July 26, 1971
Above, note that Robin Ogle was drafted by the Dodgers as a first baseman in 1972. Below, The Times drops the nameplate for the Dodgers' mug shots and runs a nice, deep picture of Carl Erskine ... Also note the Jack Smith byline on the story about the murder of Cecil "Hard Rock" Thomas.  Email me
June 7, 1971
May 26, 1971
 "Jack Smith on Wry," on display at the Huntington Library through May 12, 2008, focuses on the life and works of columnist Jack Smith, an institution at The Times from the 1950s to the 1990s. I asked his son Doug, a colleague for many years, to contribute a piece on the exhibit and he graciously agreed. --Larry
By Doug Smith
Times Staff Writer
These were the photos that framed my childhood: my dad at his Underwood typewriter, smiling smartly; my dad interviewing starlet Jayne Mansfield, a glass of sherry in one hand; my dad in street shoes scribbling while running the indoor track at the downtown YMCA; my dad in Fleet Street finery, aping the visiting Beatles; my dad at the rewrite desk of the old Los Angeles Daily News, ready to grab the headset of his black stanchion phone.
I was the only child I knew whose father had the city’s best photographers on hand to record his every posture and visual gag along with some very serious moments that documented the rambunctious and irreverent life of a newsman in post-World War II Los Angeles.
Now I am revisiting those memories -- sharing them, rather -- with the other Sunday visitors at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens. Since high school art appreciation, I’ve associated that stately institution in San Marino with the icons of high-toned portraiture, "The Blue Boy" and "Pinkie."
 How unexpected then that these remnants of a more recent era we may now rightly view as cynical and crude hold a place of honor in the Huntington’s Library West Hall, in the company of Chaucer, Gutenberg’s Bible, Shakespeare and the Founding Fathers!
And how rewarding that the shoe box we kept for so many years at the bottom of a closet is helping to preserve the story of an era that, for better or worse, was already disappearing when its lighter moments were being captured in these quirky images.
Alone among the hotshot journalists who carried on L.A.’s "Front Page" tradition after the war, my father evolved with his craft into the age of cold type, word processing, color photography and ever more stringent professional standards. His elegantly phrased, humbly introspective columns continued to hold a devoted audience until the week before his death in early 1996.
But one unfortunate habit my father carried from those formative years on the city beat was the daily journalist’s penchant for clearing out all the cobwebs of yesterday’s news at the start of each new day. He never saved anything until well into the 1980s, when he began to carry on published dialogues with readers, requiring that he file their letters away for future reference.
So I felt like something of a sham when my brother and I approached the Huntington soon after our father’s death wondering if they’d have any interest in his "papers." Of course they would, head curator Sara S. "Sue" Hodson said, not realizing that there were really no papers to speak of, just a room full of plaques, civic commendations, books, computer disks, hokey gifts acquired over the years and those old photos.
 I suspected that some of that detritus (one of my father’s favorite words) might have a value, but which particular things? And what value? I dreaded the necessity of going through them. What to keep? What to discard? Would I become a foolish pack rat of precious nothings or be guilty of brutally sending my own heritage to the landfill? The answers had to wait another eight years. Despite our unanimous commitment to the Huntington, Curt and I soon learned that our mother didn’t want anyone poking around our father’s Mount Washington sanctum on her watch. Until her own death in 2004, she left the den as he had, working at my dad’s computer, but keeping his every pencil pot and bookend in place.
When the time finally came, Sue and two assistants spent days, including weekends, digging through things that in some cases may have gone untouched for decades. Time after time they filled their cars: a life-size laminated picture of my dad, notepads, shreds of paper, cartoons, plaques, statuettes, awards, photos of the unidentifiable and several quite beguiling paintings by representatives of Mount Washington’s long-established arts community. (Those they photographed and returned to us.)
And, after all, there were papers. They took away several stacks of file folders that contained mostly reader letters. It gave me a warm feeling to see that we had possibly provided something of value. But more important, when at last Sue said they were done, I had the confidence that every knickknack and faux artifact they didn’t take -- a cast plaster Maltese Falcon -- was, indeed, of minuscule value and could be discarded without remorse.
