The Melchizedek Communique has been quite busy lately even if it hasn't been writing about the Lincoln Assassination. It's one of the few places to follow the curious death of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen, even though authorities now claim case closed, that she was killed by supposed lone gunman Harold Smith. But as MC notes:
Harold Smith had allegedly bragged about killing Ronni Chasen. He reportedly claimed he was waiting to receive $10,000 for assassinating Chasen. Several persons close to Ronni Chasen have described her murder as a professional hit. "A lot of people think it's a hit. A lot," said singer-songwriter Carol Connors, a friend of Chasen for more than 35 years. Kathie Berlin, a publicist and close friend of Chasen, said, "I knew this was a professional hit from the minute I heard about where the shots went and the number of shots." "This was clearly a targeted hit," said a veteran Hollywood film studio executive who has known Chasen for three decades.
Incidentally, Usually when attempted robbers shoot their victims five times at point blank range, they follow through with the actual robbery.
Patrick Goldstein, in a smug LA Times piece to dismiss most of the mystery surrounding the murder, had to admit that "it seems as if everyone in town agrees on one thing: the Beverly Hills Police Department’s explanation that Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen was killed by a small-time crook in a botched midnight robbery is utter hogwash."
So if it wasn't a random murder, what's really behind her death? Theories that have been floating on the Web include gambling debts by a close Chasen friend or family member, a dispute over an art deal gone bad, shady investments in one of the productions she was involved with and a petty squabble over Oscar campaigns. A common bad guy in many of these theories is the Russian Mafia, which is probably a great place to start in the mystery sniffing. MC tries to tie the Chasen murder with the infamous "Star Whackers" rant given by Hollywood actor turned fugitive Randy Quaid. Quaid's claim of "Star Whackers" has been derided in the press, and perhaps it is just the paranoid ramblings of a man who has lost his grip. But at this point, it's probably more credible than the official line.
For further reading:
Melchizedek Communique, MC122110
http://www.shout.net/~bigred/mc122110.html
Ronni Chasen: Dark theories over her slaying
Patrick Goldstein
December 13, 2010
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2010/12/ronni-chasen-a-victim-of-lurid-hollywood-conspiracy-theories.html
As a side note, MC points out the apartment Harold Smith lived in was next to the studio Ed Wood filmed Plan 9 From Outer Space. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the murder, but it's a pretty cool fact to know.
Showing posts with label Beverly Hills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beverly Hills. Show all posts
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Harold Smith 'Acted Alone' in Ronni Chasen Hit That Was 'Not Professional'
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/police-harold-smith-acted-ronni-57925
Police: Harold Smith 'Acted Alone' in Ronni Chasen Hit That Was 'Not Professional'
12/8/2010 by Daniel Miller
Detective Mike Publicker: 'This was a random act of violence; we believe it was most likely a robbery gone bad.'
Beverly Hills police believe that Ronni Chasen's murder was likely the result of a random, botched robbery attempted by Harold Smith, possibly on a bicycle.
"We believe Mr. Smith acted alone; we don't believe it was a professional hit," Beverly Hills Police Chief David Snowden said at today's 3 p.m. news conference in Beverly Hills.
Smith killed himself Dec. 1 in the lobby of a Hollywood apartment building just as police were attempting to question him in conjunction with the slaying of the 64-year-old publicist. Smith had been referred to by police as a "person of interest" in the Chasen investigation. Snowden said that preliminary police ballistics tests confirm the gun used in Smith's suicide and Chasen's murder is the same weapon.
"This was a random act of violence; we believe it was most likely a robbery gone bad," said detective Mike Publicker.
Publicker added that Smith, 43, may have been riding a bicycle when he attacked Chasen, though that has not been confirmed. The detective said that based on interviews police have conducted, Smith, an ex-convict, was at a "desperate point" in his life at the time of the attack.
A bicycle believed to have belonged to Smith was found at the apartment building — called the Harvey Apartments — where he committed suicide. The Los Angeles Police Department has possession of the bike, and it will be transferred to the Beverly Hills Police Department, Publicker said.
Chasen was killed Nov. 16 after attending the after-party for the premiere of Burlesque. It is believed the publicist was driving home to her Wilshire Boulevard residence when she was attacked. Chasen was shot at or near the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Whittier Drive. Beverly Hills residents called police at 12:28 a.m. on Nov. 16 to report gunshots.
Publicker's statement that Smith possibly rode a bicycle to carry out the attack is contrary to news reports that indicated police believed Chasen was gunned down by a shooter who fired out of a vehicle that pulled alongside her car while she was stopped at a traffic light at Sunset and Whittier.
Snowden said that the investigation is not complete. It is expected to take two weeks for the full ballistics tests to be completed. Also, the coroner's report has yet to be finalized, Publicker said.
Beverly Hills City Councilman Barry Brucker said that while the preliminary ballistics findings are encouraging, the case "continues to be active with many questions yet to be answered."
"Our superlative BHPD team should be congratulated for its methodical and professional approach to this criminal investigation," Brucker said.
At least one resident of the Harvey Apartments, the onetime home of Smith, told reporters that Smith had bragged about killing Chasen and was expecting to receive a payment of $10,000 -- in one instance saying the money was for a job and at another point saying the money stemmed from a lawsuit.
Snowden and Publicker declined to discuss video surveillance footage obtained by police. Last week THR reported that the police had reviewed video taken from a home on Whittier that shows Chasen's black Mercedes-Benz driving southbound down the street, slowing but not stopping at a stop sign at North Linden Drive, and continuing on briefly before crashing into a light pole.
Josh Zayon and Robbie Schaeffer, the residents who turned the surveillance footage from their home over to police, said that besides a Lincoln Town Car that can be seen driving past the accident scene moments after the crash, no other people or cars can be seen in the video.
Police: Harold Smith 'Acted Alone' in Ronni Chasen Hit That Was 'Not Professional'
12/8/2010 by Daniel Miller
Detective Mike Publicker: 'This was a random act of violence; we believe it was most likely a robbery gone bad.'
Beverly Hills police believe that Ronni Chasen's murder was likely the result of a random, botched robbery attempted by Harold Smith, possibly on a bicycle.
"We believe Mr. Smith acted alone; we don't believe it was a professional hit," Beverly Hills Police Chief David Snowden said at today's 3 p.m. news conference in Beverly Hills.
Smith killed himself Dec. 1 in the lobby of a Hollywood apartment building just as police were attempting to question him in conjunction with the slaying of the 64-year-old publicist. Smith had been referred to by police as a "person of interest" in the Chasen investigation. Snowden said that preliminary police ballistics tests confirm the gun used in Smith's suicide and Chasen's murder is the same weapon.
"This was a random act of violence; we believe it was most likely a robbery gone bad," said detective Mike Publicker.
Publicker added that Smith, 43, may have been riding a bicycle when he attacked Chasen, though that has not been confirmed. The detective said that based on interviews police have conducted, Smith, an ex-convict, was at a "desperate point" in his life at the time of the attack.
A bicycle believed to have belonged to Smith was found at the apartment building — called the Harvey Apartments — where he committed suicide. The Los Angeles Police Department has possession of the bike, and it will be transferred to the Beverly Hills Police Department, Publicker said.
Chasen was killed Nov. 16 after attending the after-party for the premiere of Burlesque. It is believed the publicist was driving home to her Wilshire Boulevard residence when she was attacked. Chasen was shot at or near the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Whittier Drive. Beverly Hills residents called police at 12:28 a.m. on Nov. 16 to report gunshots.
Publicker's statement that Smith possibly rode a bicycle to carry out the attack is contrary to news reports that indicated police believed Chasen was gunned down by a shooter who fired out of a vehicle that pulled alongside her car while she was stopped at a traffic light at Sunset and Whittier.
Snowden said that the investigation is not complete. It is expected to take two weeks for the full ballistics tests to be completed. Also, the coroner's report has yet to be finalized, Publicker said.
Beverly Hills City Councilman Barry Brucker said that while the preliminary ballistics findings are encouraging, the case "continues to be active with many questions yet to be answered."
"Our superlative BHPD team should be congratulated for its methodical and professional approach to this criminal investigation," Brucker said.
At least one resident of the Harvey Apartments, the onetime home of Smith, told reporters that Smith had bragged about killing Chasen and was expecting to receive a payment of $10,000 -- in one instance saying the money was for a job and at another point saying the money stemmed from a lawsuit.
Snowden and Publicker declined to discuss video surveillance footage obtained by police. Last week THR reported that the police had reviewed video taken from a home on Whittier that shows Chasen's black Mercedes-Benz driving southbound down the street, slowing but not stopping at a stop sign at North Linden Drive, and continuing on briefly before crashing into a light pole.
Josh Zayon and Robbie Schaeffer, the residents who turned the surveillance footage from their home over to police, said that besides a Lincoln Town Car that can be seen driving past the accident scene moments after the crash, no other people or cars can be seen in the video.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Man Sought in Ronni Chasen Murder Kills Himself
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/report-ronni-chasen-suspect-shoots-55308
Man Sought in Ronni Chasen Murder Kills Himself
12/1/2010 by Daniel Miller
Unidentified man was being served by police with a search warrant.
A man police believe was connected to last month's murder of publicist Ronni Chasen shot and killed himself Wednesday evening in the lobby of the Harvey Apartments, a former Hollywood hotel-turned-apartment complex.
Beverly Hills police were serving the man, identified as a "person of interest," a search warrant related to the case at the time.
Neither the name of the man, nor his exact connection to the Chasen killing, was immediately known. But KNBC in Los Angeles reported on Wednesday night that Beverly Hills police believe the man is the same individual who brutally murdered Chasen in Beverly Hills on Nov. 16.
Capt. Kevin McClure of the Los Angeles Police Department's Robbery-Homicide Division said that Beverly Hills Police Department detectives "attempted to talk to the suspect--when they did, the suspect produced a handgun and there was a self-inflicted gunshot wound at that time."
