Needs and Opportunities in Los Angeles Biography — Part Three: 1940–1990

Needs and Opportunities in Los Angeles Biography

Part Three: 1940–1990

By Abraham Hoffman, Ph.D.

Historical Society of Southern California
Copyright © 2001 Historical Society of Southern California

Periodizing historical eras often becomes an exercise in artificiality, and starting or ending the “Progressive Era” or the “Great Depression” depends on how historians see causes and consequences. In a project that began with examining the lives of Los Angeles men and women and their contributions to the southern California region, it seemed easy to start with 1781 and conclude in 1900 for Part One. The second essay, originally intended to run from 1900 to 1950, effectively ended around 1940, since the election of Fletcher Bowron as mayor in 1938 signaled in many ways a new era for the city. This third essay utilized mayoral administrations for its boundaries–1938 to 1993, though anyone who wishes may round the dates off to 1940–1990.

As will be seen in this essay, the movers and shakers who help shape the destiny of Los Angeles become an astonishingly diverse group in the 1970s. All that can be done from the perspective of 2003 is to identify these people and speculate on how biography will deal with them eventually. The scholars who will write those biographies may yet be unborn, or early in their own lives and careers. For the present, the closer one gets to current events, the more difficult it is to retain historical perspective. On that basis, the dividing point where Tom Bradley’s last term as mayor ended and Richard Riordan’s first term began seems a fair spot to set up a period of Los Angeles history that more (or less) frames the city in the second half of the 20th century.

The Mayors of Los Angeles Fletcher Bowron (1887–1968), a Superior Court judge, ran for mayor backed by a coalition of reformers who wanted to recall Mayor Frank Shaw, whose rule of the city had been openly corrupt. Bowron won by a landslide, finished the remainder of Shaw’s term, and went on to win reelection in the next three campaigns. Bowron served as mayor a total of fifteen years, a record for Los Angeles that would stand until the administration of Tom Bradley. A scrupulously honest man, Bowron lost no time in “throwing the rascals out,” bringing greater economy and efficiency to Los Angeles government. During his tenure as mayor, Bowron led the city through World War II and such controversial episodes as the removal of Japanese Americans to relocation centers and the Zoot Suit Riot. An advocate of Japanese evacuation, Bowron after the war apologized to the Japanese American community for his actions–the only major political leader to do so. In the postwar period Bowron fought for integrated public housing, a stand that cost him reelection in 1953. He concluded his career by again serving as a judge for the Superior Court.

Given the controversies and excitement of the Bowron years, it is surprising to findthat no biography of Fletcher Bowron has been written. This lack is exacerbated by the fact that materials on Bowron are abundant. The Bowron Collection at the Huntington Library offers excellent opportunities for research, and the Los Angeles City Archives can also yield rich treasures about Bowron and his times. Tom Sitton is working on the political issues of the Bowron administration, but a major biographical study is imperative and, for the second largest city in the nation, embarrassing by its absence.

The victor in the 1953 mayoralty election was Norris Poulson (1895–1982), a Congressman enlisted by downtown business leaders opposing public housing at Chávez Ravine, which Bowron favored. Poulson served two terms as mayor. He is best remembered for his strong support of bringing major league baseball, namely the Brooklyn Dodgers, to Los Angeles. Although the move was hotly contested at the time–the stadium would be located at Chávez Ravine, where the public housing project would have been built (voters rejected the project when they rejected Bowron)–in the long run the professional baseball team proved a valuable asset to the city. Poulson also began the integration of the Los Angeles Police and Fire Departments, which were segregated at the time. During Poulson’s second term backyard incinerators were banned throughout the county in the war against smog; but the freeway system grew, and more vehicles than ever were being driven on them.

In 1961 Poulson tried for a third term, but during the campaign he developed laryngitis, the kiss of death for a campaigning politician. At the time the city had a policy of separating noncombustible rubbish from garbage, a practice that Poulson’s opponent in the race, Samuel W. Yorty, ridiculed. The “housewives campaign” allegedly contributed to Poulson’s defeat. Four decades after the election, with no less than three collection bins in front of each Los Angeles residence (garden clippings, recyclable paper and containers, and garbage), one wonders how people in 1961 thought about “the environment.”  The defeat ended Poulson’s public career. Like Bowron, Poulson lacks a biographer. The period 1938–1961 remains an understudied time in the history of Los Angeles and its leaders, with any number of fascinating topics awaiting researchers.

