“I wonder if you realize that every community, from that of a city like London to the very smallest village in saddest Russia, is well acquainted with your mountains, roadways, streets, through the motion picture – and very well acquainted with a large part of your Los Angeles population, the motion picture people.” – D.W. […]
“Along about the time when I should have been starting off to college, I became exceedingly unpopular, need I say, undeservedly so! – with the head of the household. Calling me to one side, my father said: ‘Here, Carl, is $100. Use it to the best advantage.’ And when I said, ‘What is it for?” […]
“Just because I’m a little – well, you know, different – people believe anything weird about me.” – Mabel Normand Photographer: Aaron Tycko (1919) “When Miss Normand first came to my company, she got such a small salary that I can’t think of any word short enough to tell about it. Now she gets the second […]
“I simply have to talk when I act.” – silent film star Bessie Barriscale (1884-1965). In 1917, she was touted as the “noisiest actress in the ‘speechless drama.’” She was born Elizabeth Mary Barriscale in New York City in 1884. “I’ve been on the stage since I was five years old and I know that […]
“You know, there are so many men who want to die for me, or about me, but when I give them the chance – they never do!” – Anita Stewart “I have never been on the stage and don’t think I would like that, but I do like the pictures so much. I […]
In August 1907, Los Angeles oil tycoon Edward Doheny (1856-1935) hosted one of the Alexandria Hotel’s first themed banquets. He entertained 40 people. Many of them were Mexican bankers, politicians and executives connected with his Mexican Petroleum Company. The banquet had an exotic theme. The Alexandria’s original banquet room (on the Mezzanine/second floor) became a tropical sunken garden with ferns […]
“I feel that popular dancing as one sees it today is nothing mere than a complicated form of hugging. It will, however, probably change very soon and return to some more rhythmic form of movement.” — Ruth St. Denis in 1927 Photo: Hixon-Connelly “Briefly my own relation to the movement is this: Personally I […]
On October 16, 1911, U.S. President William Howard Taft arrived in Southern California for a whirlwind tour of Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Alhambra. The visit was not without drama. The McNamara brothers trial for the 1910 bombing of the Los Angeles Times building was about to begin. The high profile case required heightened security for […]