 As time went on, we occasionally heard from Sue, who always spoke enthusiastically of the pleasure she and the other archivists were having poring over my dad’s things. She promised that once the tedious work of cross-referencing every item was complete, she would go to work on an exhibit.
My doubts persisted, especially after we got the news from the appraiser who evaluated the gift for tax purposes. Apologetically, he gave us a number that he knew was a lot less than we expected. He softened the blow to our egos by telling us that the collection contained some precious items, principally the reader dialogue and the letters my dad sent home from the Pacific during World War II. But, of those most sought-after records of a writer’s thought process -- marked-up manuscripts, drafts, rewrites and self-edits -- there were next to none.
In the tradition that shaped him, my dad was generally a first-draft writer, and, ironically, by the time he had been anointed a “Man of Letters” with an honorary degree from UCLA, he was writing on an electronic keyboard, obliterating his every first draft with whatever changes he typed over it.
So it was a little surprising when Sue called not long ago to say the exhibit was taking shape and gave us a date for its opening. Whatever could be in it?
It turns out a lot is in it, all intelligently tied together by those photographs that span my dad’s life at The Times, our life on Mount Washington, our adventures in Baja and the postwar ascendancy of our metropolis and its newspaper. 
Jack and Denise Smith, sometime in the 1940s The curators have reverently placed the exhibit at the far end of the Library West Hall, weaving a pathway to it through the most breathtaking collection of manuscripts and papers one might expect ever to see west of the Potomac.
Jack and Denise Smith, 1991The lofty image of Abe Lincoln’s portrait gazing over the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, signed in the actual hand of the senators and congressmen who adopted it, is artfully segued to the "Front Page" by a coup de grackle. The oversized book of Audubon’s color engravings is opened to the one of that black bird, known only east of the Mississippi, that my father twice sighted in our Mount Washington yard, causing great consternation and fun in the birding community.
The bird joke is just the beginning of the fun.
 Right away I find some of my dad’s good bad Hemingway and the amusing surprise of some bad writing in his own voice: “I’ll be as nervous as a pregnant nun,” he wrote my mother in August of 1945, imagining their soon-to-be reunion. There are some cards on which he scribbled thoughts both whimsical and serious: “Los Angeles is simply the freest city in the world.”
The exhibit’s strength, of course, remains the breadth of the public conversation he conjured out of the details of his personal life. Examples can be flip: Charlton Heston citing God as the source of the phrase “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.” “I heard him as I was walking down the mountain.”
They give voice to unknown scholars: Barbara Bilisoly’s offering of a haunting poem by Catullus as the source of my father’s signature phrase, “Spend All Your Kisses.” And they’re hilariously corny: Jim Wade’s takeoff on the POSSLQ generation, writing on behalf of his AFOY (ardent fan of yours) wife on the need for a good “PN (proper noun) for people involved in PMH (pre-marital habitation).”
Sue assures me that correspondence comprises a substantial collection of diverse knowledge, wit and Southern California lore that will serve researchers for years to come. I’m glad for that. But I now see the real value of the exhibit in the connection it makes with those who still fondly remember my dad.
I watch with satisfaction as people work their way around the glass-encased displays that follow the phases of my dad’s career. Invariably they laugh out loud at the Baja station. It must be the story about the toilet in the living room that gets them.
 I find my favorite quotation there: "The snakes, dogs and rodents herein mentioned are also real, and nothing is set forth as having happened that did not happen."
To me, it represents my dad’s genius. Rising above a profession that too often tolerated embellishment in the telling of important events, he treated the smallest things in life as worthy of unwavering truth.
As I am about to leave, I spot a middle-aged woman standing over the Mount Washington case, absorbed in what is certainly the nuttiest photo in the exhibit. It’s a family portrait, my dad seated stiffly in white shorts and plaid shirt cradling a fisherman’s cap in his arm like a three-cornered hat. He’s flanked by my mother and my brother, both dressed in Akron wear but posed with the self-conscious grandeur of "The Blue Boy" and "Pinkie." I’m off to one side armed with baseball bat and glove. Our mutt, Gene Biscailuz, sits at our feet, gazing up at my dad in awe. 