Sam Yorty (1909–1998), often referred to affectionately (or sarcastically) as “Mayor Sam,” made a career out of being a maverick in politics. He started out as a leftist liberal and ended up a right-wing conservative, but remained a registered Democrat throughout his political life. Yorty supported the House Un-American Activities Committee, backed Richard Nixon for president in 1960 against John F. Kennedy, and opposed civil rights activism. After serving in the State Assembly and the House of Representatives, Yorty challenged and defeated Poulson in the 1961 mayoralty race. He won reelection contests in 1965 and 1969. During his tenure as mayor, downtown Los Angeles underwent extensive redevelopment, the Bunker Hill area being transformed from rundown boarding houses to high-rise office buildings. He also acquired a dubious notoriety as “Traveling Sam,” making numerous and extensive junkets to cities in other states and nations to promote tourism and the “sister city” program. Yorty was out of the city in August 1965 when the Watts Riot erupted. His strong stand against civil disorder and his support of LAPD Chief William H. Parker demonstrated his increasingly conservative views. In 1969 he won a third term as mayor, beating back Tom Bradley’s challenge in a campaign that carried racist overtones. Times were changing, however, and his last hurrah came in 1973 when Bradley defeated him.

Two books have been written about Yorty, neither one a definitive biography. Ed Ainsworth’s Maverick Mayor: A Biography of Sam Yorty of Los Angeles (1966) was essentially a campaign biography, as Yorty entertained unfulfilled hopes for a run at the U.S. presidency. John C. Bollens, Yorty, Politics of a Constant Candidate (1973) essentially studied his political views rather than deal with his life and times. Given the important events that occurred during his twelve years as mayor, a major study of Yorty is overdue.

Thomas Bradley (1917–1998), who preferred “Tom” to the more formal name, was the first (and to date only) African American elected mayor of Los Angeles. He also holds the record for longest service, having been elected five times to the office. Born in Texas, Bradley came to Los Angeles at age seven, attended local public schools and UCLA, and joined the LAPD in 1941. When he was elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 1961, he retired from the LAPD with the rank of lieutenant. Bradley unsuccessfully challenged Yorty in 1969, but returned four years later with a coalition of liberals, Jews, blacks, labor unions, and downtown business leaders. He also projected a vision of a Los Angeles with a revitalized center, connections to world trade, and an improved rapid-transit system. He defeated Yorty in 1973 and over the next twenty years did much to accomplish his vision. Among his triumphs were the city’s hosting the 1984 Olympics, a financial success that set a standard for other cities with Olympic aspirations. He also supported low-income housing projects built by the Community Redevelopment Agency. Under Bradley’s tenure the complexion of local government changed as minorities and women found employment opportunities and advancement in working for the City of Los Angeles.

Bradley had higher political ambitions, making two unsuccessful tries for the governor’s office and losing in 1982 and 1986 to George Deukmejian. His long tenure as mayor ended with mixed results, as in his last year of office when the Los Angeles Riot of 1992 broke out after the police officers who had beaten Rodney King were acquitted. Bradley considered running for a sixth term but decided against it. Despite a career of public office that lasted more than three decades, only a few studies have appeared about him. They include Thomas F. Pettigrew’s Tom Bradley’s Campaigns for Governor: The Dilemma of Race and Political Strategies (1988), J. Gregory Payne and Scott C. Ratzan’s Tom Bradley: The Impossible Dream (1986), and Raphael J. Sonenshein’s Politics in Black and White: Race and Power in Los Angeles (1993). Bradley merits a full-scale study, and hopefully someone will soon take up the challenge.

In 1993 Richard Riordan, a prominent business leader, defeated City Councilman Michael Woo for mayor. Neither one should be counted out as far as politics are concerned. In 2002 Riordan ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for governor, and by the end of the year was making plans to create a regional newspaper. Woo may make a political comeback, given the support of his former district and his interest in running again for public office. In 2001 James Hahn, City Attorney of Los Angeles, defeated Antonio Villaraigosa, former speaker of the State Assembly, for mayor. None of these politically active people will ever meet Bradley’s five-term record, since the inauguration of term limits restricts many political offices in California to two terms. The restriction, however, encourages office-holders to move on to other posts if they wish to continue a political career.

