Hollywood – Page 5 – 1947 Project

Los Angeles demands goats for fire safety

Frankie the Fire Goat is on Myspace… be his friend?

Please click here to sign our petition demanding fire-fighting goats to protect our city! Please note, protest signatures will not appear or be counted. (Below, Channel 7’s Elsa Ramon with Frankie the Fire Goat)

To: City of LA/ L.A. Department of Recreation and Parks

The citizens of Los Angeles are deeply concerned after serious wildfires in the Griffith Park and Hollywood Hills have destroyed vast swaths of urban wilderness and killed or displaced thousands of animals during their breeding season.

These fires feed upon unchecked dry undergrowth, and endanger lives, homes, historic monuments and our enjoyment of the city. It will take decades before Griffith Park is restored to its pre-fire condition.

We the undersigned demand that the City of Los Angeles and the L.A. Department of Recreation and Parks respond to this continued threat by bringing in shepherds with herds of goats to graze on the dry hills, a plan previously implemented with great success by UC Berkeley in the aftermath of that community’s devastating 1991 fire.

Goats are economical, ecological fire-fighting machines that produce fertilizer as they clear hills and canyons of weeds, poison oak and dry chaparral. Additionally, the animals are charming, newsworthy ambassadors for fire safety, a subject that needs to be more widely discussed.

We want to save our parks and mountains. We want goats!

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Please click here to sign our petition demanding fire-fighting goats to protect our city! Please note, protest signatures will not appear or be counted.

Daddy Dearest

May 8, 1927
Hollywood

“What’s a father to do?” lamented Dr. Eric R. Wilson today, after his 17-year-old daughter, Dorothy, accused him of beating her and taking her money before throwing her out of the house. Police officers escorted the girl to Juvenile Hall after they discovered her, hysterical, outside the family home at 176 North Mansfield Avenue, Hollywood. Their first stop, however, was at Receiving Hospital, where Dorothy was treated for a broken nose, injuries to her eyes, and bruises to her lips and body.

Wilson admitted he “slapped” Dorothy after he and his wife returned from the theater last night and observed shadowy figures slipping out the side entrance as they entered the front door. Dorothy denied she had gentlemen callers while her parents were out. “She lied to me, and I make no apology for it,” said Wilson. “I slapped her down. She hit the side of the davenport and rolled on the floor, and then she pulled the hysterical stuff.” He denied taking Dorothy’s money or ordering her to leave home.

According to her father, among other wild pranks, Dorothy broke into garages and took cars without their owners’ permission (some might call this grand theft auto, but not Dr. Wilson). “I tried everything to make her happy,” the put-upon father continued, “I gave her an allowance of $50 a month and promised her a roadster if she would pass in her studies, but it did no good. She is incorrigible; she was put out of Hollywood High School; I tried to place her in the Ramona convent and they wouldn’t take her.”

Officials at Juvenile Hall confirmed that Dorothy Wilson was incommunicado pending an interview with a policewoman.

The Street Crime of the Day

May 1, 1927
Los Angeles

In the Times today, a round-up of street crime incidents calculated to terrorize city residents, or at least discourage freelance musicians, good Samaritans and lingering outside a lady’s home in an open car–sheesh, buddy, get a room.

Clarinetist Antonio Cili thought he was being hired to play a gig when three gentlemen picked him up at Sixth and Broadway, drove to Fourth and Pecan, tossed him from the car, beat him silly and stole his instrument and $20.

Jennie Emerson of 2611 Vallejo Street was nearly run down in the street while crossing at Daly and Manitou in Lincoln Heights, and while recovering her wits confronted by the armed driver and his pal, who threatened to kill her before stealing her purse.

A bandit robbed J. Maganuma of $40 cash and a serving of chop suey at his restaurant at 4911 South Broadway. It was not reported if Mr. Maganuma spat in the food, but we certainly hope so.

A. Eisner was carjacked at First and New Hampshire, forced to drive to Sixth and Lucas and relieved of his $100 stick pin, $40 watch and $8 cash. Maybe it’s Eisner’s home address of 5579 Santa Monica Boulevard or the fancy stick pin that gives this brief tale the whiff of rough trade, or possibly we just have dirty minds.

Joseph Michael, while strolling by a doorway near First and Main was lassoed by a couple of rope-wielding miscreants who strangled Michael into unconsciousness and stole $35, this just two blocks from Central Police HQ.

