Enemy Agents Kidnap Book Publisher, May 14, 1939

Publisher George Putnam, former husband of the late Amelia Earhart... ... releases a book titled "The Man Who Killed Hitler" ... ... and some mysterious men with German accents don't like it ...   ... They grab him at his home in North Hollywood and take him to Bakersfield.

Jordan's King Hussein Visits L.A.; Rams to Play Night Game, April 4, 1959

The Times' art department retouched Neil Clemans' photo of Marlon Brando giving the finger to photographers. Let's see if we can get a copy of the original.

At left, King Hussein of Jordan waves to photographers in Palmdale after flying a Lockheed F-104D over the Mojave Desert. The Times emphasized that Hussein was "Islam's sworn foe of communism" and said he "scorned Soviet aid to the Middle East and offered a three-point plan to save the cradle of religion from the 'sweep of atheism.' "  Communists and Peronists riot in downtown Buenos Aires ... Princess Grace's appendectomy is Page 1 news ... and Judge Martin Katz of Van Nuys asks a woman charged with advertising fortune telling whether she can predict his verdict. She couldn't. And Katz fined her $25. And the weather? "Smog today."

Elizabeth Duncan is sentenced to die.   Hey, it's "On Stage" by Leonard Starr. Haven't seen that one in years.

Even in Southern California, football fans deal with the weather. The Rams announced plans for a Saturday night game to open the 1959 season. "For the last four seasons the Coliseum temperature has been in the high 80s," general manager Pete Rozelle said. "We feel that Ram fans would prefer a night game while the weather is still warm." You have to wonder if Rozelle, the future commissioner, also was envisioning a future of night games and prime-time television audiences for the NFL. --Keith Thursby

Body of Girl, 16, Dumped at Burbank Hospital

Half a century cannot dull the tragedy. Her name was Brenda. When they found her lying in the grass outside St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank they guessed she was 21, but she was only 16. A man called to say she was there. He didn't give his name. Brenda was still warm and fully dressed in a black coat, cream-colored blouse and red print pedal pushers. All the labels had been removed.  She was wearing a 14-karat gold wedding band and an engagement ring, a gold locket and a cheap wristwatch. Her pink shoes were nearby. She was identified by her uncle, Sheldon Grossbart, as Brenda Blonder Emerson. She was a bride of nine months who eloped to Arizona with Stephen Emerson, 20, against the wishes of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. William Blonder, 9606 Cresta Drive, Fox Hills. She had a needle mark in her arm and another in her buttocks.  The medical examiner found that she died from 3.4 grams of sodium pentothal, administered as an anesthetic before undergoing an abortion. A preliminary examination suggested a false pregnancy, but later tests determined that she was pregnant, The Times said.    Brenda and Stephen had been living at 9645 1/2 Olympic Blvd., Beverly Hills. He wasn't working and it's not clear what she did for a living, but Brenda managed to get $600 ($4,223.87USD 2007) for the operation, The Times said.  And somehow she found Ruth Haskins, 42, a hard-boiled pro of the business who had worked with her brother, osteopath Philip Victor Ames, until he ran off to Mexico in 1957 to avoid being sentenced for nine counts of performing abortions. Haskins' career dated at least to 1936, when she was sentenced to a year in jail for illegal operations. With her brother in Mexico, Haskins had begun working with his former chauffeur, Edgar Schrater, alias Edgar Salgado. On the day she died, Brenda apparently claimed she was going to a family reunion at her parents' home. Stephen told police the last time he saw her was in Hollywood at 4 p.m., three hours before her body was found. The Times said Brenda's mother took her to a rendezvous with Mrs. Michael Smythe for the trip to Burbank, where the abortion was to be performed. Because it was unclear whether the LAPD or Burbank police had jurisdiction in Brenda's death, Los Angeles homicide detectives joined the investigation.  LAPD homicide Detectives Danny Galindo and Paul LePage, accompanied by Haskins' son-in-law, Bob Kane, went to Tijuana to find her. The detectives arrested her after Kane pointed her out at the Tijuana Airport, where she was en route to Mexico City to join her brother, the Mirror-News said. Haskins was carrying $945 in cash and an address book "containing numerous names," the Mirror-News said.  When another woman was wrongly indicted, Smythe admitted her role in Brenda's death and received 75 days in jail. Haskins pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison, although The Times didn't report the terms. Schrater surrendered to LAPD homicide Detective Herman Zander in the Hollywood office of attorney Jules Covey and was booked on suspicion of murder. He served five years after pleading guilty to manslaughter and was arrested in 1968 on charges of running an abortion ring in the Chicago suburbs.  Brenda was given a pink casket and buried in a beige satin dress at Mt. Sinai Memorial Park. At her funeral, Rabbi Jacob Pressman of Temple Beth Am said: "Oh God, we do not pretend to understand the reason of thy ways .... She was little more than a pretty child playing at the grownup game and now she suddenly lies in our midst in the stillness of death." Although the details of her death were known only to God, he said, "the vivid present must give way to the sweet memories of her happy past." The Times said: "In the tearful graveside rites, the girl's father, near collapse, joined Rabbi Pressman in singing the Kaddish, the mourner's prayer. At the conclusion, Brenda's maternal grandmother, Mrs. Rose Beim, threw herself on the casket and kissed it. "And then they left Brenda on the slope ..."