Doug, Curt, Jack and Denise SmithI want to walk up and ask the woman, “Do you know that’s me in the Pittsburgh Pirates hat?”
I watch from a distance instead. I’m 50 years older now, and not the same person as the boy in that picture. Whatever our family meant to her, it’s her memory now, not to be encroached upon.
doug.smith@latimes.com
Doug says by way of autobiography: "I’ve been at The Times 38 years now. My dad was here 40, so I may actually overtake him on that stat. I started as a desk assistant in sports and graduated to suburban reporting. I covered school boards, city councils and society events all over Southern California. I wrote a column called Around the Valley for several years and then switched to Around the Foothills in the Glendale section, which, of course, no longer exists. I started doing data analysis in the mid-1990s and found that to my liking. My title today is Database Editor, which essentially means that I now conduct my interviews by asking questions of large bodies of data."
Above, a Navy officer is welcomed home by his family after a Westpac cruise. Below, Jack Smith visits Pershing Square and his column shows that it hasn't changed much from today--except for the landscaping. Art Buchwald writes about the Amazing Randi, who fails to amaze Parisian jailers.
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Above, an early column by Jack Smith. Click on the thumbnail for the entire story ... Below, meat prices are going up by 3 cents to 21 cents a pound (22 cents to $1.53 USD 2007) ... The U.S. will apparently increase military spending to fight unemployment--watch for more orders for B-52 bombers! ... Vice President Nixon calls for a tax cut as a cure for the recession rather than increased government spending ... And a bill is introduced in the Legislature to require a college prep curriculum. Under the proposal, every high school student would be required to take at least a year of science, math and English.
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Above, a Jack Smith piece on religious figure Daddy Grace. Click at the bottom of the post to read the entire column. Below, a very dull news day in The Times. So dull, in fact, that I'm adding the Mirror just to contrast the story play.
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Read on »
Jan. 16, 1958
Fellow beer drinkers, we've got a crisis bubbling over right in front of us.
Before we call in the United Nations, let's give it a brief rundown.
Plans have been going ahead, more or less quietly, for the California
Brewers Festival, April 7-12. Nothing fancy. That is, no dancing in the
streets. Maybe proclamations by the governor and mayor. And some
editorials and store displays pointing out that California breweries
have an annual payroll of $44,000,000, that 70,000 persons depend on
the industry for their livelihood, that the per capita annual
consumption is 14.1 gallons. Stuff like that.
And then the agonizing word filtered through a few days ago that a
temperance outfit was more or less quietly planning to call attention
to the virtues of abstinence that same week, April 7-12.
Oh, I tell you, the brewery people are agulp.
But there need be no alarm. After all, it's the era of compromise. Why
not combine the two, with the beer people reminding the temperance
people that eerbay is the beverage of moderation.
BETWEEN EDITIONS the
boys on the copy desk came up with a provocative thought. What is Sir
Winston himself took a plane and appeared at Malibu Justice Court at 2
p.m. today to defend his daughter Sarah on a charge of intoxication.
After all, Winnie has not only been known to sip a little brandy but
also has uttered that imperishable line, "There'll always be an
England," so eloquently declaimed by Sarah when she got jammed up.
Furthermore, Winnie speaks real good as (like) a former prime minister should.
ONLY IN L.A.--Someone
broke the streetlight in front of artist Julie Byrne's home and she
reported it to someone at City Hall. That afternoon a truck with two
men appeared and installed a new globe. But when darkness came, no
light.
Around 10 p.m., however, another city truck stopped, two more men got
out, hoisted a ladder and screwed in a bulb. Julie asked how come.
Maybe he was joking but the bulb screwer inner said, "Oh, the fellows
who put in the globes aren't supposed to put in the bulbs."
