This Calls For A Celebration!!!

Exactly 100 years ago today Nestor Studios, the first motion picture studio in Hollywood CA, opened up it's doors for business!

Blondeau Tavern soon to be Nestor Studios

It opened at the former Blondeau Tavern (above).  Nestor didn't remain autonomous for long though.  Carl Laemmle, of  Independent Motion Pictures (IMP), absorbed the company along with several others in 1912.  Afterwhich, Nestor head David Horsley and former Nestor Director Al Christie made pictures under the new Laemmle banner of Universal Pictures.

Same site in 1913

After Uncle Carl Laemmle (who had a very large Faemmle) moved Universal to what is still it's location today - Universal City,  Christie split off from the Universal moniker and the lot was now "Christie Comedies".  Christie's company expanded the lot and flourished for the next two decades.

 

Christie lot 1926

As we all know, however, progress happens....

Demolition of Christie Studios, 1937

And, every once in a while, progress is not such a horrible thing.....

CBS Columbia Square

Columbia Square opening April 30, 1938

Columbia Square Lobby

View from the stage of the 1000 seat studio A

The Glenn Miller Orchestra, Studio A

Lucille Ball and Richard Denning  "My Favorite Husband"

Agnes Moorehead's legendary performance of "Sorry Wrong Number"

Columbia Square is something of a ghost town now* since local CBS affiliate KCBS and KNX radio left a few years back.  The property is in the hands of new owners who, of course, plan new and dense and tall construction -- once this wacky economy clears up.  They have promised though to preserve Columbia Square.  Meanwhile some of the space is being rented out to production companies, mostly of the reality TV variety.  But it seems as though only 30-40% of the over 100,000 square feet are being used.

So today, on this most special day, I snuck in!  I boldly walked into the lobby, prepared to go into a riff about my historical walking tour and the significance of the building and the necessity of my walking through it.  I was also prepared to get summarily thrown out on my can.  But, don't you know there was no one sitting at the sweater-draped chair behind the receptionist desk!  I was home free.  I knew once I was inside that if I was spotted, I would be assumed to be an employee of one of the tenants.  So in I slipped.  It was a bit disappointing.  Much of the grandeur and streamline of the place was done over (seemingly in the '70s).  But I walked up to the roof top and went to the deck that surrounds the penthouse office (vacant) to snap these pictures just for you of Hollywood on it's 100th birthday:

The roof looking North East. 

The roof looking along the Penthouse wall to North West.  You can barely make out the Hollywood Sign on top of the hill.

Many of the photos above come from the fabulous facebook page CBS Columbia Square Alumni.

*Ghost town indeed.  Scores of former employees from the building insist that, not only does the spirit of CBS founder and president William Paley inhabit the building, but so does that of former KNX morning DJ/television star Bob Crane (Hogan's Heroes).

Now How Would You Caption This....

Can Someone Please Explain This To Me?

 

Or should I just stay with my original thought that it was a Bette Davis look-a-like contest in a drag bar and Tallulah won.

The Party's Over.....

.....but I don't think that's why Tony and Tab look so distraught.  I think it has more to do with the fact that they have been snapped by a photographer without any gals around.

Signing Their Life Away.

Lauren Bacall

Bette Davis

Jane Russell

Tab Hunter

Joan Crawford

Shirley Temple

Kirk Douglas

Lauren had a lot to say.

Stanwyck - The Ziegfeld Years.

Ruby Stevens during her Ziegfeld time 1923-24.

I've seen the above photo many times and loved it each time.  It seems to me that the pose/persona she's affecting is one of her greatest acting feats.  When you consider the rough-knocks childhood she had to endure, that later hard-boiled Stanwyck was really more of a natural for her.

The photo was taken by Alfred Chaney Johnston, an interesting chap in his own rite.  Charles Dana Gibson, originator of the illustrations know as The Gibson Girl, set the standard for American female ideal at the fin de siecle.  It's then only fitting that he took on the mentorship of Alfred Chaney Johnston guiding him and his photography to capture perfection in the female form for the next generation.  Johnston's career was made in 1917 when the great Flo Ziegfeld brought him in to 'glorify the American girl' in photographs.  He enjoyed tremendous commercial popularity throughout the 20s and into the mid-30s.  Then by the end of that decade, styles had changed but Johnston's had not.  In 1940 he and his wife left the center of it all and moved to a 15 acre parcel in Oxford, CT.  His era had past and the next three decades saw a much smaller life for Alfred.  In the 60s Chaney unsuccessfully tried to donate his entire studio and picture inventory to several organizations in both New York and Washington DC but there was no interest in storing such a vast amount of material.  The Library Of Congress did accept 245 prints as well as several product advertisement pictures.  The childless widower passed away  in 1971.

That top photo is just a teaser.  Chaney took other pictures of Stevens/Stanwyck.  Below are what I have found and they're lovely:

**posted with love for eva.

I Walk The Line....

Even though I feel like the first couple of months were kind of a warm up rehearsal period, and I really consider the first of the year as the beginning of my company, it was about a year ago that I first announced here that I was starting it.