Lt Tony Lee of the BHPD said at a press conference late Wednesday that his department's investigation into the shooting is ongoing. BHPD also issued the following statement: "At approximately 6 p.m. on 12-01-10, the Los Angeles Police Department responded to a call of 'Shots Fired' in the 5600 block of Santa Monica Blvd. When they arrived, a male subject (NFD) had sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
"He was later pronounced dead at the scene. At the time of the shooting, Beverly Hills police detectives were on-scene conducting a follow-up investigation. There were no other injuries related to the incident.
"Due to the fact that this is an ongoing investigation, there are no further details available at this time," the statement says.
The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Harvey Apartments resident Eddie Burke, who said police had been casing the building during the day. Burke, 48, moved from Alaska with his son, an aspiring boxer, to the Harvey two weeks ago. After a visit to a local gym on Wednesday, they returned to the property at about 1:30 p.m. and saw the building manager talking with two men in the lobby that Burke surmised were plain-clothes police officers.
"We figured out that they were attempting to identify this person they had a lead on and therefore were talking to the manager," Burke told THR. He and his son left the building and returned about two hours later, at around 4 p.m. He said police had assembled outside the building. "Everything made sense," Burke said.
A young couple, Kaisi Berick, 26, and girlfriend Rachel Lude, 29, who live together in a second-floor apartment at the Harvey building, said they were there when the shooting occurred but heard nothing. Lude said that shortly before 7 p.m., a police officer came to their door to question them. She said officers were going door-to-door asking if residents had heard or seen anything noteworthy.
The Harvey Apartments offers units for rent on a month-to-month basis and is inexpensive. Berick said that there is a good deal of tenant turnover at the building, a dingy four-story structure situated next to a strip mall, with some residents staying as little as one month. He said an array of "colorful people" live there.
"There are people on fixed income, people on government disability and families crunched into one place," he added. "It's slummy for this area."
Reports and speculation continue to surface at the scene and throughout Los Angeles.
"[It's an] interesting end to the story or perhaps the beginning," former LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman told THR. "Remember that the police had a search warrant in hand, which means they had sufficient probable cause that connected the suspect to the Chasen homicide.
"Certainly we can all agree professional hitmen usually don't commit suicide, or leave trails for the police to come knocking at the door," Fuhrman concluded.
Hollywood publicist Chasen was murdered Nov. 16 when she was shot five times and crashed her car into a light pole in Beverly Hills while driving home from the Burlesque premiere afterparty in Hollywood. Beverly Hills Police Chief David Snowden called the shooting a "rare, isolated incident."
The 64-year-old longtime PR maven was buried Nov. 21 at Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles.
Man Sought in Ronni Chasen Murder Kills Himself
12/1/2010 by Daniel Miller
Unidentified man was being served by police with a search warrant.
A man police believe was connected to last month's murder of publicist Ronni Chasen shot and killed himself Wednesday evening in the lobby of the Harvey Apartments, a former Hollywood hotel-turned-apartment complex.
Beverly Hills police were serving the man, identified as a "person of interest," a search warrant related to the case at the time.
Neither the name of the man, nor his exact connection to the Chasen killing, was immediately known. But KNBC in Los Angeles reported on Wednesday night that Beverly Hills police believe the man is the same individual who brutally murdered Chasen in Beverly Hills on Nov. 16.
Capt. Kevin McClure of the Los Angeles Police Department's Robbery-Homicide Division said that Beverly Hills Police Department detectives "attempted to talk to the suspect--when they did, the suspect produced a handgun and there was a self-inflicted gunshot wound at that time."
Lt Tony Lee of the BHPD said at a press conference late Wednesday that his department's investigation into the shooting is ongoing. BHPD also issued the following statement: "At approximately 6 p.m. on 12-01-10, the Los Angeles Police Department responded to a call of 'Shots Fired' in the 5600 block of Santa Monica Blvd. When they arrived, a male subject (NFD) had sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
"He was later pronounced dead at the scene. At the time of the shooting, Beverly Hills police detectives were on-scene conducting a follow-up investigation. There were no other injuries related to the incident.
"Due to the fact that this is an ongoing investigation, there are no further details available at this time," the statement says.
The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Harvey Apartments resident Eddie Burke, who said police had been casing the building during the day. Burke, 48, moved from Alaska with his son, an aspiring boxer, to the Harvey two weeks ago. After a visit to a local gym on Wednesday, they returned to the property at about 1:30 p.m. and saw the building manager talking with two men in the lobby that Burke surmised were plain-clothes police officers.
"We figured out that they were attempting to identify this person they had a lead on and therefore were talking to the manager," Burke told THR. He and his son left the building and returned about two hours later, at around 4 p.m. He said police had assembled outside the building. "Everything made sense," Burke said.
A young couple, Kaisi Berick, 26, and girlfriend Rachel Lude, 29, who live together in a second-floor apartment at the Harvey building, said they were there when the shooting occurred but heard nothing. Lude said that shortly before 7 p.m., a police officer came to their door to question them. She said officers were going door-to-door asking if residents had heard or seen anything noteworthy.
The Harvey Apartments offers units for rent on a month-to-month basis and is inexpensive. Berick said that there is a good deal of tenant turnover at the building, a dingy four-story structure situated next to a strip mall, with some residents staying as little as one month. He said an array of "colorful people" live there.
"There are people on fixed income, people on government disability and families crunched into one place," he added. "It's slummy for this area."
Reports and speculation continue to surface at the scene and throughout Los Angeles.
"[It's an] interesting end to the story or perhaps the beginning," former LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman told THR. "Remember that the police had a search warrant in hand, which means they had sufficient probable cause that connected the suspect to the Chasen homicide.
"Certainly we can all agree professional hitmen usually don't commit suicide, or leave trails for the police to come knocking at the door," Fuhrman concluded.
Hollywood publicist Chasen was murdered Nov. 16 when she was shot five times and crashed her car into a light pole in Beverly Hills while driving home from the Burlesque premiere afterparty in Hollywood. Beverly Hills Police Chief David Snowden called the shooting a "rare, isolated incident."
The 64-year-old longtime PR maven was buried Nov. 21 at Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles.
Death has cast a long shadow over Hollywood
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1128-then-20101128,0,7124914,full.story
Death has cast a long shadow over Hollywood
Publicist Ronni Chasen's slaying in Beverly Hills is the latest in a string of deaths that date to at least 1922, when director William Desmond Taylor was found fatally shot in his bachelor pad near 4th and Alvarado streets.
Steve Harvey
November 28, 2010
Several days after Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen was found shot to death in her Mercedes-Benz, a friend voiced the hope to KNBC-TV news that the case wouldn't turn into "another Black Dahlia."
The friend was referring to the 1947 slaying of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, which has never been solved.
Of course, mysterious deaths with links to Hollywood date to at least 1922, when debonair director William Desmond Taylor was found slain in his fashionable bachelor pad near the corner of 4th and Alvarado streets.
Taylor's valet cried out the news that morning and an actress neighbor quickly notified the director's acquaintances, including those in the habit of writing love letters.
By the time officers arrived, author Sidney Kirkpatrick wrote in The Times, there "appeared to be a party at Taylor's bungalow: Paramount actors, actresses and executives rummaging through bedroom drawers and closets, a butler washing dishes and an unnamed extra walking out the front door with a case of bootleg gin.
"Everyone in the bungalow seemed to be looking for something, except the host, who was neatly laid out on the living room floor with a bullet hole in the middle of his back."
"Persons of interest" abounded: an actress with a crush on Taylor; an actress' mother with a crush on Taylor; an actress' drug dealer; a thieving valet (who may have secretly been Taylor's brother); a wife whom Taylor had deserted in the East; and a soldier from his wartime regiment whom Taylor had court-martialed for theft.
Police were pretty sure the butler didn't do it, but they were certain of little else. No one was ever arrested.
Mystery has also surrounded cases in which the authorities concluded no homicide took place.
In "Deadly Illusions," for instance, authors Samuel Marx and Joyce Vanderveen argue that director Paul Bern did not shoot himself in 1932, as the coroner had ruled. They contend that an ex-lover did in Bern, the husband of bombshell actress Jean Harlow.
In another case, the body of beautiful actress Thelma Todd was discovered in December 1935 in her Lincoln Phaeton convertible in a garage near her cafe in Pacific Palisades.
The coroner ruled she died of carbon monoxide poisoning after turning on the ignition and striking her head on the steering wheel.
But others theorized she may have been killed by a film director or an abusive ex-husband or even minions of Lucky Luciano, whom she had angered by refusing to allow casino gambling on the property.
Todd's death followed a series of show-business scandals, and "the studio bosses were worried that many of the Americans who paid to see movies wouldn't tolerate yet another," wrote authors Marvin Wolf and Katherine Mader in "Fallen Angels."
"An official finding of death by her own hand, accidental, or otherwise, put an end to speculation about murder.... A neat and tidy solution."
Then there was the case of George Reeves, TV's " Superman," who died in 1959 not by jumping out a window — as one urban myth has it — but by gunshot.
It was ruled a suicide and connected to Reeves' inability to land serious roles after his "Superman" days.
But in "Hollywood Kryptonite," authors Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger assert that he may have been killed on orders of a studio executive whose wife was having an affair with Reeves.
No one, of course, thought the 1978 bludgeoning death of Bob Crane — the star of TV's "Hogan's Heroes" — in a Scottsdale, Ariz., apartment was anything but murder.
In 1994, John Henry Carpenter, a friend of Crane's and a longtime suspect, was tried for the slaying but acquitted.
Prosecutors alleged that Carpenter, who was with Crane the night before the killing, had had a falling out with the actor.
Their case hinged in part on a photograph of a speck found on the door of Carpenter's rental car, which prosecutors said was fatty matter from Crane's skull.
Unfortunately, the speck was lost before the trial started. "What was the speck?" asked the jury foreman later.
Officially, the case remains unsolved.
