct. 15, 1959. |
| Oct. 28, 1959: Jack Smith interviews Errol Flynn’s teenage girlfriend Beverly Aadland (whom Smith describes as the actor’s “last playmate”) and her attorney Melvin Belli. Aadland says that most of her clothing is inaccessible because it’s under Flynn’s name. She says she isn’t pregnant but wishes she were. I assume The Times used “protege” in headlines because it’s shorter than “girlfriend,” but it’s really silly, as several writers have noted. |
Sept. 25, 1969: A typical screamer headline we put on the late final edition, which was for street sales. The front page of the home delivery edition didn't look like this. The National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence says: "We daily permit our children during their formative years to enter a world of police interrogations, of gangsters beating enemies, of spies performing fatal brain surgery and of routine demonstrations of all kinds of killing and maiming."
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Al Capp had a long run with "Li'l Abner," but at the end of his career, he became extremely conservative, alienating many of his longtime readers. Above, Students Wildly Indignant About Nearly Everything -- or SWINE.
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The Times sent New York correspondent John J. Goldman to discover
the New York Mets, once baseball's joke but now the champions of the
National League East. Sending a correspondent to do a sports story can be as tricky as asking a sportswriter to cover the United Nations. "The hunger for victory in the nation's largest city perhaps was matched only by that of the old Romans who watched gladiators in the Colosseum," Goldman wrote. "Everyone expected the Chicago Cubs to be lions. But in the end, they were pussycats, finishing second." Romans? What league did they play in? I preferred the view of Manhattan advertising executive and Mets fans Roger Yager, who told Goldman: "We had to get something to replace the Dodgers." --Keith Thursby |
June 17, 1959: Jack Smith's series on Samuel Goldwyn continues. |
"[Robert] Sherwood and I were watching the first cut of the picture," Goldwyn says of "The Best Years of Our Lives." "It was very rough. Sherwood turned to me and sad, 'You know, this moves me.' I said, 'It moves me, too.' But we didn't know it was going to be the great picture it was." Above, one of the great scenes in "Best Years," which tells the story primarily through Gregg Toland's photography and Hugh Friedhofer's music in long stretches without dialogue. One of my favorite lines: "You're the junk man. You get everything sooner or later." |
Part 3 of Jack Smith's series on Samuel Goldwyn. |
Goldwyn describes discovering Vilma Banky -- and making her into a star of silent films. He also spent a fortune on her marriage to Rod La Rocque. |
The Times' Jack Smith continues his series on Samuel Goldwyn. |
"When I arrived in New York I was absolutely alone, with no friend or relative to greet me," Goldwyn says. |
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Winters later used his hospitalization in some of his routines. | ||
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Please notice: It was a Ford. | ||
Art Buchwald's letter from Paris | ||
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"The only shocking thing about this film is its utter ineptness." | ||
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The Dodgers clobbered the San Diego Padres, 14-0, in their home opener with Andy Kosco hitting a grand slam and Tom Haller a three-run home run. The small change in the field's dimensions made a big difference. "Neither would have been a home run a year ago. In fact, I think both of them would have been caught--mine for sure," Haller told The Times' John Wiebusch. "Andy's might have been off the fence but then the more I think about it the more I think that 10 feet might have just turned it into a big fat 0-for-1." Kosco's home run landed in the first row of the left-field bleachers and Haller's reached the first row in right field. The Dodgers had hit only 25 home runs at Dodger Stadium in 1968. --Keith Thursby |
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