Holy cow, a year!  So I figured I should give you guys an annual report.

Miss Crawford, will you please bring in the annual report?

It's a funny thing that, living this thing day to day, it doesn't feel like things are growing fast enough.  Or even at all.  But to look over the big picture, it ain't so bad!
Without so much as a dime for publicity/marketing/advertising here's how things look:



**  I received a very small mention in The Los Angeles Times.

**  I was interviewed on "The List" a 30-minute web radio show.

**  I was invited to join an elite group of independent tour companies, 7 Days In LA

**  The tour has earned a 5-star rating on Yelp. 

**  I was interviewed and given a rave write-up in The Advocate Magazine.

**  There is another press piece coming at the beginning of the year I'll tell ya about later.

**  The Facebook page is on it's way to 500 followers.

**  Am preparing remarks for my participation in a swell historical/literary salon in January.

**  To date over 1000 people have taken the tour.

All in all, a swell year!  I'm looking forward to a slam-bang finish to 2011, and a banner 2012.

And I'd love to meet you guys on the tour really soon (Angelinos) or as soon as your next visit (everyone else)!

Mr. And Mrs. Mogul

Sam and Frances Goldwyn

Louis B. Mayer and second wife Lorena

Jack and Ann Warner

Irving Thalberg and Norma Shearer (Thalberg)

Harry Cohn and second wife Joan Perry Cohn

Darryl and Virginia Zanuck

David Selznick and Irene Mayer Selznick

Jesse and Bessie Lasky

Does He At Least Call Before He Drops In?

I guess there was a time when a production  just  wasn't a Production until Cary Grant came a-calling on the set:

Cary Grant visits Joan Crawford, Wm. Castle and John Ireland on the "I Saw What You Did" set.

Grant visits Frank Capra and James Stewart on the "Mr. Smith" set.

Grant visits Deborah Kerr on the "Young Bess" set

Grant visits Cab Calloway and Eartha Kitt on the "St. Louis Blues" set.

Grant visits Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward on the "Winning" set.

....And apparently the same held true for 
locker rooms!

Grant visits Yogi Berra.

Cary Grant, Professional Visitor.

The Mystery Gets Revealed!!!

Well, get me!!  I stumped you all.  So without further delay:


It's hard to believe that in only 37 short years this handsome young devil of 19:

Would become:

Theodore J. Mooney!!!

A few other fun facts about wonderful character actor Gale Gordon:

**He was the first actor (albeit on radio) to play the role of Flash Gordon. (take that Buster Crabbe!)

** He was the original choice to play the role of Fred Mertz but had to decline owing to his commitment on the "Our Miss Brooks" show.

** He is the only actor to have either guest-starred or was a series regular on every weekly series that Lucille Ball ever did starting in the 40s with her radio series "My Favorite Husband" and ending in the 80s with "Life With Lucy".

**He had a ranch in Borrego Springs, CA some 160 miles from L.A. and commuted to work.

** The output of his ranch made him one of the few commercial growers of Carob in the US.


Okay everybody, all together now:

"MISSEZ  CAAAAHHRMICHAEL!!!"

Mystery Guest Will You Enter And Sign In Please....

Yup it's that time again!

IF YOU ARE NEW TO THIS GAME PLEASE READ.  If you've seen this picture before, or know for sure who this is, feel free to send me an email, but for the sake of unbridled mystery and tension, let the gang have a go guessing in the comments section.

Who is this handsome chap?

Someone's In The Kitchen With......

Judy Holliday

Boris Karloff

Maureen O'Sullivan

Walt Disney

Richard Widmark

Judy Garland

Betty Garrett and Larry Parks

Sure They Could Talk, But Did They Have Faces?

Ever since the 'Talkie Revolution'  there has been many stories spun about the silent stars who couldn't make the transition:  the Europeans, John Gilbert, Harry Langdon etc.  But an interesting chat sprung up on day on the Columbia lot in 1942 that turned that topic on it's head.

Hedda Hopper paid a visit to the set of  "My Sister Eileen" and soon the producer and director of  "Commandos Strike At Dawn"  came over to do their time in the presence of Herself.  (above:  Commandos prod. and dir.  Lester Cowan and John Farrow are on far right and left flanking Eileen star and dir. Roz Russell and Al Hall.  Hopper is at center) 

John Farrow suggested that very few stars of '42 would be able to make it in the silents and offered his list of those that he thought could.  They were:  Charlie Chaplin, Bob Hope, Charlie McCarthy, Harpo Marx, Roz Russell, James Cagney, Rochester, Barbara Stanwyck, and Jimmy Gleason.

I'll discount the following:  Chaplin as he had reached the heights during that era, Charlie McCarthy was a wooden dummy and not an actor, and Harpo Marx as silence was his shtick.  But it's a curious question and one I'd like to have you weigh in on.  Soooo........

Who do you think, from the Golden Era (let's say 1930-1958), could have made a go in Silents?  And what of today's crop, anybody?

See You In The Funny Papers

Rock Hudson

Vivian Vance

Gary Cooper.