The Times' Larry Harnisch attributes fascination with the Black Dahlia case to the fact that the killing was a "gruesome, unsolved murder of an attractive victim with a haunting nickname."
She picked up the nickname because of her black outfits and black hair and because a movie of that era was titled "The Blue Dahlia."
Short's mutilated body was found Jan. 15, 1947, in a vacant lot on Norton Avenue in the Leimert Park area.
More than 50 delusional characters confessed. No one was ever arrested.
Over the years, the villain has variously been identified as a pipe salesman, a doctor, a cop, a mobster, a cafe owner and an actor.
Meanwhile, it is too soon to predict the outcome of the investigation into the Nov. 16 slaying of Ronni Chasen. But, as the above cases illustrate (all too brutally), not every Hollywood story has a happy ending. And some have no ending at all.
steveharvey9@gmail.com
Death has cast a long shadow over Hollywood
Publicist Ronni Chasen's slaying in Beverly Hills is the latest in a string of deaths that date to at least 1922, when director William Desmond Taylor was found fatally shot in his bachelor pad near 4th and Alvarado streets.
Steve Harvey
November 28, 2010
Several days after Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen was found shot to death in her Mercedes-Benz, a friend voiced the hope to KNBC-TV news that the case wouldn't turn into "another Black Dahlia."
The friend was referring to the 1947 slaying of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, which has never been solved.
Of course, mysterious deaths with links to Hollywood date to at least 1922, when debonair director William Desmond Taylor was found slain in his fashionable bachelor pad near the corner of 4th and Alvarado streets.
Taylor's valet cried out the news that morning and an actress neighbor quickly notified the director's acquaintances, including those in the habit of writing love letters.
By the time officers arrived, author Sidney Kirkpatrick wrote in The Times, there "appeared to be a party at Taylor's bungalow: Paramount actors, actresses and executives rummaging through bedroom drawers and closets, a butler washing dishes and an unnamed extra walking out the front door with a case of bootleg gin.
"Everyone in the bungalow seemed to be looking for something, except the host, who was neatly laid out on the living room floor with a bullet hole in the middle of his back."
"Persons of interest" abounded: an actress with a crush on Taylor; an actress' mother with a crush on Taylor; an actress' drug dealer; a thieving valet (who may have secretly been Taylor's brother); a wife whom Taylor had deserted in the East; and a soldier from his wartime regiment whom Taylor had court-martialed for theft.
Police were pretty sure the butler didn't do it, but they were certain of little else. No one was ever arrested.
Mystery has also surrounded cases in which the authorities concluded no homicide took place.
In "Deadly Illusions," for instance, authors Samuel Marx and Joyce Vanderveen argue that director Paul Bern did not shoot himself in 1932, as the coroner had ruled. They contend that an ex-lover did in Bern, the husband of bombshell actress Jean Harlow.
In another case, the body of beautiful actress Thelma Todd was discovered in December 1935 in her Lincoln Phaeton convertible in a garage near her cafe in Pacific Palisades.
The coroner ruled she died of carbon monoxide poisoning after turning on the ignition and striking her head on the steering wheel.
But others theorized she may have been killed by a film director or an abusive ex-husband or even minions of Lucky Luciano, whom she had angered by refusing to allow casino gambling on the property.
Todd's death followed a series of show-business scandals, and "the studio bosses were worried that many of the Americans who paid to see movies wouldn't tolerate yet another," wrote authors Marvin Wolf and Katherine Mader in "Fallen Angels."
"An official finding of death by her own hand, accidental, or otherwise, put an end to speculation about murder.... A neat and tidy solution."
Then there was the case of George Reeves, TV's " Superman," who died in 1959 not by jumping out a window — as one urban myth has it — but by gunshot.
It was ruled a suicide and connected to Reeves' inability to land serious roles after his "Superman" days.
But in "Hollywood Kryptonite," authors Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger assert that he may have been killed on orders of a studio executive whose wife was having an affair with Reeves.
No one, of course, thought the 1978 bludgeoning death of Bob Crane — the star of TV's "Hogan's Heroes" — in a Scottsdale, Ariz., apartment was anything but murder.
In 1994, John Henry Carpenter, a friend of Crane's and a longtime suspect, was tried for the slaying but acquitted.
Prosecutors alleged that Carpenter, who was with Crane the night before the killing, had had a falling out with the actor.
Their case hinged in part on a photograph of a speck found on the door of Carpenter's rental car, which prosecutors said was fatty matter from Crane's skull.
Unfortunately, the speck was lost before the trial started. "What was the speck?" asked the jury foreman later.
Officially, the case remains unsolved.
The Times' Larry Harnisch attributes fascination with the Black Dahlia case to the fact that the killing was a "gruesome, unsolved murder of an attractive victim with a haunting nickname."
She picked up the nickname because of her black outfits and black hair and because a movie of that era was titled "The Blue Dahlia."
Short's mutilated body was found Jan. 15, 1947, in a vacant lot on Norton Avenue in the Leimert Park area.
More than 50 delusional characters confessed. No one was ever arrested.
Over the years, the villain has variously been identified as a pipe salesman, a doctor, a cop, a mobster, a cafe owner and an actor.
Meanwhile, it is too soon to predict the outcome of the investigation into the Nov. 16 slaying of Ronni Chasen. But, as the above cases illustrate (all too brutally), not every Hollywood story has a happy ending. And some have no ending at all.
steveharvey9@gmail.com
Monday, December 6, 2010
Star Whackers Attack
http://www.shout.net/~bigred/mc112210.html
(Melchizedek Communique, MC112210) Randy and Evi Quaid seek asylum in Canada. They claim they need to get away from so-called "star whackers," a shadowy group the couple insist are out to kill them and whose victims have included Heath Ledger and David Carradine. [1]
The ex-wife of Kung Fu star David Carradine supports Randy and Evi Quaid’s claims of a "star whackers" Hollywood hit squad. [2] Another wife of the Kung Fu character, Marina Anderson, has written a book, David Carradine: The Eye of My Tornado. The Globe, a weekly tabloid newspaper, reported on the book and raised questions about Carradine's strange death. At the time of his death, his agent, Chuck Binder, said he believed his client had been murdered. [3]
Last week, Ronni Chasen was shot 5 times while driving away from a party in Beverly Hills CA. It could be, observes one blogger ("Frank"), that the "star whackers" have struck again. Ms. Chasen was a power-behind-the-scenes in Hollywood. Perhaps she stepped on the wrong toes, or knew too much. "This is not the only Hollywood story which caught my attention and seems to speak of something darker," reveals "Frank." "Emma Watson, one of the stars of Harry Potter has a new hairdo which is identical to Mia Farrow’s in Rosemary’s Baby." Recalled is another incident of the star whackers, involving Sharon Tate and her husband Roman Polanski, the director of Rosemary’s Baby. [4]
Polanski recently succeeded in fighting extradition to the United States. Did he just barely escape the star whackers?
Evi Quaid reportedly believes Mel Gibson "was slipped a mickey... to steal his money and ruin him." She thinks Gibson, star of the movie, "Conspiracy Theory," was drugged during audiotapes in which he is heard exploding into foul-mouthed rants towards a sultry Russian siren. [5]
And why has Joaquin Phoenix been behaving so strangely? Does he too fear the star whackers? After his excellent portrayal of Johnny Cash in the movie, "Walk the Line," Phoenix began traveling incognito, disguised as a rap musician.
------- Notes -------
[1] "Randy Quaid Gambles $1 Million on Conspiracy Theory", by Josh Grossberg and Soo Youn. eonline.com, Nov. 16, 2010
[2] "EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: David Carradine's Ex Wife Supports Quaids; Someone Is Killing Stars!", radaronline.com, Nov 02, 2010
[3] "'David Carradine was murdered' claims agent, as the Kill Bill star's family ask the FBI to probe his death", by David Gardner, Andrew Drummond, Debra Killalea and Mail Foreign Service. Daily Mail (U.K.), June 7, 2009
[4] "Hollywood Star Whackers (part 2)", posted on Nov. 19, 2010, by Frank.
http://merovee.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/hollywood-star-whackers-part-2/
[5] "EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: David Carradine's Ex Wife Supports Quaids; Someone Is Killing Stars!", radaronline.com, Nov 02, 2010
(Melchizedek Communique, MC112210) Randy and Evi Quaid seek asylum in Canada. They claim they need to get away from so-called "star whackers," a shadowy group the couple insist are out to kill them and whose victims have included Heath Ledger and David Carradine. [1]
The ex-wife of Kung Fu star David Carradine supports Randy and Evi Quaid’s claims of a "star whackers" Hollywood hit squad. [2] Another wife of the Kung Fu character, Marina Anderson, has written a book, David Carradine: The Eye of My Tornado. The Globe, a weekly tabloid newspaper, reported on the book and raised questions about Carradine's strange death. At the time of his death, his agent, Chuck Binder, said he believed his client had been murdered. [3]
Last week, Ronni Chasen was shot 5 times while driving away from a party in Beverly Hills CA. It could be, observes one blogger ("Frank"), that the "star whackers" have struck again. Ms. Chasen was a power-behind-the-scenes in Hollywood. Perhaps she stepped on the wrong toes, or knew too much. "This is not the only Hollywood story which caught my attention and seems to speak of something darker," reveals "Frank." "Emma Watson, one of the stars of Harry Potter has a new hairdo which is identical to Mia Farrow’s in Rosemary’s Baby." Recalled is another incident of the star whackers, involving Sharon Tate and her husband Roman Polanski, the director of Rosemary’s Baby. [4]
Polanski recently succeeded in fighting extradition to the United States. Did he just barely escape the star whackers?
Evi Quaid reportedly believes Mel Gibson "was slipped a mickey... to steal his money and ruin him." She thinks Gibson, star of the movie, "Conspiracy Theory," was drugged during audiotapes in which he is heard exploding into foul-mouthed rants towards a sultry Russian siren. [5]
And why has Joaquin Phoenix been behaving so strangely? Does he too fear the star whackers? After his excellent portrayal of Johnny Cash in the movie, "Walk the Line," Phoenix began traveling incognito, disguised as a rap musician.