Kindly Arthur Roper was driving along (now defunct) California Street near Figueroa when he spied a fashionably garbed young lady in apparent distress in the middle of the road. He stopped to lend aid and her friend hopped onto Roper’s running board with a revolver, which was clapped to Roper’s chest while the gal riffled his pockets of $53 cash.

And then there was Jacob L. Johannes of 228 South Rodeo Drive, who was sitting in a car with Miss Marie Boucher outside her home at 5806 Carlton Way when a fiend with a revolver relieved the lady of a $1000 fur coat, $75 watch and $50 bar pin. Johannes lost $6 cash. Buddy, you can’t afford a room… or Miss Boucher.

Now be careful out there!

Silly Fads

graumanschinese

April 30, 1927
Los Angeles

This Sid Grauman character is one kooky kat. First he builds a theater in foo-dog replete Chinesque, and now he’s decided to record Pickford and Fairbanks in the forecourt’s cement—pedally, manually, and chirographiocally. When the theater opens in two weeks, will the paving stones be filled with yet more of these Bertillon hieroglyphics? We hope not.

In other news, while everyone knows that the area of greatest density in Los Angeles is centered around First and Flower, it is said westwardho that the center of population is moving horribly, inexorably westward. Alfred T. Pelton, president of Interstate Mortgage and Investment Company, feels that Los Angeles’ extremely low density is sadly due to there being too many single family homes. As people bleed west into the Wilshire, Westlake and Hollywood districts, Pelton and his ilk are stirring up builders and investors to erect multifamily structures. While there is talk of Hollywood and Highland becoming a corner of note, we here at the Project know it will never displace Los Angeles’ top thriving business center–Brooklyn and Soto.

No Babies Wanted

pdmheadline April 29, 1927
Hollywood

There’s nothin’ a kid likes more than a writ of habeus corpus!

Darling Priscilla Dean Moran is being sought by Sheriff’s deputies to-day, after being kidnapped and spirited away by "new owners" John and Myrtle Ragland to some cottage in a Hollywood canyon. Mrs. Margaret Becker of Long Beach has stated that she is the aunt and deserves custody, while an Ella Schaber of Tulsa has sent a message to the judge asking for possession.

And why is this sundry so all-fire interested in Priscilla? Because the eight year-old lass is a juvenile star, and the small waif with large paycheck has been actively engaged in film work for some time, her last picture selling for 100k (1,180,180 USD2005).

The judge eventually ruled that Ragland and Schaber were trying to buy the child, and so she was, for better or worse, awarded to petitioner-for-the-writ Aunt Margaret. Read all about it here.

Bid Goodbye to All You Know

1927. Transatlantic telephone calls and transatlantic flight. The Model T gives way to Model A which shoot through the Holland Tunnel. Stalin takes control of Russian and Bavaria lifts its ban on Hitler”™s speeches. It”™s a new world.

And here in Hollywood, while the pictures begin to talk at you, the old world crumbles away.

lettssr

Arthur Letts turned a bankrupt Los Angeles dry goods store into the mighty Broadway Department Store chain, and this was his home to prove it.

lettssr

Please do not confuse this, the Letts Sr. house (and its world-famous gardens, all obliterated in 1927) with the Arthur Letts Jr. home.

For that house, designed by Arthur Kelly and built in 1927, still stands to this day.

charingcross

And proudly.

May 5 is a Black Dahlia Day

This Cinco de Mayo is just oozing with the spirit of the Black Dahlia. Not only will we be running our Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus tour that afternoon, but our pal Joe D’Augustine has his neo-noir, Dahlia-drenched flick One Night With You screening at the Los Feliz 3 as part of the 2007 Silverlake Film Festival. Unfortunately, these events overlap, but the film screens again at 7:30pm on 5/9, so if you’re clever, you can attend both and make it a Black Dahlia week. More info is below, and for tickets, click here.

ONE NIGHT WITH YOU USA 2006
DIRECTOR/WRITER: JOE D’AUGUSTINE

In this hip, offbeat flick, shot mainly in and around Echo Park, Jake Tarlow (Mark Boone Junior) is a down on his luck hustler who is trying to make enough dough to pay off his bookie. All he has to do is locate the reclusive and eccentric author Hunter Burnell, played with equal parts style, insanity and humor by Michael Parks, and bring him in to sign a deal for one of his books. Jake enlists the help of his friend Eddie (Jake La Botz,), who is completely obsessed with the Black Dahlia, to track him down. Then comes the problem of keeping him under control long enough to get him to the meeting, which quickly proves impossible. What follows is a hilarious wild goose chase through the streets of Los Angeles, with Jake and Eddie following a false trail to Hunter, who is busy having the time of his life with hookers, cocaine and bar fights. This film, a combination of film noir and physical comedy, is a fun romp through some of the Eastside’s hot spots with a fantastic soundtrack featuring contributions from two Italian film music masters, Alessandro Alessandroni and Antonello Vannucchi.