Significant Political Leaders prior to the term limits restriction, a successful politician could spend an entire career as a county supervisor or city council member. Seniority brought with it enormous political influence and power. With city council elections in odd-numbered years, state and federal posts in staggered, even-numbered years, an incumbent could retain office while testing the waters for a seat in the Assembly, House of Representatives, or even governor. Overall, however, Los Angeles politicians have been unsuccessful in moving up the political food chain. City council members and county supervisors have been similarly unsuccessful at state office beyond winning seats in the legislature. Term limits may change the picture, but it should be noted that critics of term limits argue for getting rid of the restriction because political leadership and acumen do not grow overnight.

In the decades since the 1930s a number of political leaders have shaped the growth and destiny of Los Angeles. The city and its environs influence the state, nation, and the world in industry, trade, and ethnic and cultural diversity. For better or worse, Los Angeles exemplifies urban development (and redevelopment), housing and real estate issues, education, municipal services, and other challenges for major metropolitan areas. For a region where immigrants have arrived from all over the world, it would seem imperative that information be available on the people who have shaped the city’s growth. Without knowledge of Los Angeles history, residents lack an essential empowerment for planning for the future. Given Los Angeles’ reputation for reinventing itself, a collective institutional memory can warn of past mistakes as well as accomplishments.

That said, at first inspection the biographical record of local political leaders seems most discouraging. If even the mayors of the past half-century remain in need of scholarly investigation and historical perspective, what of those long-time, long-term politicians who have made their mark figuratively as well as literally on the city and county? Literally in the case of the recent spate of naming public buildings, parks, and other government hallmarks after politicians, including some who are still quite active. What follows is a survey through a biographical desert–some oases of knowledge, but lots of areas where the streams of information are minimal.

For starters, consider the contributions of Kenneth Hahn (1920–1997). A native of Los Angeles, Hahn was elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 1947 at the tender age of 27. Five years later he ran for and was elected to the County Board of Supervisors, beginning a reign that lasted through forty years and ten elections. Politically liberal, Hahn worked for the establishment of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Hospital; county paramedic service; and rapid transit. His largely black constituency voted for him repeatedly, knowing that his dedication in providing county services matter more than race. Yet for all that Hahn accomplished–and he accomplished a great deal–no one has stepped forward to attempt a biography of this remarkable politician who retired in 1992.

Edward R. Roybal (1916– ) has also received little attention from biographers, apart from Janet Morey and Wendy Dunn, Famous Mexican Americans (1989), a work intended for juveniles that provides a brief essay about him. A graduate of local public schools and UCLA, Roybal ran unsuccessfully for the Los Angeles City Council in 1947, then helped form the Community Service Organization in a broad campaign to aid Mexican Americans seeking a political voice. Roybal’s second effort, in 1949, was successful, making him the first Mexican American to win a City Council seat since 1881. In 1962 Roybal ran for the House of Representatives, beginning thirty-years of service as a Congressman. Roybal retired in 1992, leaving a record of accomplishment in such areas as medical and welfare benefits. His daughter, Lucille Roybal-Allard, also serves as a member of the House of Representatives. Clearly, Edward Roybal merits biographical study.

When Roybal left the City Council for the House of Representatives, his place was taken by Gilbert Lindsay (1900–1990), the first African American to be elected to the Los Angeles City Council. An astute politician, Lindsay made the office his own for almost three decades. His 9th District included downtown Los Angeles, giving him tremendous political leverage in the redevelopment of the area. Lindsay’s career, like Roybal’s, invites a biography.

Ernest E. Debs (1904–2002) served a total of 27 years on the City Council and Board of Supervisors, plus five years as an Assemblyman. Born in Ohio, Debs came to California in 1924 for a brief career in motion pictures, then turned to politics. He was elected to the State Assembly in 1942, followed by election to the City Council in 1947. In 1958 he moved up to the Board of Supervisors in a hard-fought campaign against Edward Roybal that went through four recounts. Debs represented a district that included a wide range of economic levels and ethnicities, and he made a point of attending public and private events, from parades to tree plantings. A masterful politician, Debs knew the power behind issuing building permits and leases, establishing public parks, and creating senior citizen centers. He liked to refer to himself as a “nonpartisan Democrat.” Debs’s last political fight was in his reelection bid in 1974, when he retired in the face of an aggressive Zev Yaroslavsky, who would build his own lengthy reign as supervisor. Debs is remembered in the Ernest Debs Regional Park, but he still awaits a biographer.