------- Notes -------
[1] "Randy Quaid Gambles $1 Million on Conspiracy Theory", by Josh Grossberg and Soo Youn. eonline.com, Nov. 16, 2010
[2] "EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: David Carradine's Ex Wife Supports Quaids; Someone Is Killing Stars!", radaronline.com, Nov 02, 2010
[3] "'David Carradine was murdered' claims agent, as the Kill Bill star's family ask the FBI to probe his death", by David Gardner, Andrew Drummond, Debra Killalea and Mail Foreign Service. Daily Mail (U.K.), June 7, 2009
[4] "Hollywood Star Whackers (part 2)", posted on Nov. 19, 2010, by Frank.
http://merovee.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/hollywood-star-whackers-part-2/
[5] "EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: David Carradine's Ex Wife Supports Quaids; Someone Is Killing Stars!", radaronline.com, Nov 02, 2010
Hollywood publicist's killer used hollow-point bullet, report says
http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/celebrity.news.gossip/11/26/publicist.killed/
Hollywood publicist's killer used hollow-point bullet, report says
Alan Duke, CNN
November 26, 2010
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
A leaked coroner's report estimates 4 shots were fired from another vehicle
Ronni Chasen's wounds were to her chest and shoulders, the document says
The full autopsy is expected to be released next week
Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen's killer fired at least four shots into her car, including at least one hollow-point bullet, in last week's Beverly Hills attack, according to a leaked coroner's report.
Although the three-page report has not been made public, Los Angeles County coroner spokesman Brian Elias confirmed to CNN that a document shown in a local newscast appeared to be authentic.
The document was written by investigators on the first day of the investigation to help the doctor who would perform the autopsy the next day, Elias said. The full autopsy report is expected to be released next week, he said.
Chasen, 64, died from gunshots fired into her Mercedes-Benz as she turned off Sunset Boulevard on her way home from a star-studded premiere celebration for the movie "Burlesque" in the early morning of November 16.
The mysterious murder in a posh Beverly Hills neighborhood not only stunned her friends, but also sent fear through the exclusive community.
"One bullet was recovered from her back while at the hospital and is possibly from a 9 mm hollow point," according to the document shown on Los Angeles television station KTTV.
Hollow-point bullets are controversial because the slug is designed to expand after it enters a body, causing greater damage to tissue than a solid bullet.
The report included details previously disclosed by police, including the belief Chasen was shot while she was stopped at a red light at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Whittier Drive. "An unknown vehicle pulled up and someone fired approximately four rounds into her vehicle," it said.
"After being struck by gunfire ... she then made a left turn and drove for approximately a quarter mile before she crashed her car into a pole," the report said.
Chasen was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai hospital 45 minutes after the shooting, the report said.
Details about how many shots hit Chasen and where they entered will not be known until the autopsy report is released, likely next week, Elias said.
The initial examination, apparently done at the hospital soon after Chasen's death, revealed three gunshot wounds to her chest area, the report said.
At least three other wounds were found on her right shoulder and upper back, the report said. But it was not indicated if those were where the bullets might have exited the body.
The report also confirmed that investigators found no shell casings at the scene and only the passenger side window and passenger seat were damaged by the gunfire.
The lack of official information about the investigation has spurred speculation by residents and reporters about the killing.
Beverly Hills Police Chief David Snowden asked journalists a week ago to keep "erroneous information, theories or speculation" out of their stories. The chief assured residents that it was "a rare, isolated incident and that the Beverly Hills community remains one of the safest in the nation."
There is no prevailing theory on whether the attack was road rage or a planned hit, a police official said. No motive or suspects have been identified, he said.
Beverly Hills detectives scanned Chasen's computers and phone logs for leads and went door to door for video clues from residential security cameras, a police spokesman said.
Chasen had been on the red carpet at Grauman's Chinese Theatre just hours earlier, walking with songwriter Diane Warren as she and "Burlesque" star Cher were interviewed about the music in the film.
Warren, who contributed the song "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" to the movie's soundtrack, said Chasen also went with her to the after-party at Hollywood's W Hotel.
Warren, who wrote Toni Braxton's tearful ballad "Un-Break My Heart," said she was "devastated beyond belief."
"This was a nice woman," Warren said. "Everybody loved Ronni. She was the best at what she did."
Chasen's work for three decades earned her a reputation as a publicist who could help create Oscar buzz for clients, which many times ended with Academy Awards.
Hollywood publicist's killer used hollow-point bullet, report says
Alan Duke, CNN
November 26, 2010
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
A leaked coroner's report estimates 4 shots were fired from another vehicle
Ronni Chasen's wounds were to her chest and shoulders, the document says
The full autopsy is expected to be released next week
Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen's killer fired at least four shots into her car, including at least one hollow-point bullet, in last week's Beverly Hills attack, according to a leaked coroner's report.
Although the three-page report has not been made public, Los Angeles County coroner spokesman Brian Elias confirmed to CNN that a document shown in a local newscast appeared to be authentic.
The document was written by investigators on the first day of the investigation to help the doctor who would perform the autopsy the next day, Elias said. The full autopsy report is expected to be released next week, he said.
Chasen, 64, died from gunshots fired into her Mercedes-Benz as she turned off Sunset Boulevard on her way home from a star-studded premiere celebration for the movie "Burlesque" in the early morning of November 16.
The mysterious murder in a posh Beverly Hills neighborhood not only stunned her friends, but also sent fear through the exclusive community.
"One bullet was recovered from her back while at the hospital and is possibly from a 9 mm hollow point," according to the document shown on Los Angeles television station KTTV.
Hollow-point bullets are controversial because the slug is designed to expand after it enters a body, causing greater damage to tissue than a solid bullet.
The report included details previously disclosed by police, including the belief Chasen was shot while she was stopped at a red light at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Whittier Drive. "An unknown vehicle pulled up and someone fired approximately four rounds into her vehicle," it said.
"After being struck by gunfire ... she then made a left turn and drove for approximately a quarter mile before she crashed her car into a pole," the report said.
Chasen was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai hospital 45 minutes after the shooting, the report said.
Details about how many shots hit Chasen and where they entered will not be known until the autopsy report is released, likely next week, Elias said.
The initial examination, apparently done at the hospital soon after Chasen's death, revealed three gunshot wounds to her chest area, the report said.
At least three other wounds were found on her right shoulder and upper back, the report said. But it was not indicated if those were where the bullets might have exited the body.
The report also confirmed that investigators found no shell casings at the scene and only the passenger side window and passenger seat were damaged by the gunfire.
The lack of official information about the investigation has spurred speculation by residents and reporters about the killing.
Beverly Hills Police Chief David Snowden asked journalists a week ago to keep "erroneous information, theories or speculation" out of their stories. The chief assured residents that it was "a rare, isolated incident and that the Beverly Hills community remains one of the safest in the nation."
There is no prevailing theory on whether the attack was road rage or a planned hit, a police official said. No motive or suspects have been identified, he said.
Beverly Hills detectives scanned Chasen's computers and phone logs for leads and went door to door for video clues from residential security cameras, a police spokesman said.
Chasen had been on the red carpet at Grauman's Chinese Theatre just hours earlier, walking with songwriter Diane Warren as she and "Burlesque" star Cher were interviewed about the music in the film.
Warren, who contributed the song "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" to the movie's soundtrack, said Chasen also went with her to the after-party at Hollywood's W Hotel.
Warren, who wrote Toni Braxton's tearful ballad "Un-Break My Heart," said she was "devastated beyond belief."
"This was a nice woman," Warren said. "Everybody loved Ronni. She was the best at what she did."
Chasen's work for three decades earned her a reputation as a publicist who could help create Oscar buzz for clients, which many times ended with Academy Awards.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Ed Niles Mansion For Sale in Beverly Hills
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Ed-Niles-Designed-Salad-Spinner/ss/events/lf/111910edniles
Ed Niles Mansion For Sale in Beverly Hills
11-19-10
Dubbed the “Salad Spinner” house by some oglers, this Beverly Hills mansion has turned heads for its unique architecture by Ed Niles – and for its price tag. The 6-bedroom, 7-bathroom home with 7,500 sq. feet of living space is on the market now for $10.9 million, a drop from its original $11.9 million asking price from May.
Hollywood publicist could have been killed by contract killer
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8147343/Hollywood-publicist-could-have-been-killed-by-contract-killer.html
Hollywood publicist could have been killed by contract killer
Jon Swaine, New York
19 Nov 2010
Police in California believe a Hollywood publicist, whose death has shocked the film industry, was most likely to have fallen victim to a contract killer.
Ronni Chasen, 64, was killed early on Tuesday morning while driving through Beverly Hills on her way home from a film premiere and party.
Detectives are working on the belief that Ms Chasen's killer, who may have been driving a sports utility vehicle or a truck, drove up beside her Mercedes and shot her through her passenger-side window.
Analysts have said that the location where Miss Chasen was shot, her high profile and the absence of any apparent robbery suggested that her killing was premeditated or even contracted.
No suspects have emerged, however, and investigators are still puzzled as to what motive the killer could have had.
Jimmy Delshad, the Mayor of Beverly Hills, who was briefed on the inquiry by detectives, said: "Most indication is that it was targeted. A random killing wouldn't have happened like this."
Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent who is now a private detective, said: "On the profile of this woman, you certainly have to look at the potential that somebody wanted to harm her."
However further confusion has been caused by the shots being fired to the chest, rather than the head, where an assassin would typically be expected to target.
Family, friends and colleagues have said they are baffled at the thought that Ms Chasen, reputedly clean-living and well-liked, could have made such an enemy.
"She was just a terrific person, a great sense of humour, and great energy," said Larry Cohen, Miss Chasen's brother. "Certainly didn't deserve anything like this to happen to her."