THE PARENTS
of David John Irwin, 2, have been trying to teach him the importance of
keeping his word. The other day his mother, Peggy, sharply called his
attention to a promise he'd broken. He remained thoughtfully silent so
she repeated, "Did you understand me? -- I said you broke your promise."
"Okay," he shrugged, "fix it, mommy."
THE GARDENA Valley
News, in an editorial on the election in April which will decide
whether the card clubs will be outlawed, had this enchanting line, "We
appeal to both sides in the controversy to keep the fight honest and
fair, not confuse the voters any more than possible...."
AROUND TOWN -- As
a woman driver in front of him put out her hand, the driver of an
Olympic Boulevard bus said to a passenger, "The only thing I'm sure of
when a woman makes a hand signal is that the window is open"... In
discussing newly married friends, William Miranda was overheard
malapropping that they were so happy they were in a "transom" ... The
fear that has haunted Marjean Haven as she drives over desolate Chevy
Chase Drive after dark was realized the other night at 11:30 p.m.--a
flat tire. Panicky, she started climbing the grade in her high heels
when a motorist stopped and offered help. This sweet guy drove her back
to her car, put on the spare, then, in answer to her inquiry, gave his
name --Sour. Or more likely, Sauer.
Photograph by the Los Angeles Times
I love this picture of Times reporters Jack Smith and Marvin Miles, in coats and ties, of course, flying a kite. I don't know the story behind this picture, but I'm sure there is one.
Early next year, the Huntington Library will open "Smith on Wry: Jack
Smith, Columnist for Our Times," drawn from his papers and other
materials donated to the San Marino museum. Exhibits will will include
"string books," letters, photos, awards and, yes, his columns. I was quite impressed by the large turnout for a 2005 panel discussion at the museum with Curt and Doug Smith, and columnist Al Martinez. Nearly 10 years after his death, Jack Smith still filled the room. Not many columnists can make a claim like that.
"Smith on Wry" will be on display Feb. 15 through May 12 in the Library's West Hall.
Aug. 17, 1957
Los Angeles
BY JACK SMITH
Actress Maureen O'Hara's alleged love scene with a Latin in three rear
seats of Grauman's Chinese Theater was re-enacted before a spellbound
audience here yesterday at the Confidential libel trial.
A witness and a buxom newspaperwoman, who volunteered her services,
entwined themselves in three courtroom seats while judge, jury and
spectators watched in fascination.
Opposing counsel hovered beside the players, giving conflicting directions.
"Her feet are on the floor!" protested one.
"We never said her feet were off the floor!" exclaimed the other.
Miss Lee Belser (at right in 1958 photo with Otto the clown), a blond reporter for a wire service, played the part
of the flaming-haired actress, cuddling into the arms of the witness,
James Craig, a former assistant manager of the Chinese Theater.
Superior Judge Herbert V. Walker glowered sternly over the courtroom,
his ears attuned to the titters, ready to rap down with his gavel. He
had warned that he would let the show go on, but let no one think it
was a comedy.
Charges of blackmail, an emotional outburst by a defendant, and an
eyewitness account of Miss O'Hara's alleged night of skylarking in the
theater brought the slow-starting trial to a racy pitch earlier
yesterday.
As the conflict shifted from the prosecution to the defense, the
multiple conspiracy trial was enlivened by a series of surprises.
Craig, flown here from London to testify for the defense, admitted he
told the O'Hara story to a Confidential agent for a mere 70 pounds
(about $200) [$1,433.06 USD 2006].
Hollywood producer Paul Gregory, appearing as a final and surprise
witness for the state, leveled a charge of blackmail against one of the
defendants, Mrs. Marjorie Meade, alleged queen of Confidential
magazine's Hollywood scandal mill.
Red-haired Mrs. Meade broke up the proceedings with a convulsion of
tears and sobbing, but after a two-hour rest swept serenely back to
take the stand as first witness for the defense.
"I have never seen Mr. Paul Gregory before in my life," she testified.
"I have never had a conversation with Mr. Paul Gregory in my life," she concluded and then stepped down.
This attempt to impeach the producer's testimony out of the way,
defense attorney Arthur J. Crowley showed his pattern of strategy by
setting about to prove the truth of one of Confidential magazine's most
sensational yarns.
