Historic Hollywood Sites

Discussion of the actors, directors and film-makers who 'made it all happen'
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Rita Hayworth
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Re: Historic Hollywood Sites

Post by Rita Hayworth »

Thanks for sharing these tibits of information ... time after time ... on your thread. Lzcutter. I always enjoyed reading them.
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Re: Historic Hollywood Sites

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kingme,

Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad you are enjoying all the pictures and the info!
Lynn in Lake Balboa

"Film is history. With every foot of film lost, we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us, to each other and to ourselves."

"For me, John Wayne has only become more impressive over time." Marty Scorsese

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Re: Historic Hollywood Sites

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This is one of my favorite Youtube videos. It was created for another great Getty Foundation event: Pacific Standard Time: Modern Architecture in Los Angeles. It's another multi-museum exhibit of mid-century modern architecture.

This video shows Hollywood Blvd in 1973 and in 2002. The good news is that a decade plus later, many of those buildings are still standing. Many of them date back to the classic era of Hollywood.

Enjoy!

[youtube][/youtube]


and here is Hollywood Blvd in 1965:

[youtube][/youtube]
Lynn in Lake Balboa

"Film is history. With every foot of film lost, we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us, to each other and to ourselves."

"For me, John Wayne has only become more impressive over time." Marty Scorsese

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Rita Hayworth
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Re: Historic Hollywood Sites

Post by Rita Hayworth »

This is so neat, Lzcutter and thanks for posting it. :)
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rerun
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Re: Historic Hollywood Sites

Post by rerun »

You can't imagine how I have enjoyed seeing these pictures. There were so many I have been to when they were in full swing. Thanks so for getting them all together.
[color=#0000BF][i]Avatar: John Cantarini (Martha's husband) on future world record holder Crazy Kid. He won six in a row
on him.[/i][/color]
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Re: Historic Hollywood Sites

Post by moira finnie »

Welcome, rerun! So glad that you enjoyed this thread. Lynn (lzcutter) is such a wonderful source of information for us. Hope you'll enjoy the message board. Talk to you later :wink:
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Re: Historic Hollywood Sites

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rerun,

So glad you are enjoying the pictures and info in this thread! Please feel free to share any stories or info that you may have on some of the Hollywood sites you have visited!

I came across a treasure trove of historic City of Angels photos and will be adding to this thread soon!
Lynn in Lake Balboa

"Film is history. With every foot of film lost, we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us, to each other and to ourselves."

"For me, John Wayne has only become more impressive over time." Marty Scorsese

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Re: Historic Hollywood Sites

Post by Lzcutter »

Our recent guest author, Mary Mallory, has written a piece for the LA Daily News on the Witch's House just in time for Halloween!:

http://ladailymirror.com/2013/10/28/mar ... more-14231
Lynn in Lake Balboa

"Film is history. With every foot of film lost, we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us, to each other and to ourselves."

"For me, John Wayne has only become more impressive over time." Marty Scorsese

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rerun
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Re: Historic Hollywood Sites

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moirafinnie wrote:I came across a website called Southern California Architectural History with tons of info about the unique architecture of that part of the world. Perhaps this is of interest to others who are enjoying Lynn's posting here:
http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/
Interesting about the architectural history. Here is a little known tidbit. Jerome Courtland's mother was married to either Walter Wurdeman or Welton Beckett!
(the Capitol Records Building, Pan Pacific Auditorium, Bullocks Pasadena, etc. etc etc. I dated him for a while but have forgotten which one it was.
This thread of Hollywood is absolutely wonderful. That is the Hollywood I knew and it really brings back the memories. I worked my way through Hollywood Professional School by cashiering at the Egyptian theater and lastly Warner Bros. For the premier of Night and Day they sent me to Warner's for a strapless black velvet dress, hair, makeup etc and I stood in the foyer with a spot light on me directing ticket holders. Oh my what memories!
[color=#0000BF][i]Avatar: John Cantarini (Martha's husband) on future world record holder Crazy Kid. He won six in a row
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Re: Historic Hollywood Sites

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rerun,

Thank you kindly! You dated Welton! Wow!!!!

I consider Welton Beckett the patron saint of mid-century modern Los Angeles. I love his architecture. From Capitol Records in Hollywood to Bullocks in Pasadena to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Beckett helped define the architecture of the post-war City of Angels.

The latest preservation fight regarding his work is the battle to preserve the Santa Monica Civic. Years of neglect have treated her badly and the city would just as soon tear her down and start over. Hopefully something can be worked out as we have lost too many of Beckett's buildings over the years.

Here's an old news report about Welton and the building of Century City:

[youtube][/youtube]
Lynn in Lake Balboa

"Film is history. With every foot of film lost, we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us, to each other and to ourselves."

"For me, John Wayne has only become more impressive over time." Marty Scorsese

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rerun
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Re: Historic Hollywood Sites

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Lzcutter wrote:rerun,

Thank you kindly! You dated Welton! Wow!!!!