Michael Levine, a friend and fellow publicist, said: "The mystery is extraordinary, and excruciating."
Carol Connors, a film songwriter and close friend, said: "A publicist doesn't make that type of enemy."
A $100,000 (£63,000) reward has offered for information leading to a conviction. All six major Hollywood studios are to co-host a memorial after her funeral on Sunday.
The killing caused shock in the surrounding area, one of California's most affluent. It was the third murder this year in Beverly Hills, where there were none reported in 2009.
Ms Chasen was found crashed into a lamp-post on Whittier Drive, just south of Sunset Boulevard. The street is lined with multi-million dollar mansions and runs alongside the Los Angeles Country Club.
Detectives have taken CCTV recordings from houses near to the crash site, including one belonging to Sherry Hackett, the widow of the late comedian Buddy Hackett.
Gina Hope, a local resident, told reporters: "Nothing ever happens in Beverly Hills. That's what we say, and why we live here - because it's one thousand per cent safe."
Hollywood publicist could have been killed by contract killer
Jon Swaine, New York
19 Nov 2010
Police in California believe a Hollywood publicist, whose death has shocked the film industry, was most likely to have fallen victim to a contract killer.
Ronni Chasen, 64, was killed early on Tuesday morning while driving through Beverly Hills on her way home from a film premiere and party.
Detectives are working on the belief that Ms Chasen's killer, who may have been driving a sports utility vehicle or a truck, drove up beside her Mercedes and shot her through her passenger-side window.
Analysts have said that the location where Miss Chasen was shot, her high profile and the absence of any apparent robbery suggested that her killing was premeditated or even contracted.
No suspects have emerged, however, and investigators are still puzzled as to what motive the killer could have had.
Jimmy Delshad, the Mayor of Beverly Hills, who was briefed on the inquiry by detectives, said: "Most indication is that it was targeted. A random killing wouldn't have happened like this."
Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent who is now a private detective, said: "On the profile of this woman, you certainly have to look at the potential that somebody wanted to harm her."
However further confusion has been caused by the shots being fired to the chest, rather than the head, where an assassin would typically be expected to target.
Family, friends and colleagues have said they are baffled at the thought that Ms Chasen, reputedly clean-living and well-liked, could have made such an enemy.
"She was just a terrific person, a great sense of humour, and great energy," said Larry Cohen, Miss Chasen's brother. "Certainly didn't deserve anything like this to happen to her."
Michael Levine, a friend and fellow publicist, said: "The mystery is extraordinary, and excruciating."
Carol Connors, a film songwriter and close friend, said: "A publicist doesn't make that type of enemy."
A $100,000 (£63,000) reward has offered for information leading to a conviction. All six major Hollywood studios are to co-host a memorial after her funeral on Sunday.
The killing caused shock in the surrounding area, one of California's most affluent. It was the third murder this year in Beverly Hills, where there were none reported in 2009.
Ms Chasen was found crashed into a lamp-post on Whittier Drive, just south of Sunset Boulevard. The street is lined with multi-million dollar mansions and runs alongside the Los Angeles Country Club.
Detectives have taken CCTV recordings from houses near to the crash site, including one belonging to Sherry Hackett, the widow of the late comedian Buddy Hackett.
Gina Hope, a local resident, told reporters: "Nothing ever happens in Beverly Hills. That's what we say, and why we live here - because it's one thousand per cent safe."
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Stan's Corner Doughnut Shop
If you're ever in UCLA's Westwood Village, check out Stan's Donuts, just named one of the ten best donut shops in the USA by Maxim Magazine.
For over 40 years, Stan's Corner Doughnut Shop of Westwood, California, has baked the world's most gourmet donuts. Every customer finds something to satisfy their donut desires--from a Cinnamon Chocolate Cheese Danish, to an Apple Fritter, to a Reese's Peanut Butter Pocket with fresh banana. Stan's offers donuts you will find nowhere else in the world. You can take a look at our 75+ varieties on this site, and learn more about how Stan's has grown from a small shop frequented by locals, to a nationally-acclaimed donut heaven recognized for creating the world's finest donuts.
In 1965, Stan Berman, a third generation baker, opened his first bakery, The Corner Shoppe in the heart of Westwood Village, the home of UCLA and adjacent to Beverly Hills, Brentwood, and Bel Air.
The shop thrived as customers appreciated the delicious new varieties Stan would experiment with. With high quality ingredients and a delicious final product, Stan's Donuts became more than just popular. Generation after generation of UCLA students would munch on the delicious treats for breakfast, as an afternoon snack, or to satify their late-night munchies after a movie. These alumni keep coming back to Westwood-to visit their alma mater and to remember how delicious Stan's Donuts are.
Although he experimented with several stores in other locations, Stan eventually decided to stick with his original shop on the corner of Broxton and Weyburn. The name evolved into Stan's Donuts and as many new shops came in and went out of the Village, Stan's remained.
Now, as one of the oldest stores in Los Angeles, Stan relies on the time-honored strategy that has kept his donut shop successful for so long: high quality, fresh ingredients (in a multitude of scrumptious varieties), an amiable attitude toward his customers, and of course the pride and love that go in to baking his donuts every day.
In 2005, Stan and his son, Scott Berman, acquired Master's Donuts in Thousand Oaks, California, and will be transforming the store into a Stan's Donuts producing the same high quality product and service that Stan offers his customers in Westwood Village.
Now you can enjoy Stan's Donuts at 2 locations.
Our original store in Westwood Village, California is located at 10948 Weyburn Avenue. You can reach us by calling (310) 208-8660 or by e-mail at stan@stansdoughnuts.com.
Our newest store is located at 658 N. Moorpark Road in Thousand Oaks, California, in the new Whole Foods shopping center at the corner of Wilbur and Moorpark Road. Contact us by phone at (805) 381-1818 or by e-mail at scott@stansdoughnuts.com.
If you don't live near one of our locations, however, We ship donuts anywhere in the country overnight. Please click Order Donuts to learn more about how you can be eating Stan's gourmet donuts tomorrow!
Thursday, September 17, 2009
`M-A-S-H' writer Larry Gelbart dies at 81
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ix5WW8PoZMC82BvqU_LEuyYkP97AD9ALDV4O0
`M-A-S-H' writer Larry Gelbart dies at 81
By CHRISTY LEMIRE (AP)
9-11-9
LOS ANGELES — Larry Gelbart, the award-winning writer whose sly, sardonic wit helped create such hits as Broadway's "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," the films "Tootsie" and "Oh, God!" and television's "M-A-S-H," is dead.
Gelbart died at his Beverly Hills home Friday morning after a long battle with cancer, said Creative Artists Agency, which represented him. He was 81.
His wife of 53 years, Pat Gelbart, told The Associated Press Friday that after being married for so long, "we finished each other's sentences." She declined to specify the type of cancer he had.
"It wasn't a surprise. He had cancer, we've known that. We didn't know what the outcome would be, the result, whatever. And so here we are and we were sort of prepared for this," she said. "It's enough to be able to be resourceful and go forward."
Gelbart, who won a Tony for "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," an Emmy for "M-A-S-H" and was nominated for two Oscars, is most likely best remembered for the long-running TV show about Army doctors during the Korean War.
Carl Reiner, his longtime friend and colleague, called Gelbart "the Jonathan Swift of our day."
"It's a great, great, great, great, great, great loss. You can't put enough `greats' in front of it," said Reiner, who directed "Oh, God!" from Gelbart's Oscar-nominated script. "The mores of our time were never more dissected and discussed. He had the ability to make an elaborate joke given nothing but one line."
"M-A-S-H" debuted on CBS in 1972, when the nation was still embroiled in the Vietnam War, and some viewers were initially puzzled or offended by its depiction of the cynical, wisecracking physicians who worked frantically to save the lives of soldiers.
By its second season it had caught on, however, and it remained one of television's top-10 rated shows for a decade, until its final episode in 1983. Along the way, it won numerous awards including the Emmy for best comedy series.
"What attracted me to `M-A-S-H' was the theme song, `Suicide is Painless,'" Gelbart once remarked. "It was written in a very minor key and appealed to me emotionally."
The show, based on a book and the 1970 Robert Altman film of the same name, starred Alan Alda. Gelbart was brought into the project by producer-director Gene Reynolds who worked with him shaping the show.
After writing 97 half-hour episodes and winning an Emmy, Gelbart quit during the show's fourth season, saying he was "totally worn out."
But Pat Gelbart recalled the fondness with which people in the industry regarded him.
"Strangely enough, the thing that transpired in his rise to success was that everybody he worked with — co-writers, producers, actors, actresses — had nothing but a good word to say about him. He was never considered anything but reasonable, considerate, and never did anything untoward," she said. "I thought that was a singular kind of wonderful and most rare part of him. He didn't try to be a goody two-shoes. He just had that kind of character."
His entry into the entertainment business 30 years before had been worthy of a TV script itself.
Gelbart's father was a Los Angeles barber with a clientele of Hollywood notables, including Danny Thomas. While cutting Thomas' hair one day, he bragged of his 16-year-old son's writing ability and the comedian asked to see some of his work. Soon Thomas had hired Gelbart to write for his radio show.
"A comedy prodigy does not exist. A kid can make other kids laugh, but to make adults laugh with sophisticated humor at that age, it's not heard of," Reiner said Friday. "He had an unerring ear and eye for humor. He had a funny mother, which helps, and a father who loved jokes."
He went on to write gags for Bob Hope, Jack Paar, Red Buttons, Jack Carson, Eddie Cantor and Joan Davis. In 1953 he accepted Sid Caesar's offer of $1,000 a week to work for "Caesar's Hour," joining a legendary writing team that included Reiner, Mel Brooks and Neil Simon.
"He's the fastest of the fast, the wittiest man in the business," Brooks once said of him.
Deciding to expand his horizons, Gelbart also co-authored a revue, "My L.A.," which was a local hit in 1948.