The witness was Craig, neat and crisp of manner after a long air trip
from London. Craig left Hollywood in 1954 to return to his native
England.
Craig said he was on duty at the Chinese Theater on a November night in
1953 when the green-eyed Miss O'Hara, according to Confidential,
"heated up the rear of the theater" with a Latino whose name remains
unknown.
Craig said he was twice summoned from the foyer into the black
auditorium of the plush theater by an usher because of the scene in Row
35.
Craig said he investigated and found Miss O'Hara "leaning across three seats" in the Latin's arms.
"She looked to be very disheveled, very untidy. I didn't want to be
indiscreet," Craig recalled, so he got his flashlight and walked up and
down the aisle. Miss O'Hara then "took her own seat" he said, and he
assumed the incident was over.
At the usher's second appeal, Craig said, he went forth again and found
"the gentleman sitting in a seat and Miss O'Hara sitting in his lap."
"I told them I thought it was best if they left the theater. The gentleman said they were leaving anyway."
Miss O'Hara soon came out alone to the foyer, Craig said, and asked to
borrow his flashlight, explaining that her friend had lost a cuff link.
Craig said he returned and found the missing article.
"It was definitely a diamond cuff link," he recalled.
Craig said he told the story to an old friend, Michael M. Smith,
Confidential's London agent, and after its publication, received a
check for 70 pounds.
On cross-examination, Deputy Dist. Atty. William Ritzi assaulted
Craig's version of the O'Hara story piecemeal. Perhaps never has a bout
of spooning been so thoroughly dissected four years after its
occurrence.
Ritzi even asked the witness to take chalk and draw a diagram of the
part of the theater which allegedly was the arena of the episode and
prosecutor and witness jousted back and forth in effort to place each
arm, leg, trunk and foot in its proper place according to Craig's
memory.
At one point, the exasperated prosecutor--a Sunday school teacher--blurted out:
"To put it bluntly, sir, where was her rear end?"
"Her rear end," the solemn witness answered, "was on the edge of Seat No. 2."
Also present as a witness for the defense was Smith, to whom Craig gave his story. Smith was flown in from London with Craig.
Until Craig entered with his recitation of the O'Hara incident, Mrs.
Meade and Gregory had played front and center in the trial, the
producer naming her as the woman who kept a rendezvous with him two
years ago and offered to kill a scandalous story for $800 to $1,000.
He said she told him the proposed story was "scandalously injurious"
and could be ruinous to him and his associates, including Charles
Laughton and Laughton's wife, Elsa Lanchester.
The prominent producer was brought forth at the last moment as a
surprise witness of the state in the jury trial of Confidential and
Whisper magazines and Mrs. Meade and her husband, Fred.
Shortly after Gregory stepped down from the witness stand in the courtroom, the state rested.
Then Mrs. Meade collapsed. Tears gushed from her wide eyes and sobs
filled the courtroom as Judge Walker left the bench and strode to his
chambers.
The red-haired defendant stood, stumbled and fell back into her chair
as her strapping husband rushed forward to her aid. Her weeping
apparently uncontrollable, she was led into an anteroom by her husband
and a bailiff.
A medical attendant, summoned from the County Jail Hospital in the Hall
of Justice, examined Mrs. Meade and said she was "emotionally upset."
When the 15-minute recess ended, defense attorney Crowley advised Judge
Walker his client was unable to appear. Judge Walker then recessed the
morning session.
Mrs. Meade earlier had expressed outrage and disbelief when Gregory
gazed at her and said he was "absolutely positive" she was the woman
who called herself "Mrs. Dee" and offered to stop publication of a
Confidential story if he would pay the "author's commitment" of $800 to
$1,000.
Gregory said he told "Mrs. Dee" he regarded it as "character
assassination and blackmail" she was up to and refused to go along with
her. Nevertheless, he testified, the threatened story never appeared.
The producer said the woman known to him as Mrs. Dee first made contact
with him, by telephone on Aug. 22, 1955. He flipped the pages of a
large red leather date book for a page that had a note of the date.