Burbank Time Capsule Revisited

Cinda Cates, Burbank public information specialist, passes along the images that were recovered from the 1959 time capsule placed in the Magnolia Boulevard Bridge. The anonymous photographer recorded the city's civic buildings (City Hall, a fire station, etc.) and took quite a few pictures of the new bridge. Spend a moment on the predictions of Kenneth E. Norwood of Burbank's Planning Department. He envisioned a city where only 12% of the people lived in single-family homes, with 88% in multi-unit garden apartments made of plastic that were incorporated in commercial complexes. "These complexes are supposed to be the ultimate in urban living, combining offices, hotels, apartments, shops, restaurants, etc., in one continuous complex of buildings, malls and arcades," he wrote. There would be no overhead wires or antennas, he said. Instead, Burbank would use underground atomic power with electricity distributed by waves. "Rapid monorail routes connect metro centers, with pickup stations at the Lockheed Air Control Center, and at each of the main malls in Burbank," Norwood wrote. "Unlike auto parking in 1959, there is no parking on streets or open lots but in fully automatic parking units located at each main destination point."

Nuestro Pueblo -- March 1, 1939

Above, a quirky sentinel welcomes visitors to Sylmar. Below, a 1949 feature on the Olive Festival.

Burbank Finds 1959 Time Capsule

Photograph by Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times The 50-year-old time capsule about to be freed from the Magnolia Boulevard Bridge.

Jia-Rui Chong Times Staff Writer With a hammer and a chisel, a Burbank city worker this morning carved out a tiny silver time capsule 50 years after it was first tucked into the base of the Magnolia Bridge. "It was there -- we found it," said deputy city manager Joy Forbes, excitement and relief bubbling through her voice. City officials did not know the capsule was due to be opened on Feb. 5, 2009, until Larry Harnisch at the Times' Los Angeles history blog e-mailed them over the weekend. City workers hustled to find the location of the time capsule. When they pried off the dedication plaque on the base of the bridge, near 1st Street and Magnolia Boulevard, they found a darker patch of cement. Read more >>> Stan Lynch, who attended yesterday's event and the original ceremony in 1959, told the Burbank Leader: There were already film studios in 1950s Burbank, but the shutdown of Lockheed’s manufacturing plants by the end of the 1980s has changed the city the most, Lynch said. “When I was 14, it wasn’t unusual for 75% of the classmates to have family that worked for Lockheed,” he said. “The mall on Magnolia Boulevard is the biggest change after that. We finally got a mall.”

Burbank to Open Time Capsule!

A representative from the city of Burbank says: On Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009, at 10:30 a.m., the city of Burbank will be opening a time capsule that was placed in the Magnolia Boulevard bridge when it was built in 1959. There will not be a big ceremony, but the press is invited to attend.