I consider Welton Beckett the patron saint of mid-century modern Los Angeles. I love his architecture. From Capitol Records in Hollywood to Bullocks in Pasadena to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Beckett helped define the architecture of the post-war City of Angels.

The latest preservation fight regarding his work is the battle to preserve the Santa Monica Civic. Years of neglect have treated her badly and the city would just as soon tear her down and start over. Hopefully something can be worked out as we have lost too many of Beckett's buildings over the years.

Here's an old news report about Welton and the building of Century City:

[youtube][/youtube]
No-no Ha! I dated Jerome Courtland. His mother was married to either Wurdeman or Beckett I don't remember which one it was.
[color=#0000BF][i]Avatar: John Cantarini (Martha's husband) on future world record holder Crazy Kid. He won six in a row
on him.[/i][/color]
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Re: Historic Hollywood Sites

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Image
Jerome Courtland, who had a role in Wellman's Battleground (1949) and John Sturges' The Walking Hills (1949) as well as many films and television shows in the '50s, died in 2012. A complete obituary for this likable individual can be seen here.

Mr. Courtland later worked at Disney on and off camera and at Aaron Spellings productions behind the camera as both a director and a producer. His mother was Mary Jourolmon, a professional singer. Martha, he was very cute!

Here's a lovely compilation of clips from his multi-faceted career put together by his son, Kurt:
[youtube][/youtube]
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Re: Historic Hollywood Sites

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We take a detour of sorts out of Hollywood and head west a bit to Beverly Hills for:

The Street Where They Lived (courtesy of Vanity Fair and author Todd Purdum from April 1999):

One ordinary evening when the world was still young, the telephone rang at 1000 North Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills, just as the family who lived there was sitting down to dinner. It was the next-door neighbor, wondering if the family was home, and asking the man of the house to leave the back door open.

A few minutes later, the unmistakable creaky sounds of America’s most famous bad violinist came floating through the big white Colonial house, and Jack Benny strolled into the dining room in his trademark Gypsy scarf. The hostess, a redhead by the name of Lucille Ball, collapsed in laughter, and her husband, Gary Morton, offered the perennial 39-year-old a tip.

“Which he took, of course—totally straight-faced,” Ball’s daughter, Lucie Arnaz, recalls, laughing all over again at the retelling, nearly 40 years later. “And he runs out the front door, because he knows just how long he has before the next tour bus to get home. And the next thing we hear is this voice yelling, ‘Mary … oh, Maaaaaaaary,’ because he’s locked out. And the next bus comes up, and imagine what those people must have thought: Jack Benny locked out of his own house with his Gypsy violin.”

It sounds like an episode of I Love Lucy or The Jack Benny Show, and it could have been. But it was just a regular real-life moment in the days when Beverly Hills still seemed more like Bedford Falls, and the two-block stretch of Roxbury Drive north of Sunset Boulevard was perhaps the starriest street in that small town. Ball and Benny were only the beginning of the gang that, at one time or another from the mid-30s through the 90s, lived the highest version of the California dream in this stately neighborhood, where the streets have the names of old English towns.

Just across Lexington Road from Lucy, on the same side of the street, the Jimmy Stewarts lived at No. 918, and across from them, on the west side of Roxbury, lived the Oscar Levants. Up from them were José Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney, who lived next to Ira and Leonore “Lee” Gershwin, who lived next to Agnes Moorehead, who played Stewart’s mother in The Stratton Story. She was just down the way from Thomas Mitchell, who played Stewart’s befuddled Uncle Billy in It’s a Wonderful Life. Eddie Cantor, Jack Haley, Hedy Lamarr, and Polly Bergen all lived on Roxbury, and so did Pandro Berman, the producer of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals at RKO. Diane Keaton, Peter Falk, and Clooney live there still. (Remember, the article was written in 1999).

It’s almost impossible to scratch the surface of Hollywood history without revealing a ribbon of Roxbury underneath. It’s the street where Russ Columbo, the 30s crooner who was Bing Crosby’s only rival, was accidentally shot with an antique dueling pistol, in the house where George Gershwin wrote “Love Is Here to Stay”—the same house where George Clooney began his career as a gofer and driver for his aunt Rosemary. (Rosemary says that in the 50s, when she used to record radio shows with Crosby in the house, he never wanted to set foot in the den, where Columbo had been shot.)

It’s the street where Citizen Kane’s mother and Cyrano de Bergerac lived on either side of the man who wrote “The Man That Got Away,” whose goddaughter, Liza Minnelli, named for another of his lyrics, celebrated her earliest birthdays in his elegant backyard. It’s the street where James Stewart grew sweet corn and tomatoes for the neighbors and walked the golden retrievers named for his twin daughters, Kelly and Judy.