He said the woman proposed a meeting with him which could help him
"avoid injurious scandal to me and my associates." He was then
associated in a producing venture with Laughton, he added.
Asked by prosecutor Ritzi if he later met the woman whose voice he
heard on the telephone, Gregory answered that he had, and that woman,
he said evenly, "was Mrs. Meade."
At this Mrs. Meade whipped off her horn-rimmed spectacles and registered horror.
Gregory went on to testify that Mrs. Dee telephoned again on Sept. 16
and he agreed to meet her in a Beverly Hills cafe at 2:15 p.m. that day.
When he entered the cafe he saw a man and two women sitting in a booth, Gregory testified.
"A woman approached me and said, 'Are you Paul Gregory?' I said I was and she said, 'I'm Miss Dee.' "
"Now," asked the prosecutor, "do you recognize here in this court the woman who introduced herself to you as Miss Dee?"
Gregory fixed steely eyes on the red-haired woman at the counsel table.
"Absolutely," he said.
"Mrs. Meade?" asked the prosecutor.
"It is indeed," said Gregory.
He and the woman then sat apart from her friends in another booth, the
producer said, and after he declined a drink he asked her to get on
with her business.
"She said she could stop this story if I would pay the author's
commitment. I asked how much that involved and she said $800 to $1,000.
"I asked her what the story was about. She said it was scandalously
injurious and could very well put me out of business if it were allowed
to be published."
It was then, Gregory said, that he accused Mrs. Meade of character assassination and blackmail and terminated the interview.
Gregory also testified that before his contact with Mrs. Dee his
secretary was harassed by numerous telephone calls from a "Miss Ann
Smith" who warned that "something terrible was going to happen to my
business associates if I didn't do certain things."
 Gregory said he finally had a recorder plugged into his telephone and
made a recording of one of Miss Smith's calls. It was placed in the
hands of the court yesterday. Gregory said he was certain, however,
that Miss Smith was not the same woman as Miss Dee.
Attorney Crowley struck back bitingly when he took the producer on
cross-examination, trying to shake his identification of Mrs. Meade and
impeach his testimony as a product of bias.
Pointing to Mrs. Meade, the attorney asked Gregory if he were
"positive" she was the same woman he met in the restaurant Sept. 16.
"I am most assuredly positive," said the witness.
"You don't like Confidential magazine, do you?" the lawyer demanded in an earlier attack.
"Oh," answered Gregory, "I don't dislike it."
Crowley took up a copy of the magazine, opened it to a splashy spread
titled "The Lowdown on Paul Gregory," Yes, Gregory said, he had read
the story.
"Is one of the reasons you are testifying here because of this article?" demanded Crowley.
"Not at all, sir."
Under cross-examination, Gregory also explained that the story
mentioned by Miss Dee was not one already listed in the trial record as
"The Robert Mitchum Story."
It was in this Confidential tale that Mitchum allegedly masqueraded as
a hamburger--naked and catsup drenched--at a dinner party given by
Gregory. Laughton also was among those present.
The story had already been published, he explained, when he met Mrs.
Dee. Outside the courtroom, however, Gregory took the opportunity to
brand the earlier story a complete fiction.
"No such thing ever happened," he said. "There were 10 guests who will come down here and testify to that."
The trial resumes at 9:30 a.m. Monday.
April 24, 1957
Los Angeles
Note: Bylined stories were rare in
the 1940s and 1950s. Here's the handiwork of Jack Smith, doing rewrite
on a celebrity brawl involving Yma Sumac and Fred Otash, former police
officer, private detective and one of James Ellroy's inspirations.
By Jack Smith
Singer
Yma Sumac's home yesterday was the scene of the champion brawl in
fighting Hollywood's history--featuring the Peruvian beauty herself,
her estranged husband, two hot-blooded Inca dancers, three private
detectives, a male Peruvian harpist and a collie dog named Prince.
The head-thumping, hair-pulling Donnybrook took place in the entry hall
of the Cheviot Hills home as the tension in the Sumac household finally
snapped into a shrieking extravaganza with sound effects in two
languages, not to mention the barking of the dog.