Rock Stars Die in Plane Crash, February 3, 1959

Ritchie Valens' Roots Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1987 Los Angeles Times file photo Ritchie Valens, 1941 - 1959 By GREGG BARRIOS WATSONVILLE, Calif. -- "I still remember the first time we heard Ritchie sing on the radio," the mother of the late Latino rock 'n' roller Ritchie Valens recalled about that distant day, almost 30 years ago. "I told his brother Bob, come on, let's go to Saugus. I had some business there. I had a 1950 Olds then. The body wasn't too good, but I paid $50 for each tire and I bought five. I pulled over to the side of the road when 'Come On, Let's Go' came on the radio. We just sat there looking at each other amazed." In those days, before son Ritchie became a star, the family lived in the San Fernando Valley. Mrs. Consuelo (Connie) Valenzuela would often take her kids to the Spanish-language movies, especially to the Million Dollar Theater in downtown Los Angeles where they would see master comic Cantinflas and Mexican charro/singer Tito Guizar. "I always thought you had really arrived when a film made it to that theater," she remembered. Connie Valenzuela said she plans to return soon to the Million Dollar Theater with her now grown daughters. But this time they'll be seeing the Spanish-language version of "La Bamba," the new movie about her son's all-too-brief singing career and her family.   Los Angeles Times file photo Buddy Holly, left, Jerry Lee Lewis and Joe Mauldin in 1958 The Valens family now lives in the Central California farming community of Watsonville (south of San Jose). Over the July 4 weekend, "La Bamba" had a "hometown" preview for Valens' family and neighbors at the Fox Theater here, a typical Art Deco-styled movie house from the '30s that usually plays Spanish-language films today. The preview was given by Columbia Pictures to herald the nationwide opening of the film in English and Spanish this week. The Valens family's on-screen counterparts were also at the screening: Lou Diamond Phillips, who plays Ritchie; Rosana De Soto, who is seen as Connie Valenzuela, and Esai Morales, who portrays the jealous half-brother, Bob Morales--the role that is pivotal in the film. But away from the excitement of the screening, Connie Valenzuela, 72, sat in one of her daughters' homes, surrounded by her several children and grandchildren. The two-story tract home has a wall devoted to photographs of Ritchie. One hand-tinted studio portrait shows a grinning teen-age Valens in a sport coat and bow tie, another of him standing next to a black-and-chromed '57 Thunderbird. She was reflective, if a little dim, about memories of her son, who died Feb. 3, 1959 in a plane crash during a snowstorm in Iowa. That crash also killed two Texas rockers, Buddy Holly and J. P. (The Big Bopper) Richardson. Connie Valenzuela said many of Ritchie's early songs came from things around his barrio when the family lived in the San Fernando Valley community of Pacoima. " 'That's My Little Suzie' was about a crippled neighbor girl. 'She rocks to the left, and rocks to the right' described her." Another, "Hurry Up," came from an expression that Valenzuela said she used to get her kids to do chores. (Her memory falters here, since the song wasn't actually written by Valens but appeared on his first album.) However, "Come On, Let's Go" did indeed come from an expression used by both Ritchie and his mom whenever they went somewhere. Los Angeles Times file photo Valens with Bob Keane. Notice Valens' Gibson f-hole guitar. "Later, when he started going out to play at different places, I would worry. After all, this 16-year-old kid was often out until midnight. So I'd call up one of the deejays, because at that time they would sponsor dances. Once, I called Art Laboe and told him it was time to get the guys home. Laboe never listened to me. But whenever I'd call up and ask to speak to Jerry Wallace (of "Primrose Lane" fame), he'd see that Ritchie would be back before I knew it." As she remembered, Connie Valenzuela, seated by the kitchen table, smiled. Her children listened to her recollections, some for the first time. One of Valens' favorite songs, Mrs. Valenzuela said, was a child's lullaby he called "The Paddi Wack Song," which he sang accompanied by his guitar to his young sisters in the family's backyard. In the summer of 1986, New Visions (Taylor Hackford's film production company) began filming the story of Ritchie's life, as written by Luis Valdez. Ritchie's grown up and married sisters Connie Jr. and Irma had small parts as farm workers in the opening sequence. Their own daughters, Gloria and Kristin, played their mothers (Ritchie's sisters) as young girls. (Mrs. Valenzuela and Ritchie's brother Bob also have small roles in the film.) Having seen the film several times now, both sisters have mixed emotions about the movie. "I was too young to really know my brother," Connie Jr., 36, admitted. "He died when I was barely 7. I never knew all the problems poor Bob went through or all my mother had to put up with him at the time. After the film was over I just wanted to hold on to both of them. It's brought us all so much closer." Irma, 35, nodded in approval of her sister's evaluation. "I wanted to see more about my brother Ritchie's career. I guess we didn't realize that it was going to be about both Bob and Ritchie. I remember calling New Visions one day and asking if the film was still about Ritchie. And they said, 'Well, more or less, but it's a story about two brothers now.' Los Angeles Times file photo The