In contrast to the long tenures of Hahn, Roybal, and Debs, Baxter Ward (1919–2002) served only two terms on the Board of Supervisors, but his public career spanned four decades in Los Angeles. Like Yorty, Ward was a political maverick. A World War II veteran, he came to Los Angeles and was news director and anchorman for KCOP-TV from 1955 to1961. In 1962 KABC-TV hired him as news director and anchorman, and his unusual style of focusing on personal stories made him popular among viewers. He also was a pioneer in hiring women as newsroom staffers. Ward resigned in 1969 to make an unsuccessful bid for mayor of Los Angeles against Yorty and Bradley. Three years later he won a seat on the Board of Supervisors. During his time as a supervisor Ward championed the Sunset Coast Line and other ideas for mass transportation. He also acquired a reputation for eccentricity and could be a study in contradictions. His minimal effort at raising campaign funds became legendary in local politics. In 1980 he lost his reelection bid to Mike Antonovich, made another unsuccessful run for the Los Angeles mayor’s office, and rounded out his career as a broadcaster and news commentator. Apart from an unpublished manuscript he wrote on politics in Los Angeles and Seattle, a biography on this colorful and outspoken man is yet to be written.

In the absence of published biographies of long-time council members and supervisors, John Anson Ford (1883–1983), cited in Part Two, stands as an exception to the rule. Of course, in his case he had to do the job himself, not once but three times. Ford donated his papers to the Huntington Library. Along with his memoirs, his records, available to researchers, provide an excellent opportunity for a biography as well as examination of local politics in an era of growth and development in southern California.

There are numerous other elected officials whose careers, and the episodes that took place and the positions they took about them, would be enriched through a biographical approach. The following people represent but a sampling of biographical opportunity. Rosalind Wiener Wyman was the first woman elected to the Los Angeles City Council. She strongly favored the move of the Dodgers to Los Angeles. After marrying Eugene Wyman, she retired from politics. Bill Greene (1930–2002) served in the State Assembly from 1967 to 1975, then was a State Senator until he retired in 1992. An African American, Greene strongly backed civil rights legislation and headed the State Senate’s Industrial Relations Committee. His predecessor in both offices, Mervyn Dymally (1926– ), was elected lieutenant governor of the state in 1974, followed by twelve years in the House of Representatives, 1980–1992. Both men merit biographical study.

A few oases do appear occasionally in the biographical desert. Helen Gahagan Douglas (1900–1980) was a successful stage actress who became involved in politics with her husband, movie actor Melvyn Douglas. She ran for Congress in 1944 and was reelected twice. In 1950 the U.S. Senate seat was open, and in a hotly contested primary election Douglas won the Democratic nomination over Manchester Boddy, publisher of the Los Angeles Daily News (no connection to the present-day newspaper of the same name). The Republicans nominated Richard Nixon. Both Douglas and Nixon lived in Los Angeles County; their similarities ended there. In one of the most vicious smear campaigns in the state’s history, Nixon branded Douglas a Communist sympathizer, labeling her the “Pink Lady.”  After her defeat Douglas retired from politics; Nixon went on to higher levels before his karma came full circle. Douglas’ autobiography, A Full Life (1982), was published posthumously. The election so damaged her career and reputation that no California institution would accept her papers. She eventually donated them to the Western History Collections at the University of Oklahoma.

Douglas has been the subject of two important studies. Ingrid Winther Scobie’s Center Stage: Helen Gahagan Douglas, a Life (1992), is the kind of major biography so dearly needed for Los Angeles figures (or anywhere else). Extensively documented and well written, the book engages the reader and involves us in her active life. Greg Mitchell, Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady: Richard Nixon vs. Helen Gahagan Douglas–Sexual Politics and the Red Scare, 1950 (1998), despite its lurid title, is an important examination of the 1950 Senate campaign.

Before Nixon took on Douglas, there was Jerry Voorhis (1901–1984), the hapless victim of Nixon’s initial political campaign. Voorhis had represented the 12th Congressional District„ with Whittier as its core, for ten years. In 1946 he fell victim to Nixon’s aggressive and controversial campaign tactics. An idealistic New Dealer, Voorhis merits study as the first victim in Nixon’s march to political fame and notoriety. Paul Bullock, Jerry Voorhis: The Idealist as Politician (1978), provides that study.

