February 11, 1947While visiting the home of producer Ray Stark and his wife, actress Gene Tierney stumbled on a rug and fell backwards down some steps, breaking her left foot. Miss Tierney is confined to a wheelchair and will be unable to return to work for two weeks.
Today is the anniversary of the Feb. 10, 1947, Jeanne French murder. Frequently linked to the Black Dahlia in the popular imagination and absurdly claimed as one of the umpteen victims of Dr. George “Evil Genius†Hodel in “Black Dahlia Avenger,†French was a tragic, broken-down alcoholic. Spending the last night of her life in a Westside cafe, she dumped the contents of her purse on the bar and picked through the debris in hopes of finding enough money for just one more drink. She had no paper money, nothing more than a few coins. Whoever killed her beat her with the handle of a socket wrench, pushed her out of his car into the street and stomped on her until a rib broke and punctured her heart. A bleak, terrible death.
Her son, David Wrather, told the coroner’s inquest: “She’s gone now and I’m sure she would want me to say the right thing-she made a lot of her own trouble.â€
Memo from Alex J. Wysocki: “if you wanna rob my liquor store, don’t start by saying ‘Hi, Pop’!”
That was the message learned the hard way by the young gunman who held Wysocki up at 21923 S. Main Street for $150 and two bottles of whiskey, then went in the back to rummage for more plunder. Meanwhile, Wysocki fumed. “Pop? Pop?!” When the kid emerged from the storeroom, Wysocki shot him four times with his .38. The robber ran off, his own gun clicking ineffectually.
A few hours later, a friend dropped the gut-shot 24-year-old Eugene L. Dodson at San Pedro Hospital. When Dodson refused to say how he’d been injured, Det. Lt. Thomas H. Rankin remembered a Sheriff’s broadcast about the hold up and booked the injured man on suspicion of robbery. He was conveyed to the prison ward of General Hospital for surgery, which is where Wysocki ID’d him as the smartass who’d called him “Pop.”
Transient Richard Dennis, 33, broke into Mrs. G.B. Blakeley’s home at 2730 Medford Street and absconded with the one thing most appealing to a sleepy sneak thief: an alarm clock. Unfortunately, he made it no farther than the front lawn before tucking in for a nice snooze. When the alarm went off, Richard slept right through it, but neighbors copped the buzz and called police, who nabbed the man on suspicion (strong suspicion) of burglary.
Harry Crocker will be making his own breakfast if his neighbors on N. Westbourne Drive have anything to do with it. Six of them have successfully sued to have Mrs. Isabel Crocker and daughters Alicia, Jean and Muriel evicted on the grounds that the mother is 3/4 Indian and the girls half so afflicted.
Although Superior Judge Ruben S. Schmidt ruled Thursday that the women must leave their home, in a neighborhood where residence is restricted to Caucasians, the distaff Crockers vow to fight all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. Schmidt did grant the family thirty days in which to secure new dwellings for the those Crockers of mixed blood, noting that the Mister, a film cameraman, was welcome to remain at number 435 alone.
Here’s the house. I mean, it’s fine, yeah, it’s West Hollywood, so you’re there for the schools or the nightlife or something equally repellant. In defense of the neighborhood, this house is markedly less attractive than any of its neighbors. 
This instance, some Chinese and Korean lawsuits, and the Sugar Hill Gang, no wait, the Sugar Hill Case, all led to racial covenants being deemed unconstitutional in 1948, but it is this squaw’s tenacious fortitude (as had by, you know, those people) shall forever be remembered as how and when Los Angeles became the beautiful rainbow it is.
Statistics regarding a post-Supreme Court rise in scalpings and/or purushamedha have not been evaluated. (Ok, so if you want the real story, go to the comments section.)
While helping to unload a 15-ton marble slab from a freight car at his place of employment, 1801 South Soto Street, Ray Hunt, 43, was crushed to death. The dead man lived at 1706 Wall Street.
The marble company, its freight car-have been lost to the ticking clock. As shall happen to you, dear reader. Tick. Tick. Every untoward choice you choose makes that slab of marble you’re unloading just that much heavier.
Mr. Wolfe seemed flabbergasted, said he had paid Douglas’ publishers to use the quotes, and promised he would check into the matter, and apologize if he’d made a mistake. While Larry waits for that apology, he’s holding his nose and reading Wolfe’s daffy tome, and blogging his reactions. Only on page 6, he’s already gone debunked the claims that there was no nightlife in 1947 L.A., that the Examiner printed a huge-selling extra on the day of the Dahlia killing, and Wolfe’s absurd claims of having been “raised on the wrong side of the tracks in Beverly Hills.”
Larry warns “if you’re not into Dahlia minutiae this will be painfully tedious.” Tune in and see for yourself.
The war came home to the Valley today when an A-26 bomber conducting airflow tests accidentally disgorged an unarmed 12′ missile, which crashed to the ground in a parking lot uncomfortably close to a home at 1730 Keeler Street.
Worried neighbors circled warily until Burbank Police Lt. K.K. Kipers determined the torpedo posed no danger to the public. The plane meanwhile had continued to a rushed landing at Murac Army Air Base, pilot Captain S. D. McFadden complaining of ill-handling after a dive, but not realizing he’d dropped anything.