His first foray to Broadway was far less successful. His 1961 play, "The Conquering Hero" closed after seven performances.
His next Broadway show, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," written with Burt Shevelove, enjoyed a far better fate the following year. Based loosely on the Roman plays of Plautus with songs by Stephen Sondheim, the show was a runaway hit, resulting in road companies and a 1966 movie with Zero Mostel and Phil Silvers.
After the play's success, Gelbart decided to move with his wife and five children to England, quipping that he wanted "to escape religious freedom in America."
They remained there for nine years, and his only notable work during that time was a script, written with Shevelove, for the 1966 black comedy, "The Wrong Box."
By the time he returned to Hollywood, however, he had a broader view of the world that he said helped him tackle "M-A-S-H."
"I make jokes all the time," Gelbart once said of his penchant for comedy. "It's a tic — a way of making myself comfortable. I can't imagine not having humor to lean on."
Gelbart also returned to the theater with "Sly Fox," which transformed Ben Jonson's Elizabethan "Volpone" to Gold Rush San Francisco. Starring George C. Scott as the devious miser, it was a solid success.
"Mastergate," a scathing treatment of the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals, flopped in 1989, but Gelbart scored the same year with "City of Angels," a musical spoof of Hollywood movies and crime novels.
His films "Oh, God!" with George Burns as a philosophical deity, and "Tootsie," with Dustin Hoffman as a cross-dressing actor, both brought him Academy Award nominations, and the HBO movie "Barbarians at the Gate," about Wall Street chicanery, brought another Emmy.
Larry Simon Gelbart was born in Chicago, moving to Los Angeles while in high school.
He married singer and actress Pat Marshall in 1956 and they raised their two children, Becky and Adam, and her three by a previous marriage, Cathy, Gary and Paul. Cathy died of cancer at age 50.
AP writer Bob Thomas contributed to this report.
`M-A-S-H' writer Larry Gelbart dies at 81
By CHRISTY LEMIRE (AP)
9-11-9
LOS ANGELES — Larry Gelbart, the award-winning writer whose sly, sardonic wit helped create such hits as Broadway's "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," the films "Tootsie" and "Oh, God!" and television's "M-A-S-H," is dead.
Gelbart died at his Beverly Hills home Friday morning after a long battle with cancer, said Creative Artists Agency, which represented him. He was 81.
His wife of 53 years, Pat Gelbart, told The Associated Press Friday that after being married for so long, "we finished each other's sentences." She declined to specify the type of cancer he had.
"It wasn't a surprise. He had cancer, we've known that. We didn't know what the outcome would be, the result, whatever. And so here we are and we were sort of prepared for this," she said. "It's enough to be able to be resourceful and go forward."
Gelbart, who won a Tony for "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," an Emmy for "M-A-S-H" and was nominated for two Oscars, is most likely best remembered for the long-running TV show about Army doctors during the Korean War.
Carl Reiner, his longtime friend and colleague, called Gelbart "the Jonathan Swift of our day."
"It's a great, great, great, great, great, great loss. You can't put enough `greats' in front of it," said Reiner, who directed "Oh, God!" from Gelbart's Oscar-nominated script. "The mores of our time were never more dissected and discussed. He had the ability to make an elaborate joke given nothing but one line."
"M-A-S-H" debuted on CBS in 1972, when the nation was still embroiled in the Vietnam War, and some viewers were initially puzzled or offended by its depiction of the cynical, wisecracking physicians who worked frantically to save the lives of soldiers.
By its second season it had caught on, however, and it remained one of television's top-10 rated shows for a decade, until its final episode in 1983. Along the way, it won numerous awards including the Emmy for best comedy series.
"What attracted me to `M-A-S-H' was the theme song, `Suicide is Painless,'" Gelbart once remarked. "It was written in a very minor key and appealed to me emotionally."
The show, based on a book and the 1970 Robert Altman film of the same name, starred Alan Alda. Gelbart was brought into the project by producer-director Gene Reynolds who worked with him shaping the show.
After writing 97 half-hour episodes and winning an Emmy, Gelbart quit during the show's fourth season, saying he was "totally worn out."
But Pat Gelbart recalled the fondness with which people in the industry regarded him.
"Strangely enough, the thing that transpired in his rise to success was that everybody he worked with — co-writers, producers, actors, actresses — had nothing but a good word to say about him. He was never considered anything but reasonable, considerate, and never did anything untoward," she said. "I thought that was a singular kind of wonderful and most rare part of him. He didn't try to be a goody two-shoes. He just had that kind of character."
His entry into the entertainment business 30 years before had been worthy of a TV script itself.
Gelbart's father was a Los Angeles barber with a clientele of Hollywood notables, including Danny Thomas. While cutting Thomas' hair one day, he bragged of his 16-year-old son's writing ability and the comedian asked to see some of his work. Soon Thomas had hired Gelbart to write for his radio show.
"A comedy prodigy does not exist. A kid can make other kids laugh, but to make adults laugh with sophisticated humor at that age, it's not heard of," Reiner said Friday. "He had an unerring ear and eye for humor. He had a funny mother, which helps, and a father who loved jokes."
He went on to write gags for Bob Hope, Jack Paar, Red Buttons, Jack Carson, Eddie Cantor and Joan Davis. In 1953 he accepted Sid Caesar's offer of $1,000 a week to work for "Caesar's Hour," joining a legendary writing team that included Reiner, Mel Brooks and Neil Simon.
"He's the fastest of the fast, the wittiest man in the business," Brooks once said of him.
Deciding to expand his horizons, Gelbart also co-authored a revue, "My L.A.," which was a local hit in 1948.
His first foray to Broadway was far less successful. His 1961 play, "The Conquering Hero" closed after seven performances.
His next Broadway show, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," written with Burt Shevelove, enjoyed a far better fate the following year. Based loosely on the Roman plays of Plautus with songs by Stephen Sondheim, the show was a runaway hit, resulting in road companies and a 1966 movie with Zero Mostel and Phil Silvers.
After the play's success, Gelbart decided to move with his wife and five children to England, quipping that he wanted "to escape religious freedom in America."
They remained there for nine years, and his only notable work during that time was a script, written with Shevelove, for the 1966 black comedy, "The Wrong Box."
By the time he returned to Hollywood, however, he had a broader view of the world that he said helped him tackle "M-A-S-H."
"I make jokes all the time," Gelbart once said of his penchant for comedy. "It's a tic — a way of making myself comfortable. I can't imagine not having humor to lean on."
Gelbart also returned to the theater with "Sly Fox," which transformed Ben Jonson's Elizabethan "Volpone" to Gold Rush San Francisco. Starring George C. Scott as the devious miser, it was a solid success.
"Mastergate," a scathing treatment of the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals, flopped in 1989, but Gelbart scored the same year with "City of Angels," a musical spoof of Hollywood movies and crime novels.
His films "Oh, God!" with George Burns as a philosophical deity, and "Tootsie," with Dustin Hoffman as a cross-dressing actor, both brought him Academy Award nominations, and the HBO movie "Barbarians at the Gate," about Wall Street chicanery, brought another Emmy.
Larry Simon Gelbart was born in Chicago, moving to Los Angeles while in high school.
He married singer and actress Pat Marshall in 1956 and they raised their two children, Becky and Adam, and her three by a previous marriage, Cathy, Gary and Paul. Cathy died of cancer at age 50.
AP writer Bob Thomas contributed to this report.
Monday, November 3, 2008
The Haunted Home of Joan Crawford
http://www.alienseekernews.com/articles/haunted-home-joan-crawford.html
The Haunted Home of Joan Crawford 
Few actresses have rivaled Joan Crawford for star glamour and staying power as one of Hollywood's top movie queens. Her stardom spanned an amazing five decades and included such films as Our Dancing Daughters (1928), Rain (1932), Johnny Guitar (1954), and her Academy Award-winning performance in Mildred Pierce (1945).
Joan Crawford epitomized the essence of the Hollywood rags-to-riches story-a poor shopgirl who, in the 1920s, becomes the very embodiment of America's "flaming youth" and then transcends the role of "dancing daughter" to emerge the heroine of America's favorite melodramas.
In 1978, Christina Crawford, Joan's adopted daughter, wrote Mommie Dearest and shocked the United States with her heart-wrenching story of what it was really like growing up with one of Hollywood's most famous leading ladies. Mommie Dearest was on the New York Times best-seller list for forty-two weeks and was made into a 1981 film starring Faye Dunaway.
Many years after I had left, we met again. She was now an elderly woman and had retired. We always had been quite close. She told me she had always remembered the look on my face when I said my goodbyes to the house. It seemed a strange thing to do, to say, 'I'll never see this house again,' when at that time there was absolutely no inkling of the house being sold. In fact, it was not sold for another two and a half to three years, and, indeed, I never have been back.
Christina had learned recently that the current owners of the house had called in the Reverend Rosalyn Bruyere of the Healing Light Center to work with the house:
Rosalyn described what she had seen in the house when she went there. She picked up on some things that astounded me because they seemed to validate what I may have seen and experienced when I was little. It gave me goose bumps when Rosalyn told me that she discovered so many spirits in the house and there had been signs of ritual abuse in one of the rooms. Many of the spirits had "underworld" connections.
I was sent to boarding school when I was ten years old. I came home infrequently after that. I always believed that I was sent away partly because I was too much the eyes and ears to the world--a witness. I saw too much, I guess.
Some of the things that I saw that were going on were very violent. Her [Joan Crawford's] relationship with men, a number of men, was extremely violent. I was getting too old, and I was beginning to understand what was going on.
That house is so weird! Now, evidently, the walls are starting to catch fire! Other people have heard children's cries in the walls! Every single owner has had trouble.
The first one was Crawford. She built the majority of the house. It was a small cottage when she bought it, but most of the house, she built. She sold it to Donald O'Connor, who sold it to the Anthony Newleys. They sold it, I think, to the current owner, who is a friend of the Reverend Rosalyn Bruyere, and they asked her to "work" on the house.