Numerous books have been written about Richard Nixon, but there were other politicians in Los Angeles who deserve scholarly attention if only to remind us that Joseph McCarthy wasn’t the only demagogue of the 1940s and 1950s. The career of Jack B. Tenney (1898–1970) provides a case in point. Tenney was president of the Los Angeles musicians union in the 1930s. Defeated for reelection, he blamed Communist subversives for his loss and moved politically from the left to the far right. Elected to the State Assembly in 1938, he soon moved over to the State Senate where he headed the State Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, California’s counterpart to the House of Representatives Un-American Activities Committee, HUAC. Tenney’s methods were so ruthless that the Assembly refused to continue the connection as a joint committee. His red-baiting eventually proved too much for his State Senate colleagues (some of whom were being accused by Tenney of Communist sympathies), and in 1949 Tenney was forced to resign. It is perhaps instructive of the times that Tenney wielded his power because his constituency supported him. A biography of this controversial demagogue would shed light on his ruthlessness and, perhaps, what drove him to political extremes.

William G. Bonelli (1895–1968) was a Los Angeles City Council member from 1927 to 1931 and an Assemblyman from 1931 to 1934. He was then appointed to the State Board of Equalization, the state agency perhaps best known for approving liquor licenses. Although Bonelli had been a long-time friend of Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler, he ran afoul of Dorothy Buffum Chandler, Harry’s daughter-in-law, who controlled the Los Angeles Mirror, the city’s afternoon tabloid in the late 1940s and 1950s. A series of articles in the Mirror in 1953 exposed Bonelli’s long involvement in kickbacks on liquor licenses, bribery, and criminal associations. Bonelli hired journalist Leo Katcher to ghost-write Billion Dollar Blackjack: The Story of Corruption and the Los Angeles Times (1954), in which Bonelli, as the ostensible author, defended himself and attacked the Chandlers. He also sued the Mirror for $1.5 million for libel. With an impending Grand Jury indictment heading his way, Bonelli skipped town, moving to Mexico where he spent the rest of his life. This brief summary strongly argues for a great deal of research into Bonelli’s life, especially since all we have is what Bonelli gave Katcher.

Back on the right side of the law, Laughlin E. Waters (1915–2002) had a lengthy and distinguished career, from service as an Army captain on Utah Beach in World War II to the State Assembly in 1946, U.S. Attorney, and, in 1976, appointment as a U.S. District judge. Mildred Lillie (1915–2002) was the longest-serving appellate court justice in the state’s history. Born in Iowa, she arrived in California at age three and grew up on a Central Valley farm. Lillie was graduated from the University of California law school and moved and moved to Los Angeles in 1942. Governor Earl Warren appointed her to a Municipal Court position in 1947, and two years later she became the youngest person to that time who was appointed to the Superior Court–age 34. Her life seemed studded with “firsts,” including being the first woman and youngest jurist to head the Los Angeles Superior Court’s Criminal Division, this at a time when few women were lawyers, much less judges. Governor Goodwin J. Knight appointed Lillie to the State Court of Appeal in 1958, a position she held for the next 44 years. President Nixon proposed her for the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971, but the American Bar Association’s judiciary committee (twelve members, all male) ruled her “not qualified” despite her two dozen years of court experience. Nixon subsequently appointed William Rehnquist. Lillie would have been the first female Supreme Court Justice, a distinction that went to Sandra Day O’Connor in 1981. At the time of her death Lillie was on the state ballot for another term on the Appellate Court. In all, she served a total of 55 years at various court levels. It’s hard to imagine anyone not wanting the opportunity to do the research for biographies on judges of the stature of Waters and Lillie.

One other political figure who died recently rounds out this representative sampling. John Ferraro (1924–2001) won an appointment to the Los Angeles City Council, was elected to the post in 1967, and served until his death in 2001. During his more than three decades on the City Council he was a strong supporter of the Department of Water and Power (strong enough to have the DWP headquarters named in his honor) and served many more years as the City Council’s president. Ferraro’s involvement in Los Angeles politics in the last third of the 20th century invites researchers to examine his role in leading the city’s legislative body, his relationship with three mayors, and the major events of the period.

Recent Political Leaders

The civil rights movement of the 1960s presented unprecedented opportunities for minorities and women to run for, and win, political office. As Los Angeles and neighboring municipalities changed, so did the politicians. What had been the domain of older white males yielded to an almost overnight emergence of candidates and officeholders of a rainbow of ethnicity, race, age, and gender. A visit to the Los Angeles City Hall no longer meant seeing a semi-circle of white males, mainly Protestant, hardly anyone under age forty. Even the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors left the doorway of opportunity ajar, though it took a court fight over redistricting to enable Gloria Molina (1948– ) to become the first elected woman ever, first elected Latina ever, and first elected Hispanic in the 20th century, to a supervisor’s seat. Yvonne Braithwaite Burke (1932– ) preceded her as the first woman appointee to the Board, as well as the first African American woman ever and first elected African American ever.