“We had these Chinese people for our help,” Lucie Arnaz recalls, “and one day Mr. Stewart came by with fresh corn and cabbages at the back door. And he got the cook yelling, ‘She no home, she no home! No veg-e-table! We got veg-e-table man, come all the time!’ and she slammed the door in his face and wouldn’t take his present, and he had to go home and call and say, ‘W-w-w-aaaaaal, L-l-l-ucy … ’ ”

Art often imitated life. The Stewarts repeatedly played themselves on Benny’s television show. Benny and Ball appeared as guests of each other’s, Ferrer and Cantor as guests of Levant’s. Benny began his 1951 television season with a tour bus driving through Beverly Hills. As the announcer calls out the stars’ homes, the camera cuts to scenes of the stars themselves, until finally, 30 seconds before the show ends, the driver announces Benny’s home and Benny himself pipes up from the back, “Driver, I get off here.” In one 1955 episode of I Love Lucy, Lucy and Ethel bound off a tour bus and head toward what is supposed to be Richard Widmark’s house for the episode in which Lucy winds up in a bearskin rug, but the second-unit shot is of Ball’s own house.

“When I first visited Los Angeles before moving here, and took the obligatory movie-stars tour, I was struck by the fact that so many of the celebrities they mentioned were deceased,” says Michael Feinstein, the pianist and cabaret singer, who arrived from Columbus, Ohio, in 1976 as a piano salesman but soon found himself working as Ira Gershwin’s musical secretary. “And I realized that those tours really traded on nostalgia and memory, because that sort of glamour was long gone. Except, as it turned out, on Roxbury Drive, because such a collection of celebrities still lived there.”

“It was an amazing two blocks,” says Joan Benny, who grew up in the brick Georgian house that her parents built in 1937, complete with a mosaic octopus in the swimming pool, and who still dreams about “every inch of it. Jack Haley Jr. used to push me out of my carriage. He was a little brat. But then, so was I.”

Some of the most famous faces in show business lived side by side on Roxbury—without fear—amid the constant rumble of groaning buses filled with tourists, who called to them and rang their doorbells. The Bennys kept 8-by-10 glossies in a drawer of the hall table, “and if my father happened to be in the vicinity, he’d answer the door,” Joan Benny recalls. Kelly Stewart Harcourt remembers that to the end of her life her mother, Gloria, referred to the ritzy shopping area of Rodeo Drive just blocks away as “the village.”

How friendly people were,” Benny says, “and how open everything was.” People left their doors unlocked, and the worst worry was being stopped, as Clooney and Ferrer once were, for violating the Beverly Hills curfew by walking home from a party at the Bennys’ without ID. Lucy, dressed in full witch regalia with blacked-out teeth, handed out candy at her front door on Halloween, with a Desilu studio guard standing by, and Lee Gershwin made a daily pilgrimage to Nate ’n’ Al’s delicatessen in her Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. Once, late in life, Mrs. G., as she was known to the Beverly Hills police, forgot where she’d parked, and a patrolman squired her around till she found the car.

“It was a rather small area, in which you lived very close to all of your friends,” says Fred DeCordova, who was a producer of Benny’s show and later of Johnny Carson’s, and who at 88 is still a special consultant to The Tonight Show. “I know there are great stars and all of that today, but in those days it was a much more tightly knit community.”

“It was an absolutely great time,” says the composer David Raksin, 86, who came to Hollywood in 1935 to help Charlie Chaplin write the score for Modern Times, and who knew the Gershwins and Levants. “There was an aliveness which was wonderful. There was not the situation one finds now, where you never see your colleagues unless there’s a board meeting.”

Today, many of the biggest stars live in gated enclaves or on private streets without sidewalks in Pacific Palisades, with security cameras and bodyguards and phalanxes of functionaries to fend off stray fans and stalkers.

“You know, they’re all, like, living in Attica,” says the screenwriter Leonard Gershe, 76, who regularly had Christmas dinner at the Stewarts’, was a pallbearer at Benny’s funeral, and played poker at the Gershwins’ with Angie Dickinson and director Richard Brooks. “I mean, Jimmy and Gloria, they never had a problem. People did come to their door, but it was all very friendly. I don’t think, well, Leonardo DiCaprio is going to get away with that. It doesn’t exist anymore.”

For more of this great article: http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/arch ... bury199904
Lynn in Lake Balboa

"Film is history. With every foot of film lost, we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us, to each other and to ourselves."

"For me, John Wayne has only become more impressive over time." Marty Scorsese

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Re: Historic Hollywood Sites

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Great article. I can imagine trick or treating there and getting candy from Witch Lucy. :) Simpler times, and better ones, in many ways.
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Rita Hayworth
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Re: Historic Hollywood Sites

Post by Rita Hayworth »

Thanks for sharing this Lzcutter and I was amazed about the "The Village" and the Halloween trick and treating experiences and the whole nine yards aspects of. This is one cool thing that you shared of Hollywood Life back then. I appreciate it very much. :)
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