The spark that touched off the swirling free-for-all was the strained
relationship between the exotic songbird from the Andes and her
high-strung Peruvian husband, Moises Vivanco, 38, whom she sued for
divorce only a week ago.
The luxurious house shook from the piercing screams from Miss Sumac's
celebrated five-octave voice as clothes ripped, flesh and bone struck
flesh, blood flowed and at least one 220-pound private detective hit
the deck under a tangle of assorted Peruvians.
Flashbulbs and television lights bathed the colossal action in an eerie
glare and photographers and reporters scrambled to the walls for points
of vantage as the struggle unfolded before them like the climax of a
high-budget Western.
Miss Sumac herself was credited with one of the most telling strokes of the con [text missing here--lrh]
after Miss Sumac and [private detective Fred] Otash, accompanied by one
of Otash's operators, Norman Placey, 37, drove up to her home at 3065
McConnell Drive in Otash's blue Cadillac.
Miss Sumac was wearing a long fur coat and her almond-shaped eyes with
their arched eyebrows were hidden behind the dark glasses.
She
went there with Otash, explaining that she wanted to pick up some of
her her personal things and also to look for her 1957 Cadillac
Fleetwood, which she said Vivanco had hidden from her.
Vivanco opened the door and beckoned to eight newsmen waiting outside.
"Please come in," he invited. "I want you to see this."
Miss Sumac swept regally through the large living room and into the
den. There she found Farfan playing the alpa, an ancient Incan harp
that stands on three legs.
Miss [Esmila] Zevallos was singing.
Farfan had arrived from Peru only yesterday morning, just in time for
the festivities. He speaks no English, which turned out to be of little
disadvantage in the events to follow.
Miss Sumac began questioning Zevallos about the night before--a
preliminary skirmish in which, Vivanco charged, he was strong-armed and
threatened with a gun by two of Otash's detectives.
Miss Sumac asked Miss Zevallos if she had seen the gun. Otash has said his men carried none. Miss Zevallos said she saw it.
Miss Sumac, said witnesses, slapped her.
Miss Zevallos called Miss Sumac a "bad woman" and the battle was engaged.
"I have work for you like a servant," cried Miss Zevallos. "Me and your
cousin, Yola. You're going to throw me and your cousin out. I work for
you. I washed your...your... your many things. You are bad woman!"
Otash glided in from the living room, sensing trouble, to help keep the peace.
Farfan leaped up from his harp and helped Otash--for the time being.
The action subsided temporarily.
Peace was restored. Miss Sumac and Vivanco stood at the front door to pose for pictures.
"She knows how to pose," he said gallantly. "She has many years of practicing."
"Yes," said Miss Sumac, smiling. "He taught me."
Those were the last pleasant words spoken.
Vivanco spotted Otash and brought up the incident of the night before and the gun.
Otash said his man didn't have a gun.
"If you say he didn't have a gun," cried Vivanco, his temper rising,"you are a big, fat liar!"
He exploded into Spanish and struggled back into English.
"You get out of this house!" he roared.
At this critical point,Vivanco noticed Private Detective Placey, who was standing mildly against the wall.
"There is the man," he accused, "who had the gun!"
Vivanco lunged for Placey.
Another private detective, Bill Lowe, who had been staked out across
the street, looking for the missing car, slipped up behind the irate
Peruvian and grabbed his arms.
Otash moved in to separate the men.
Miss Rivero grabbed Otash from behind--by the hair--and yanked downward.
Otash backed against the wall, squirming to get free from the determined Inca woman.
Miss Sumac grabbed at Vivanco. Miss Zevallos danced onto the scene and grabbed Miss Sumac.
Miss Sumac's dark glasses flew to the floor. Somebody tramped on them.
Prince, the collie, loped into the ring, threading among the struggling legs, tossing his head and barking joyously.
Miss Sumac flipped a smart backhand across Miss Zevallos' mouth.