Other new faces entered the political arena. Jackie Goldberg (1945– ) became the first openly gay elected member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, followed by her election to the State Assembly. Mexican Americans (also called Chicanos or Latinos, depending on what was preferred as a self-referent identity) included Richard Alatorre (1943– ) to the State Assembly and Los Angeles City Council; Richard Alarcon (1954– ) and Mike Hernandez (1953– ) to the Los Angeles City Council; Julian Nava as president of the Los Angeles Board of Education and as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico; and others to the State Assembly, State Senate, and House of Representatives. Nava has written his autobiography, My Mexican-American Journey (2002). Jewish officeholders included Edmund Edelman (1930– ) and Zev Yaroslavsky (1948– ) to the Los Angeles City Council and Board of Supervisors; Julie Korenstein to the Board of Education; and many others.

Asian Americans are beginning to make themselves known as political contenders, less in elected offices than in positions as field deputies and in various city and county commissions. Michael Woo (1951– ), a Chinese American, held a City Council seat and ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 1993. Asian Americans are being elected to public office in such suburban communities as Monterey Park and Alhambra. African Americans have come a long way since Gilbert Lindsay was elected to the City Council. In addition to Burke on the Board of Supervisors, a partial list for recent seats on the City Council would include Nate Holden (1929-), Mark Ridley-Thomas (1954– ), and Rita Walters (1930– ), with Walters previously being elected to the Board of Education.

Other current or recent officeholders whose political careers may yield higher office (or no office) include Mike Antonovich, Dean Dana, Art Torres, Laura Chick, Dennis Zine, etc., etc. With term limits restricting officeholders to eight years for most state and local positions, voters can expect to see these and many other candidates leaving one office to run for another. For partisan offices in the state legislature, it also doesn’t hurt to be a Democrat, at least for the time being. Some political leaders disappoint by their performance, most do their job, a few show inspired leadership. For the current crop, judgment on research and biographical study will have to wait until the passage of time provides an appropriate perspective.

Law Enforcement

Early in the 20th century a change in state law made the office of county sheriff nonpartisan. Whereas earlier elections had been hotly contested between Democrats and Republicans, subsequent races came down to how well an individual sold himself to the voters. One consequence of this change has been the ability of an incumbent to maintain himself in office so long as the voters are satisfied the job is being done. The first beneficiary of this public attitude for county sheriff was Eugene Biscailuz (1883–1969), a native of Los Angeles who rose through the ranks of the sheriff’s department to win the 1932 election as sheriff. From then on he won every election until he retired (that is, chose not to run) in 1958. Sheriff Biscailuz loved horses and parades, and he especially liked to ride his horse in the Rose Parade, which is how many old-timers remember him. His long tenure calls for research into how the Sheriff’s Office dealt with minorities, especially Mexican Americans, and such events as the Zoot-Suit Riot of 1943 and the Chicano Moratorium of 1970. Lindley Bynum and Idwal Jones, Biscailuz: Sheriff of the New West (1950) is an uncritical biography written more than a half century ago. A modern appraisal of Biscailuz is long overdue.

Biscailuz hand-picked his successor, Peter Pitchess, who held the office from 1959 until his retirement in 1982. No biography has been done on Pitchess. The next heir in the dynasty, Sherman Block (1924–1998), served from 1982 until his death, at which time he was running for his fifth term as sheriff. The only sheriff of the Jewish faith in the county’s history, Block was a shrewd politician who tripled his office’s budget and maintained his popularity with the voters. At age 74 at the time of his death, Block was in poor health but determined to run again. The winner in the 1998 election, Leroy Baca, a long-time officer in the department, continues the tradition of voter support for professional lawmen in the office. Block should soon merit research into his career.

Four sheriffs in almost seventy years! The average length of service may well grow in size should Baca demonstrate the political acumen of his predecessors. Researchers should find much of interest in an office that frequently has been accused of abuse of prisoners, inadequate facilities from which too many prisoners escape, and the question of whether popular election is the best way of selecting the leader of a county department where more than eleven million people live.