Every single family that has lived in that house has had horrible things happen . . . illnesses, alcoholism, addictions, relationship problems, and now, evidently with the current owner, the walls are breaking out in flames! I've heard that in particular it's the wall that was behind Crawford's bed.
Although the scene is in her book, Mommie Dearest, Christina re-minded us that the last words that Joan Crawford uttered were to a woman who was kneeling at the foot of her bed, praying for her.
"As she was dying," Christina said, "Crawford opened her eyes and said directly to the woman, 'Don't you dare ask God to help me!' ... and then she died." It was such arrogance, Christina said, that she believes is a major part of the difficulty with the seemingly accursed house.
And that has nothing to do with me! So it would not surprise me in the least if the "haunting" spirit that is in the house is Crawford! She was capable of real evil. If you have never experienced that "look" from another human being, it is almost impossible to believe that such an experience could even exist! I think perhaps that's why so many people are unwilling to deal with the shadow side because they can't really get themselves to believe that such a dimension exists.
My brother and I were absolutely terrified of her. In fact, there is a passage in Mommie Dearest that describes ('the look" on her face) when she tried to kill me when I was thirteen. We all saw "that look." My brother and I talked about it extensively ... it was not of an ordinary human being!
Later, we were able to contact the Reverend Rosalyn Bruyere of the Healing Light Center, who kindly agreed to share her thoughts on the manifestations in Joan Crawford's former home.
"It is true that the house was afflicted with spontaneous fires, primarily in the wall behind where Joan Crawford's bed used to be. However, I did not pick up that Joan Crawford's ghost was there."
She said that there had only been one recurrence in the house after she had exorcised and cleared it. "The house had become an astral dumping ground, but it seems clean now."
When we [Brad and Sherry] visited the former Crawford home in the early 1990s, the current owners graciously allowed us to enter to film a segment for an HBO special on haunted Hollywood. The couple told us that they had experienced some mysterious pyrotechnic phenomena and had witnessed quite a number of apparitions of quite a wide variety of entities in various parts of the home. The couple said that the small cottage next to the swimming pool very often seemed to be center of haunting phenomena.
We kept in touch with the couple for quite some time. It was not long after we had filmed in the Crawford home that they decided to move. We have no comment from them whether or not it was because of any haunting phenomena.
It would seem over the past decade that the once haunted mansion of Joan Crawford has found peace, for we have heard of no further ghostly activity occurring in the home.
The Haunted Home of Joan CrawfordBrad and Sherry Steiger
October 28 2008
426 N. Bristol, Brentwood
Few actresses have rivaled Joan Crawford for star glamour and staying power as one of Hollywood's top movie queens. Her stardom spanned an amazing five decades and included such films as Our Dancing Daughters (1928), Rain (1932), Johnny Guitar (1954), and her Academy Award-winning performance in Mildred Pierce (1945).Joan Crawford epitomized the essence of the Hollywood rags-to-riches story-a poor shopgirl who, in the 1920s, becomes the very embodiment of America's "flaming youth" and then transcends the role of "dancing daughter" to emerge the heroine of America's favorite melodramas.
In 1978, Christina Crawford, Joan's adopted daughter, wrote Mommie Dearest and shocked the United States with her heart-wrenching story of what it was really like growing up with one of Hollywood's most famous leading ladies. Mommie Dearest was on the New York Times best-seller list for forty-two weeks and was made into a 1981 film starring Faye Dunaway.
In 1989, we heard rumors of haunting manifestations in Joan Crawford's former home, and Christina seemed genuinely surprised that we knew about the stories.
"Not many people know that the house I grew up in may be haunted. It is not in print anywhere," she said.
When asked if there were manifestations or hauntings that she could remember as a child living there, Christina recounted the following:
I have vivid memories of some things, but when you are severely abused, you tend to block out other things. I'm positive that there were manifestations occurring when I was little. I saw them! There were places in the house that were always so cold that nobody ever wanted to go in them.
As a child, I was always told that I had an active and vivid imagination; I was always scared by things, but people just told me that I just had an "active imagination." Years later, I thought, oh well, maybe that was good to have had an active imagination, and I became a writer because of that.
But as a child, I saw things in the house! There was, of course, no context or framework in which to put what I saw and felt. I had nobody to speak to about the occurrences.
Any time I would become extremely frightened and would get out of my bed to try and find somebody, I was always treated as though I were just being a "bad child" that didn't want to go to sleep. I always expressed my fear to my mother because it was she that I went to find to help me ... because I would be very upset and I'd be crying.
I used to have terrible nightmares and that kind of thing, but a lot of it had to do with the fact that I saw things in the night; so the solution to that finally was just to leave the lights on everywhere. One of the things I saw seemed like an apparition of a child ... or children, but as I said, I may have blotted out a lot.
Christina told us that she had not been back to the house since she was seventeen. "That was when I went to college [in 1956], at which point, Crawford still owned the house."
Christina recalled her last day there:
I remember the woman who had taken care of me and my two younger sisters since I was four years old just watching me, without saying a word. I was going from room to room in the house, without saying anything, just standing in the middle of each room, then going on to the next one. She finally asked me what I was doing. I told her that I would never see this house again, therefore, I was saying goodbye to it.
I have vivid memories of some things, but when you are severely abused, you tend to block out other things. I'm positive that there were manifestations occurring when I was little. I saw them! There were places in the house that were always so cold that nobody ever wanted to go in them.
As a child, I was always told that I had an active and vivid imagination; I was always scared by things, but people just told me that I just had an "active imagination." Years later, I thought, oh well, maybe that was good to have had an active imagination, and I became a writer because of that.
But as a child, I saw things in the house! There was, of course, no context or framework in which to put what I saw and felt. I had nobody to speak to about the occurrences.
Any time I would become extremely frightened and would get out of my bed to try and find somebody, I was always treated as though I were just being a "bad child" that didn't want to go to sleep. I always expressed my fear to my mother because it was she that I went to find to help me ... because I would be very upset and I'd be crying.
I used to have terrible nightmares and that kind of thing, but a lot of it had to do with the fact that I saw things in the night; so the solution to that finally was just to leave the lights on everywhere. One of the things I saw seemed like an apparition of a child ... or children, but as I said, I may have blotted out a lot.
Christina told us that she had not been back to the house since she was seventeen. "That was when I went to college [in 1956], at which point, Crawford still owned the house."
Christina recalled her last day there:
I remember the woman who had taken care of me and my two younger sisters since I was four years old just watching me, without saying a word. I was going from room to room in the house, without saying anything, just standing in the middle of each room, then going on to the next one. She finally asked me what I was doing. I told her that I would never see this house again, therefore, I was saying goodbye to it.
Many years after I had left, we met again. She was now an elderly woman and had retired. We always had been quite close. She told me she had always remembered the look on my face when I said my goodbyes to the house. It seemed a strange thing to do, to say, 'I'll never see this house again,' when at that time there was absolutely no inkling of the house being sold. In fact, it was not sold for another two and a half to three years, and, indeed, I never have been back.
Christina had learned recently that the current owners of the house had called in the Reverend Rosalyn Bruyere of the Healing Light Center to work with the house:
Rosalyn described what she had seen in the house when she went there. She picked up on some things that astounded me because they seemed to validate what I may have seen and experienced when I was little. It gave me goose bumps when Rosalyn told me that she discovered so many spirits in the house and there had been signs of ritual abuse in one of the rooms. Many of the spirits had "underworld" connections.
I was sent to boarding school when I was ten years old. I came home infrequently after that. I always believed that I was sent away partly because I was too much the eyes and ears to the world--a witness. I saw too much, I guess.
Some of the things that I saw that were going on were very violent. Her [Joan Crawford's] relationship with men, a number of men, was extremely violent. I was getting too old, and I was beginning to understand what was going on.
That house is so weird! Now, evidently, the walls are starting to catch fire! Other people have heard children's cries in the walls! Every single owner has had trouble.
The first one was Crawford. She built the majority of the house. It was a small cottage when she bought it, but most of the house, she built. She sold it to Donald O'Connor, who sold it to the Anthony Newleys. They sold it, I think, to the current owner, who is a friend of the Reverend Rosalyn Bruyere, and they asked her to "work" on the house.
Every single family that has lived in that house has had horrible things happen . . . illnesses, alcoholism, addictions, relationship problems, and now, evidently with the current owner, the walls are breaking out in flames! I've heard that in particular it's the wall that was behind Crawford's bed.
Although the scene is in her book, Mommie Dearest, Christina re-minded us that the last words that Joan Crawford uttered were to a woman who was kneeling at the foot of her bed, praying for her.
"As she was dying," Christina said, "Crawford opened her eyes and said directly to the woman, 'Don't you dare ask God to help me!' ... and then she died." It was such arrogance, Christina said, that she believes is a major part of the difficulty with the seemingly accursed house.
And that has nothing to do with me! So it would not surprise me in the least if the "haunting" spirit that is in the house is Crawford! She was capable of real evil. If you have never experienced that "look" from another human being, it is almost impossible to believe that such an experience could even exist! I think perhaps that's why so many people are unwilling to deal with the shadow side because they can't really get themselves to believe that such a dimension exists.
My brother and I were absolutely terrified of her. In fact, there is a passage in Mommie Dearest that describes ('the look" on her face) when she tried to kill me when I was thirteen. We all saw "that look." My brother and I talked about it extensively ... it was not of an ordinary human being!
Later, we were able to contact the Reverend Rosalyn Bruyere of the Healing Light Center, who kindly agreed to share her thoughts on the manifestations in Joan Crawford's former home.
"It is true that the house was afflicted with spontaneous fires, primarily in the wall behind where Joan Crawford's bed used to be. However, I did not pick up that Joan Crawford's ghost was there."
The Reverend Bruyere expressed her opinion that the house had been poisoned in some way before Crawford had moved into the place but that the evil in the house had added to Joan's neuroses. The actress had apparently built onto a pre-existing cottage in a very chaotic man-ner.