Farfan slithered in from the den, still speaking no English. He flung
his medium-sized figure at the bull-like Otash, trying to shove him
through the door.
Vivanco fell into a wrought iron planter.
Then, suddenly, the storm subsided.
Hair was patted and stroked back into place by the panting gladiators.
Yanked clothing was rearranged. Otash hunted on the floor for a missing
coat button. Miss Rivero dabbed at blood from a gash on the back of her
neck and assorted scratches on her arms.
But tempers still were on edge.
Miss Sumac slipped her mink coat down over her left shoulder and displayed a bruise the size of a dollar.
"How did I get this mark," she demanded of Miss Rivero.
Haltingly, Miss Rivero recounted an incident of Thursday night, the import of which was that Vivanco had inflicted the bruise.
Vivanco smiled scornfully.
"This is your lover's marking," he said.
About this time, a district attorney's car hove up on the curved driveway and three investigators spilled out.
In a few moments Sgt. V.A. Peterson and Det. Merle Pagh, who had investigated the incident of the night before, joined the show.
They had hardly taken charge before a patrol car raced up--somewhat
belatedly--in response to an alarm that a brawl was going on.
In the resulting powwow today's meeting in Santa Monica was scheduled.
Otash later gave a stirring version of his own involvement, with comic overtones.
"This Vivanco grabbed my arm and his buddy grabbed my coat. Vivanco
took a couple of shots at me with his fists. I was afraid to hit him
back. I was afraid he'd go into another world.
"Then one of the maids jumped in and started pulling my hair. The other maid came up behind me and grabbed me by the coat.
"One minute I'm up--the next I'm down.
"They were pulling me and pushing me. I was spread-eagled. I couldn't
hit anybody. The whole pack of them wouldn't weigh in at more than 225
pounds.
"Miss Sumac let one of the maids have it in the mouth--backhand. I told
her to be quiet and take it easy. Boy, it was a ball there for a while!"
The
Monday night affair that roughened tempers for the main event of
yesterday began when Miss Sumac called at the house to pick up some
things. She was accompanied by two Otash operators, Placey and Henry P.
Cohen. Also with her was her son by Vivanco, Charles, 8.
Vivanco said he tried to talk to the boy and the two detectives
manhandled him and threatened to shoot him, one of them drawing an
automatic. He later signed a complaint against the two men charging
assault with intent to commit great bodily harm.
Otash scoffed at the charge, insisting "none of my men have a gun
permit and none of them even own a gun." Police who were called to the
house Monday night said they searched the two private detectives and
their car and found no weapon.
Miss Sumac left her son without bothering to pick up any of her
belongings but the detectives did accomplish something. They served
Vivanco a Santa Monica Superior Court order to show cause why Miss
Sumac should not retain custody of the boy, and a second paper
advancing the hearing into the matter next Friday.
Troubles between Miss
Sumac and Vivanco, who has been her musical director for years, began
when he lost a paternity suit filed by her former secretary, Maureen
Shea, 24.
Miss Shea charged that Vivanco was the father of twin girls born to her
in 1954 as the result of a backstage romance carried on while Miss
Sumac and her troupe were on tour. Her claim was upheld here in
Superior Court last January after a three-week trial.
Otash said yesterday
that he will demand his detectives and Vivanco take lie detector tests
to determine the truth of their stories on Monday's incident.
"I told Vivanco he's going to get in trouble for making false crime reports," the detective said.
Before the situation boiled over into violence yesterday, Vivanco
talked reminiscently of his long career with Miss Sumac, which he
described as a Pygmalion and Galatea relationship.
"Yma was nothing--musically and artistically," he told reporters. "I made her. Like you make an image from clay--a puppet."
Miss Sumac was born 35 years ago in the Andean village of Ichocan. She
was given her professional name by Vivanco. It is the name of a
legendary daughter of an Inca ruler. Miss Sumac's voice, which is said
to range over five octaves, has electrified audiences the world over.
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Times columnist Jack Smith pays a farewell visit to the Amestoy Building at the northeast* corner of Market and Main (shown in 1945 map) across from City Hall. 
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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.