Just as the above sheriffs have avoided controversy, the chiefs of the Los Angeles Police Department seem to provoke it. The familiar image of a squeaky-clean police department as shown on the old Dragnet and Adam-12 TV series is long gone, tarnished by the Rodney King beating and the investigation into corruption at the Rampart Division. Current scandals recall the administration of Chief James “Two-Gun” Davis and his ilk in the 1930s. The modern era of a professional police department began effectively with William H. Parker (1902–1966), who began his career with the LAPD in 1927, with time out for service in World War II. In 1950 Parker was appointed chief of the LAPD. He won a reputation for the LAPD nationally as corruption-free and efficient, but during his tenure he was vulnerable to accusations of insensitivity to minorities. Parker barely rode out the criticism during the Watts Riot of August 1965, and he died a year later. Although some studies of the LAPD have been published, no biography of Parker has been done.

Parker’s successor as LAPD chief, Tom Reddin, held the post for four years, then left it for a position as a TV news commentator. In 1969 Edward M. Davis (1916– ) took over, serving until 1978, followed by his election to the State Senate, where he served from 1980 to 1992. Davis was never afraid to voice his opinions, and he caused a sensation by advocating immediate execution for airplane hijackers right at the airport. Given his conservative views on law and order, he surprised many with his support of gay rights. Biographies of Reddin and Davis remain to be written.

When Davis retired from the force, Daryl Gates (1926– ) took over the chief spot, serving from 1978 to 1992. One of Parker’s protegés, Gates was blunt and outspoken without Davis’ charisma. He alienated many people through his off-hand negative comments about minorities and gay people, and it was during his stormy tenure that the Los Angeles Riot of 1992 took place. His controversial decisions during the crisis aroused so much criticism that he finally resigned under pressure. Subsequently he appeared for a time as host of a talk radio program. Gates wrote his autobiography, Chief: My Life in the LAPD (1992), but the book defends far more than it analyzes, and a biography about him is in order.

After the long reigns of Parker, Davis, and Gates (38 of 42 years, plus four for Reddin), Los Angeles has had three chiefs in less than a dozen years–Willie Williams (the city’s first African American chief), Bernard Parks, and William J. Bratton. Williams came from Philadelphia to high expectations and left in a cloud of public disappointment. Parks, an LAPD veteran, alienated rank-and-file officers, and after his departure in 2002 he ran for a seat on the City Council, so his political life in Los Angeles is far from over. Bratton came to Los Angeles from New York City.

With no biographies available for the LAPD leaders other than Gates’ self-serving book, it is of interest that two books have recently been published that purport to tell the story of the ordinary Los Angeles police officer. These are Brian S. Bentley, One Time: The Story of a South Central Los Angeles Police Officer (1994), and Michael Middleton, Cop: A True Story (1994). Meanwhile, a new and updated Dragnet series appeared on TV in 2003. And there are always the books Joseph Wambaugh (see below) has written.

The Entertainment Industry

Motion picture and television production have contributed greatly to Los Angeles’ economy and image. The warehouse area in downtown L.A. provides location shooting opportunities for uncountable films and TV shows; those street scenes in NYPD Blue are shot locally (ever notice that it never snows on this “New York” program?). The era for this part of “Needs and Opportunities” encompasses the Golden Age of motion pictures (1930s-1940s), their decline and the rise of television (1950s-1960s), and the modern era of multiplex theaters, cable channels, digital cable vs. satellite reception, and the merchandising of commercial tie-ins to movies, TV shows, and fast-food outlets.

The studio moguls were for the most part covered in Part Two, and few have emerged to replace Mayer, Goldwyn, Cohn, and Warner Bros. However, one minor player did trump them all, and his company continues to dominate film and television. Walt Disney (1901–1966) gave the world a host of cartoon characters, animated adaptations of classic fairy tales, internationally famous theme amusement parks, and production companies. Many books have been written about Disney, most of them adulatory or focusing on one or another of his enterprises. Recent volumes include Katherine Greene, The Man Behind the Image: The Story of Walt Disney (1998) and Richard Schickel, The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art, and Commerce of Walt Disney (1997). Heirs to the Disney empire such as Michael Eisner will someday without question be the objects of biographical study.