graves of Concepcion and Richard "Ritchie Valens" Valenzuela, San Fernando Mission, 1992. "I guess I was disappointed in some ways by that focus, but if it brings my brother's music to the world, then I'm for it." Irma pointed to her young son Eddie, whose light skin and hazel eyes reflect what his uncle Ritchie must have looked like at 12. "He's my own little Ritchie," Connie Jr., his aunt chortled, as she hugged the embarrassed youngster. Waylon Jennings' first professional gig was playing bass with Buddy Holly (Jennings gave up his seat on the ill-fated flight that took the lives of Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in 1959). He still has a tremendous amount of admiration for Holly and enjoys reminiscing about the old days with one of rock 'n' roll's founding fathers. "I learned the rockabilly thing from him. He was one of the first people who ever had any confidence in me. If he had lived, he probably would have owned studios because he loved creating. He really did, and he was really good at it. "He always understood what he was doing and what he wanted to do. He was almost like a teacher. I'd hear him talking with Dion & the Belmonts and everything; he had some great ideas. He was going to do an album of blues-type stuff that he was writing. He loved Ray Charles, and he was gonna do the kind of riffs that Ray Charles did at the piano on his guitar. "He was very, very smart--that's the only way to describe him. He was always thinking, and he didn't compromise in any way when it came to his music." --Waylon Jennings, May 18, 1996 Bob Morales, Ritchie's older stepbrother, interrupted. "Even though Luis Valdez (the film's screenwriter and director) used his own interpretation of what happened, it couldn't have been any closer for me. . . . It was almost too close." Morales, 50, who has lived in Watsonville since the early '70s, once wanted to be a fireman and, later on, an illustrator. He saved many animated gels from Walt Disney's Buena Vista's studios when he worked briefly as a garbage collector, he said. (The film, however, shows him finding Woody Woodpecker and Buzz Buzzard gels at Columbia Pictures--"La Bamba's" distributor.) After many family difficulties and some trouble with the law, he finally matured and settled down. He worked as a counselor in a drug/alcohol abuse program in the '70s and today is married with eight children and is self-employed as an upholsterer-mechanic. "I rejoined the family in 1952 because Ritchie was real upset over my (step) Dad's death." It was Bob's turn to recall his half-brother's memory. Dressed in black leather pants with a colorful jacket and Indian jewelry, he was undeniably an older version of the rebel and womanizer portrayed in the film. Morales reluctantly admitted, as his younger sisters teased him, that his mom beat him up one night when he arrived home in a drunken state. However, in the film this incident is colored by Valdez who allows Morales to escape his mother's wrath with his machismo intact. Another real-life incident handled differently in the film is when Morales takes Valens to a Tijuana brothel where Ritchie pays little attention to the ladies, but is fascinated by the musicians performing the traditional Mexican folk song, "La Bamba." Valens was later to electrify and immortalize "La Bamba" in 1959 as the first Spanish-language song to make it onto the top 10 pop charts. The song peaked on the charts a few weeks after his death. "I never took Ritchie to that brothel. We had gone to Tijuana several times on a family trip with all the kids. We still have pictures in an album of the kids posed with a typical donkey. I, of course, was the one that had wound up in the red-light district on several occasions," he smiled mischievously. (Actually, Valens' inspiration for the creation of "La Bamba" as a Latin rock song took place during his childhood when he would listen to it at family gatherings where Mexican music was played, according to his sister Connie. She said his mentor and "uncle" Dickie Cota taught the boy how to strum a guitar and how to sing it in Spanish. Connie Valenzuela said: "Ritchie never spoke in Spanish because his dad never did. I of course still speak it, but when I was around his father I never would.") Ritchie Valens' mother shook her head. The conversation seemed to have put her in a jovial mood. Asked why her personalized license plates on her late model Cadillac bear the words "Hi-Tone," Mrs. Valenzuela confessed it came from one of Ritchie's songs by the same name. "You know in the movie, some of the kids call him 'Hi Tone,' but that wasn't actually his nickname. It was sort of a slang expression for something or someone that was fancy or stuck-up. Latin people would say, ' Eso es hi-tone' (that's real fancy). And since Ritchie would dress up real sharp, they'd refer to him as 'hi tone' when he did." Not all of the Valenzuela family's memories are quite as pleasant. One incident involved the house that Ritchie bought his mother months before his death. The house was heavily damaged by fire in 1967 and Ritchie's gold record for "Donna" and one of his guitars were destroyed, along with other mementos. Dealing with Ritchie's former manager and promoter Bob Keane (who spelled his last name "Keene" until 1970) hasn't been so simpatico, either. The Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, is hosting 50 Winters Later, a tribute concert Feb. 2, 2009. The concert is sold out. However there is a guest book with readers' comments.  