"Nothing is where it should be," Rosalyn commented. "She added dining rooms and hallways that led to other dining rooms. It all combines to form an H-shaped house. Turn a corner and you're lost."
"Nothing is where it should be," Rosalyn commented. "She added dining rooms and hallways that led to other dining rooms. It all combines to form an H-shaped house. Turn a corner and you're lost."
The noted healer, who in this case served as an exorcist to clear the home, said that she found the haunting existing in levels.
"It was a place of conspicuous negativity. I called it an 'Astral Central,' a gathering of spirits that were attracted to the negative vibrations. People had been tied up and tortured in that house. I picked up on gangland figures, corrupt politicians. There is an area in the house where a child [not Christina] had been tortured and molested. Terrible things went on in that house."
The Reverend felt that ghosts themselves were trying to burn the house down.
"Once the Beverly Hills Fire Department spent four days there attempting to solve the mystery of the spontaneous fires that would break out on the walls," she said. "I feel the spirits were trying to burn the house down to protect some horrible secret. There is something hidden there. I am certain that there are bodies buried in that basement."
"It was a place of conspicuous negativity. I called it an 'Astral Central,' a gathering of spirits that were attracted to the negative vibrations. People had been tied up and tortured in that house. I picked up on gangland figures, corrupt politicians. There is an area in the house where a child [not Christina] had been tortured and molested. Terrible things went on in that house."
The Reverend felt that ghosts themselves were trying to burn the house down.
"Once the Beverly Hills Fire Department spent four days there attempting to solve the mystery of the spontaneous fires that would break out on the walls," she said. "I feel the spirits were trying to burn the house down to protect some horrible secret. There is something hidden there. I am certain that there are bodies buried in that basement."
She said that there had only been one recurrence in the house after she had exorcised and cleared it. "The house had become an astral dumping ground, but it seems clean now."
When we [Brad and Sherry] visited the former Crawford home in the early 1990s, the current owners graciously allowed us to enter to film a segment for an HBO special on haunted Hollywood. The couple told us that they had experienced some mysterious pyrotechnic phenomena and had witnessed quite a number of apparitions of quite a wide variety of entities in various parts of the home. The couple said that the small cottage next to the swimming pool very often seemed to be center of haunting phenomena.
We kept in touch with the couple for quite some time. It was not long after we had filmed in the Crawford home that they decided to move. We have no comment from them whether or not it was because of any haunting phenomena.
It would seem over the past decade that the once haunted mansion of Joan Crawford has found peace, for we have heard of no further ghostly activity occurring in the home.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Ode to the Brown Derby Restaurants
It's hard to believe that no Brown Derby has been open for over 20 years in Los Angeles, even though it is still more closely tied to Hollywood than any other restaurant. It was a landmark restaurant in Los Angeles frequented by celebrities during the Golden Age of Hollywood. It was an example of novelty architecture, known for being physically shaped like a brown derby hat.
The first Brown Derby Restaurant (the only one resembling a hat - generally referred to as the "Wilshire Brown Derby") was first located at 3427 Wilshire Blvd. It opened in February 1926 across the street from the Ambassador Hotel. It was inspired by the shape of the hat worn by visiting New York governor and presidential candidate Al Smith, and it was the only Derby that was actually built in the shape of a hat. The Derby was often the site of afterparties following bashes at the Ambassador Hotel's Cocoanut Grove nightclub. In 1937, it moved one block up the street to 3347 Wilshire, next to the Gaylord Apartments. (Note: the Gaylord Apartments was the final L.A. headquarters for The Konformist.)
A second Brown Derby opened at 1628 Vine Street, near Hollywood and Vine on Valentine's Day, 1929. Other Derbies were later built in Beverly Hills (at 9537 Wilshire, across from the Beverly-Wilshire Hotel on Wilshire and Rodeo) and in Los Feliz at 4500 Los Feliz Boulevard. The Los Feliz Derby had a "car café" which emulated the then-new "drive-in" trend.
Here is a 1970 photo of the Derby:
(Note the building to its right is the Gaylord.)
The Wilshire Brown Derby closed in September of 1980 and the Hollywood Derby, the last of the restaurants in 1985. The Wilshire Brown Derby is now home to the Brown Derby Plaza minimall:
The most famous recipe of the Brown Derby is the Cobb Salad. In 1937, Brown Derby owner Robert H. Cobb went into the restaurant's kitchen to fix a late-night snack for Sid Grauman, operator of Grauman's Chinese Theater. He browsed the refrigerator for ingredients, and chopped them up. From then on, Grauman often requested that a Cobb salad be prepared for him, word spread about this creation throughout Hollywood, and it was eventually added to the menu. Here's the original recipe:
Besides the minimall, the only remnant of the Derbys still remaining is The Derby, a nightclub with swing dance (featured in the movie Swingers.) It opened in 1992 and is located at the Los Feliz site that closed in 1960. Aside from special theme restaurant at Orlando's Disney World, though, no Derby's currently exist. Though there are good eatings at the HMS Bounty bar & grill in the Gaylord:
Which is a shame, for as LATimeMachines.com put it:
"Isn't it crazy the Hollywood doesn't have a Brown Derby recreation? And I'm not talking about the half-way recreations that have been attempted (including in Florida of all places.) How hard would it be to recreate the Wilshire Brown Derby Hat with its very austere interior? Please, if there is an insane Billionaire out there, let's make a new one and hire me to make sure it's done right! We need a Brown Derby Restaurant in Los Angeles!"
Sources:
http://www.wikipedia.org/
http://originalhollywoodbrownderby.com/
http://www.latimemachines.com/
The first Brown Derby Restaurant (the only one resembling a hat - generally referred to as the "Wilshire Brown Derby") was first located at 3427 Wilshire Blvd. It opened in February 1926 across the street from the Ambassador Hotel. It was inspired by the shape of the hat worn by visiting New York governor and presidential candidate Al Smith, and it was the only Derby that was actually built in the shape of a hat. The Derby was often the site of afterparties following bashes at the Ambassador Hotel's Cocoanut Grove nightclub. In 1937, it moved one block up the street to 3347 Wilshire, next to the Gaylord Apartments. (Note: the Gaylord Apartments was the final L.A. headquarters for The Konformist.)
A second Brown Derby opened at 1628 Vine Street, near Hollywood and Vine on Valentine's Day, 1929. Other Derbies were later built in Beverly Hills (at 9537 Wilshire, across from the Beverly-Wilshire Hotel on Wilshire and Rodeo) and in Los Feliz at 4500 Los Feliz Boulevard. The Los Feliz Derby had a "car café" which emulated the then-new "drive-in" trend.
Here is a 1970 photo of the Derby:
(Note the building to its right is the Gaylord.)The Wilshire Brown Derby closed in September of 1980 and the Hollywood Derby, the last of the restaurants in 1985. The Wilshire Brown Derby is now home to the Brown Derby Plaza minimall:
The most famous recipe of the Brown Derby is the Cobb Salad. In 1937, Brown Derby owner Robert H. Cobb went into the restaurant's kitchen to fix a late-night snack for Sid Grauman, operator of Grauman's Chinese Theater. He browsed the refrigerator for ingredients, and chopped them up. From then on, Grauman often requested that a Cobb salad be prepared for him, word spread about this creation throughout Hollywood, and it was eventually added to the menu. Here's the original recipe:
Besides the minimall, the only remnant of the Derbys still remaining is The Derby, a nightclub with swing dance (featured in the movie Swingers.) It opened in 1992 and is located at the Los Feliz site that closed in 1960. Aside from special theme restaurant at Orlando's Disney World, though, no Derby's currently exist. Though there are good eatings at the HMS Bounty bar & grill in the Gaylord:
Which is a shame, for as LATimeMachines.com put it:"Isn't it crazy the Hollywood doesn't have a Brown Derby recreation? And I'm not talking about the half-way recreations that have been attempted (including in Florida of all places.) How hard would it be to recreate the Wilshire Brown Derby Hat with its very austere interior? Please, if there is an insane Billionaire out there, let's make a new one and hire me to make sure it's done right! We need a Brown Derby Restaurant in Los Angeles!"
Sources:
http://www.wikipedia.org/
http://originalhollywoodbrownderby.com/
http://www.latimemachines.com/
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Ed McMahon's New Landlord: Donald Trump!
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b23930_ed_mcmahons_new_landlord_donald_trump.htmlEd McMahon's New Landlord: Donald Trump!
Thu., Aug. 14, 2008
by Natalie Finn
Ed McMahon's Beverly Hills home is about to become one of the best houses in the world.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Donald Trump, he of the gold-plated everything, has agreed to buy McMahon's mansion so that the financially strapped TV icon can avoid foreclosure and continue to live there.
And they aren't even golf buddies!
"I don't know the man, but I grew up watching him on TV," Trump said Thursday. Helping him would "be an honor."
The real estate tycoon said that he plans to buy the six-bedroom, five-bathroom residence from the lender and lease it to the former Tonight Show wingman and his wife, Pamela, who are behind on more than $640,000 in payments on a $4.8 million mortgage loan.
It wasn't the Apprentice honcho's original plan—the deal reportedly went down after McMahon's listing agent flew to New York to propose the idea to Trump in person. But Ivanka's pop proved to be the man for the job.
"When I was at the Wharton School of Business, I'd watch him every night," Trump added. "How could this happen?"
No one is sure, although McMahon has said that spending more than he made over the years probably did it. That, and he hadn't been able to work until recently because of the broken neck he suffered in a fall about 18 months ago.
The one-time Star Search host's home has been on the market for more than two years, most recently listed at $4.6 million. He reportedly paid $2.6 million for it in 1990.
Since his financial troubles came to light, McMahon has been sued at least three times over unpaid loans and legal fees. He has also filed suit against the owner of the home where he fell and against Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, which he accuses of providing him with shoddy care for his injuries.
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