DANCING AROUND THE PROBLEM

Chorus line turns to picket line for L.A. dancers.

Today in 1938 a group of Carroll Girls—dancers employed by famed theatrical producer Earl Carroll—staged a protest outside the Musicians Union Hall in Los Angeles, an event discussed in the above clipping from Life magazine. The picketing was the result of a spat between Carroll and bandleader Roy Cavanaugh. Apparently Carroll had reneged on a booking and Cavanaugh had appealed to the musician’s union and won their backing. The dancers, caught in the middle, took to the sidewalk to denounce the union for being unwilling negotiate a solution that would let the show go on, and let the dancers get paid.

You will notice in the wider shot below that the meat cutters union Local 421 is in the background. We can’t explain that, except to guess that the musicians and butchers unions were located in the same area. You’ll also notice a lot of musicians playing. Presumably, they’re union guys, and presumably they shouldn’t be playing—i.e. helping to publicize the picket against their own union. But then again, nothing will divide your loyalties like a woman. Just saying. Been there, lived that.

All told, this looks like the most entertaining protest in history. We picture an epic barbecue thanks to the meat cutters union, and killer tunes thanks to the (soon to be punished) musicians. We’d love to tell you how the Carroll Girls fared with their demands, but we don’t know. However, Carroll’s stellar run as a show business impresario continued until his death in 1948, so we suspect that even if the Cavanaugh show didn’t happen the dancers got over that speed bump and kept working steadily for a long while.

It’s a Delight from beginning to end.

Above and below are assorted scans from an issue of Screenland published this month in 1940. The issue we posted previously was from 1923. In the intervening years contributor Delight Evans had become editor, and as a result had become one of Hollywood’s most powerful starmakers. Evans was uniquely talented and got her break when, as a fifteen-year-old, she had a story purchased by Photoplay. That was in 1915.

By 1917 she was working for Photoplay in Chicago, and quickly ascended to an associate editor position there. At least one online source says she was an editor at Screenland by 1923, but even for someone that gifted twenty-three is a bit young to be helming one of America’s biggest magazines.

We have an issue from December 1923 and it was Frederick James Smith in the corner office. But Evans was in charge by at least 1934, which we can confirm because we have an issue from that year too. When did she actually take the reins? No idea. This is where it would be nice to click over to a Wikipedia page or something, but she doesn’t have one. A trailblazer like this—can you believe it? But we shall dig. Evans needs some online exposure, so we’ll see what we can do. Twenty-one scans with a galaxy of stars below. 

Hell no! We won’t go! Hell no! We won’t go!

The above photos show three bathing beauties picketing a showing of Jean Renoir’s 1945 drama The Southerner. If you’ve ever seen the movie you know there’s really nothing controversial in it, so you won’t be surprised to learn that the picket was a publicity stunt dreamt up by theatrical producer and director Earl Carroll to promote both his theater in Hollywood and his Earl Carroll Girls. Bathing suit picket lines were a favorite Carroll trick. He even once picketed himself, arranging for half a dozen sign-carrying girls to march in front of his own theater. The Southerner premiered today in 1945.  

Sometimes everything just Clicks.

Below are scans from a March 1939 issue of Click, a humor and photo monthly published out of Philadelphia. Information is scarce on this one, but it appears to have been published approximately between 1938 and 1944. We got the images off the website Darwination, at which there hasn’t been much activity of late. Hopefully they’ll get going again over there sometime soon. In the meantime enjoy the scans.

They say it’s the best medicine.

Above, the cover of Laff magazine from July 1952, featuring Kalantan, who began life as Mary Ellen Tillotson and earned success as a burlesque dancer. Laff also offers up images of opera singer Frances Yeend, model Eugenie Bennett, actress Joi Lansing (called “Joy” here), and others, all below. If you’re curious, you can see Kalantan shake her moneymaker here.

 
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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1941—DiMaggio Hit Streak Reaches 56

New York Yankees outfielder Joe DiMaggio gets a hit in his fifty-sixth consecutive game. The streak would end the next game, against the Cleveland Indians, but the mark DiMaggio set still stands, and in fact has never been seriously threatened. It is generally thought to be one of the few truly unbreakable baseball records.

1939—Adams Completes Around-the-World Air Journey

American Clara Adams becomes the first woman passenger to complete an around the world air journey. Her voyage began and ended in New York City, with stops in Lisbon, Marseilles, Leipzig, Athens, Basra, Jodhpur, Rangoon, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Wake Island, Honolulu, and San Francisco.

1955—Nobel Prize Winners Unite Against Nukes

Eighteen Nobel laureates sign the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, which reads in part: We think it is a delusion if governments believe that they can avoid war for a long time through the fear of [nuclear] weapons. Fear and tension have often engendered wars. Similarly it seems to us a delusion to believe that small conflicts could in the future always be decided by traditional weapons. In extreme danger no nation will deny itself the use of any weapon that scientific technology can produce.

1921—Sacco & Vanzetti Convicted

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are convicted in Dedham, Massachusetts of killing their shoe company’s paymaster. Even at the time there are serious questions about their guilt, and whether they are being railroaded because of their Italian ethnicity and anarchist political beliefs.

1933—Eugenics Becomes Official German Policy

Adolf Hitler signs the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, and Germany begins sterilizing those they believe carry hereditary illnesses, and those they consider impure. By the end of WWII more than 400,000 are sterilized, including criminals, alcoholics, the mentally ill, Jews, and people of mixed German-African heritage.

1955—Ruth Ellis Executed

Former model Ruth Ellis is hanged at Holloway Prison in London for the murder of her lover, British race car driver David Blakely. She is the last woman executed in the United Kingdom.

1966—Richard Speck Rampage

Richard Speck breaks into a Chicago townhouse where he systematically rapes and kills eight student nurses. The only survivor hides under a bed the entire night.

Rafael DeSoto painted this excellent cover for David Hulburd's 1954 drug scare novel H Is for Heroin. We also have the original art without text.
Argentine publishers Malinca Debora reprinted numerous English language crime thrillers in Spanish. This example uses George Gross art borrowed from U.S. imprint Rainbow Books.
Uncredited cover art for Orrie Hitt's 1954 novel Tawny. Hitt was a master of sleazy literature and published more than one hundred fifty novels.
George Gross art for Joan Sherman’s, aka Peggy Gaddis Dern’s 1950 novel Suzy Needs a Man.

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