There is also a video. "You know Bob Keane has controlled Ritchie's music for all these years. Oh, I get a bit of money now and then. BMI sends me a statement. But do you know that Keane presented me with a bill of $4,000 for Ritchie's funeral? And that '57 black and silver-chromed Thunderbird (it's blue in the movie) that Keane gave Ritchie? Well, he kept it in his garage after I lost Ritchie. We went over to his house one day to get it away from him"--Connie Valenzuela's voice was stern as she continued--"but he kept insisting it was his." Keane, an L.A. big band leader and record producer, has just released a 12-inch Latin dance cut--"La Bamba '87"--using an alternate take of Valens' vocal track recorded during the original 1958 session). He said Valenzuela's charges are "ridiculous." "She was in worse financial condition than I was," he said in a Sunset Boulevard Mexican food eatery. "I put up over $7,000 so they'd ship the kid's body back and put him in a decent coffin. I still have the check somewhere." As far as the Thunderbird, Keane said: "I may have told Ritchie at one time that if he kept doing as well as he was, I might get him a car. But I never really promised him one." "Chantilly Lace" "That'll Be the Day" "American Pie" Somehow, Connie Valenzuela seems more resigned than angry about these incidents. At the end of 1987, all music publishing rights to Valens' compositions will revert to her. The recordings, however, are another matter. The masters of Valens' recordings are owned by Keane "in perpetuity," according to Keane, and he has licensed the rights to Rhino Records. Unprepared for the sudden fame that Ritchie's music generated, Connie Valenzuela was also completely unaware of the world of contracts and music rights. When Keane's partner, the late Herb Montie, contacted her about a managing contract for her son, Ritchie was already playing clubs and being recorded by Keane. "One day Herb called me and said to sign a contract just in case anything might happen to Ritchie; otherwise, I wouldn't get anything. So I did. I got an insurance policy on his life." (Later, she collected double indemnity on that policy.) When Valens died, his first album hadn't even been released yet (though the film shows Keane giving them out at record hops). "It took them eight days to send Ritchie's body back from Iowa. They didn't send him to me by plane. Instead, they sent him on a train to San Fernando. When they (Keane and associates) came in to the mortuary, they brought copies of the album. It had been released in those eight days since his death. I originally wasn't going to play the album because it was too painful. But I finally put on a brave front and said to myself, 'I'm going to play them before I bury him,' and I did." The years after Valens' death were lean ones. "We didn't want the memories brought back. Everyone wanted a contract for Ritchie's music. 'Mrs. Valenzuela, would you sign this contract on your living room table and send it back to us.' That's what one promoter wrote me." She then tried to manage an Asian-Mexican singer, Chan Romera, who gained some regional recognition in California with his version of "Hippy Hippy Shake." After attending a Ritchie Valens memorial dance here, she decided to move from Pacoima, which harbored many unhappy memories. In the '70s, the Valenzuela families were approached by Walter Ulloa, who was preparing a screenplay of Ritchie's life. The family gave him two years to come up with something. "He never was able to sell it. In fact, when Donna Ludwig (Ritchie's teen-age girlfriend whom he immortalized in the song "Donna") read the script, Ulloa had to change it because he had portrayed Donna's parents as bigots." Actually, Connie Valenzuela explained, Donna's mom liked Ritchie, it was her father who didn't. "I ultimately told him to forget about it," she said. When Danny Valdez (Luis' brother and associate producer of the film "La Bamba") finally connected with the Valenzuelas, they weren't interested in another film project. Valdez lives 15 miles away in San Juan Bautista (home for El Teatro Campesino, of which he and Luis are founding members). Ultimately, the Valenzuelas gave him five years to get the project together. It was completed two years ahead of the deadline. "He (Danny) plays my brother in the film," says Mrs. Valenzuela. "But they got it wrong. My brother was blond. Danny is dark. Oh well, that's Hollywood, I guess," she added, shifting her attention from the film "Jaws," which her grandchildren were watching in the living room. "I was a little nervous the first time I saw the film. I've gotten used to it now. I tire easily from a recent operation I had. But everything seems to be coming up real nice now." Guitarist Tommy Allsup describes flipping coin with Ritchie Valens for a seat on the plane. Ritchie's sister Irma, who is a preschool teacher in Watsonville and the mother of three kids herself, beamed as she talked about a brother she barely knew. She feels the film will be an inspiration for today's Latino youth. "They don't have to be macho or mean or cuss or take drugs to be a man. They will also see that it's OK to be sensitive, tender and care for their families, too." Connie Jr., a customer service rep for a local insurance company and the mother of two, summed up how she will always remember her brother Ritchie. "He was never too busy for us. Bob was out there with women and booze; Mom worked a lot, and my dad had left us. But we had Ritchie. He was like my mom, dad or best friend. He was always there for Irma and I. That's all we had. It was him."