How to Meet a Big Movie Star

April 21, 1927 actorscar
Los Angeles

Angelenos had a rough time on the road today—Miss Rachel Miller was struck by Joseph J. Reuter as she crossed the 2600 block of Pico, suffering a fractured skull, concussion of the brain, a broken knee and leg; Henry Van De Kamp was struck by I. Tomioka at East Second and harlanpic Central, fractured skull, concussion of the brain; J. L. Perrine, who admitted his brakes were “not so good,” drove into and off of a 400-foot embankment on Effie in the Moreno Highlands, multiple abrasions; four motorists walked away when the front half of their auto was flattened by the Los Angeles Railway car at First and Hill; and one Miss Mollie Reesor miraculously suffered only black eyes and a nasal fracture after being hurled twenty-five feet by a hit-and-run at the corner of Washington Street and Harvard Boulevard.

Most notable, naturally, was the pedestrian-killing of Mrs. Eleanor Bishop, fatally injured when run down by prolific film star Kenneth Harlan, of 810 Camden Drive. Harlan, on his way to a benefit at the Alexandria, stated harlanprevost that the woman stepped from behind a parked car near Wilshire and Tremaine. After he struck Bishop, he drove her to the office of Dr. James Johnston at Sixth and Western, where she nonetheless expired. Assuming Harlan still had time to make the benefit, his day looked like this.

(Here’s Harlan putting the lovey dovey on then-wife [and subject of continued tasteless interest] Marie Prevost. They divorced in 1927.)

Diver Down

April 20, 1927
Los Angeles

When evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, the anointed queen of Echo Park’s Angelus Temple, went to Ocean Park Beach last May 18 and faked her own disappearance so she could run off with a boyfriend, even she could not have anticipated the hysteria that followed. For while her theological appearances were occasion for outpourings of public adoration, in vanishing, she moved into a new realm of fame.

Congregants promptly offered a $25,000 reward for the return of their favorite alive, though she was widely presumed drowned. Word of the reward passed like quicksilver among the community of professional divers, perhaps without the "alive" clause appended. One of these, Edgar Harrison, was already in town from Catalina to testify in an insanity case, and stopped off on his way home to take a dive off the end of amusement laden Lick Pier on May 25, where no sign of the missing woman was found. The water pressure exacerbated an attack of appendicitis, and Harrison died in agony. By the time Aimee stumbled out of the desert crying kidnap (a lie that was soon exposed), Edgar Harrison was in his grave.

Today, his widow Edna sat in court seeking $500 in death benefits that had been denied by the State Industrial Accident Commission, which claimed that Harrison was acting as a private citizen when he went diving for Aimee’s reward. Edna countered that her husband was operating under orders when he received his injuries, and further that she had been receiving threatening letters, ostensibly from the City of Los Angeles, suggesting that she seek payment from McPherson and Angelus Temple, and leave the city out of it.

McPherson’s mother Minnie Kennedy took the stand, and said she had known nothing of Edgar Harrison’s dive until she was invited to attend his funeral, and that she had sent flowers and $500 to the widow, the latter which was returned. Edna countered that indeed $500 had been proffered, by two "impudent" representatives of the Temple, but that when she suggested they talk with her lawyer they had snatched the money away, called her "a bitter woman" and stalked off.

Edgar Harrison was survived by two young children, Edgar Jr. and Lois.

The Snake and She

April 17, 1927
Hollywood Boulevard

That’s actually Sue Carol, 5’3", Fox Films player and daughter of late "Chicago capitalist" Samuel M. Lederer (and later, the agent who discovered, married and buried Alan Ladd), modeling the reversible panne velvet-lined rattlesnakeskin coat her mama sent from home. 64 snakes, averaging more than four feet each, went into the garment, which some are calling Eve’s revenge. Miss Carol is currently appearing in Slaves of Beauty, a satire of the beauty parlor scene featuring some wacky business with a magical clay that leaves the skin under it lookin twenty years younger. Wonder if it works on rattlesnakes?