Burbank Installs Time Capsule; Wilt Chamberlain Debuts in L.A., February 1, 1959

View Larger Map

The people living in 1959 had noble expectations for Burbank: Atomic power! Monorails! I wonder if anyone plans to actually pop it open this week. This is the bridge that spans the Golden State Freeway, the railroad tracks and the river channel. Detroit promises to address two major complaints about cars: Poor workmanship and fuel economy. Yes, The Times once led the nation in newspaper advertising. Wilt Chamberlain scored 40 points in what The Times called his Southland debut, leading his team to an 85-74 victory at the Pan Pacific Auditorium. Wilt's teammates spent most of the night clowning around. The Harlem Globetrotters have been about basketball and comedy for a long time, so Chamberlain must have been an unlikely part of the cast. "It's difficult to say how well the great Chamberlain will fare in the NBA off his Trotter showing," Mal Florence wrote in The Times. "But one thing for sure, the big fella is agile and knows what to do under the basket." Here's a quick look at Wilt with the Trotters. --Keith Thursby

Jewish Home for the Aged -- Ida Mayer Cummings

Photograph by Ken Dare / Los Angeles Times Ida Mayer Cummings, Dec. 15, 1957.

Alicia Mayer Beverley writes from Australia: I ran across your blog entry on the 1957 Women of the Year. My great-grandmother Ida Mayer Cummings is one of them (she's to the left of the "Women of the Year" banner). While I'm sure you won't be heading into this territory again, I thought I might clarify her background as she was in no way obscure. Ida Mayer Cummings was the older sister and closest confidante of her brother Louis B Mayer. She was also the mother of famed producer Jack Cummings who produced many MGM favorites, such as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and most of the Elvis films. Both of her sons-in-laws were also very active producers. Los Angeles Times file photograph From left, Ida Mayer Cummings, Mrs. Adolph Weinberg, George Murphy, Adolph Weinberg and Louis B. Mayer with a portrait of Ida Mayer Cummings presented to the Jewish Home for the Aged, Feb. 19, 1951. But on her own account, she was one of the best known philanthropists of her time and was known by famous actors and Hollywood types as well as politicians and even world leaders through her fundraising activity. She wrote hundreds of letters to some of the world's most powerful people, encouraging them to give generously to the Jewish Home for the Aged, and in fact, they all seemed to write in return as I have seen folders and folders of letters to and fro. Today, her legacy carries on through the same organization which was renamed some years ago to Associates IMC (Ida Mayer Cummings). They still hold several annual events (a ball and a luncheon), all of which span back 80 years or more to when she started them. Bob Hope once said of Ida that she was "the only woman I know who can reach through the telephone and grab a man by the lapels!" While her generation has mainly all gone, there are still a handful of very old women who tell you that "everbody knew Ida". She evidently was the female, philanthropic version of her little brother Louis B Mayer, and in fact, they are interred together, along with their brothers Gerald and Ruben Mayer. So there's a little bit more insight into a woman I am very proud of. In fact, exactly 50 years after she was named a 1957 Woman of the Year, I was given the International Women's Day Most Inspiring Leader award here in Australia where I have lived for 20 years. Thank you for your time Larry and thank you so much for covering that piece. It brought tears to my eyes. Best, Alicia Mayer Beverley