Another minor player defaulted from B-Western movies to become one of the most successful and, interestingly, popular entrepreneurs of the 20th century. Gene Autry (1907–1998) began his career as a singing cowboy and parlayed his business acumen into motion picture and television production, records, hotels, radio and television stations, and the California Angels baseball team. Although he lived a long life, he didn’t quite make it to see his beloved team win the World Series in 2002. Researchers during his life will find enough for several volumes.  All we have at this time, however, is his autobiography, Back in the Saddle Again (198), “as told to” Mickey Herskowitz.

In examining the lives of movie producers, David O. Selznick should not be overlooked. Best known as the producer of Gone with the Wind, he also oversaw the creation of many other memorable films, such as A Farewell to Arms and Duel in the Sun. Most studies focus on his films; two recent biographies are Bob Thomas, Selznick: The Man Who Produced Gone with the Wind (2001) and David Thomson, Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick (1992), the latter work running almost 800 pages.

Outlasting all other major executives from the Golden Age of films was Lew Wasserman (1913–2002), who rose from being a theater usher to the head of the Music Corporation of America (MCA). Wasserman joined MCA when it was a talent agency, became its president in 1946, and over the next five decades fought off accusations of antitrust violations, federal lawsuits accusing MCA of “predatory practices,” acquired Universal Studios, turned down President Lyndon Johnson’s offer of the secretary of commerce post, sold MCA to the Japanese, and became chairman emeritus when Seagram bought it back. Throughout his long career as media empire builder he was also known as a philanthropist and fund-raiser; he was active in developing the Music Center, and raised money for the Research to Prevent Blindness foundation, among many other charitable causes. “His death marks the symbolic passing of an era in Hollywood that is unlikely to be repeated,” noted his obituary in the Los Angeles Times. Biographers do not lack for finding controversy and audacity in his life and career. Dan Moldea, Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA, and the Mob (1986) traced Wasserman’s powerful political influence. The most recent work is Dennis McDougal, The Last Mogul: Lew Wasserman (1998), but there is plenty of material for other biographers.

In the 1950s Wasserman dealt with Ronald Reagan (1911– ), president of the Screen Actors Guild. When Reagan ran for governor of California in 1966 he advertised himself as a “citizen-politician,” minimizing his many years of political infighting and his evolution from liberal Democrat to conservative Republican. This most famous of all Hollywood movie stars merits local attention since most studies of his life focus on Sacramento and Washington, D.C. His autobiography, Where’s the Rest of Me (1965), “as told to” Richard G. Hubler, took the book’s title from one of Reagan’s best movie roles and the line he spoke in King’s Row. After his election as governor critical studies began with such books as Joseph Lewis, What Makes Reagan Run (1968), another play on words, this time borrowing from Budd Schulberg’s famous Hollywood novel, What Makes Sammy Run. Following his two terms as president Reagan became the subject of many books that focused on his presidency, but biographies are also coming out, including Kenneth T. Walsh, Ronald Reagan (1997) and the eccentrically written but authorized book by Edmund Morris, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (1999). With the Reagan Presidential Library just up the road in Simi Valley, biographers and other researchers in the Los Angeles area will find the actor/politician a fertile subject in the years to come.

Of the current crop of movers and shakers in the movie industry, Steven Spielberg (1947– ) easily heads the list with an inventory of notable if not outstanding films. However, his involvement with development of the Playa Vista area, and the environmental issues surrounding whether to build his Dreamworks plant there, demonstrate there is much more going on in Spielberg’s life than just making successful movies. Biographers have already found him a worthwhile if marketable subject. They include Philip M. Taylor, Steven Spielberg: The Man, His Movies, and Their Meaning (1999); Elizabeth Ferber, Steven Spielberg (2000); and Elizabeth Sirimarco, Steven Spielberg (2002).

On the darker side of Hollywood, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel enjoyed the company of starlets (a euphemism often used instead of prostitutes), and for this vicious gangster Hollywood was the springboard to the creation of Las Vegas. It seems inevitable that biographers have found it more profitable to write about him than more ordinary (and less ruthless) mortals. Still, history needs to recognize its warts as well as its dimples, so we have Dean Jennings, We Only Kill Each Other: The Life and Bad Times of Bugsy Siegel (1967); W.R. Wilkerson III, The Man Who Invented Las Vegas (2000); and Steven Otfinski, Bugsy Siegel and the Post-War Boom (2000). However, a serious biography of Siegel’s contemporary, Mickey Cohen (1914–1976), who was on the scene far longer and who provided lurid headlines for years in the local newspapers, is yet to be attempted. He did write his ironically titled In My Own Words (1975) with the aid of ghost writer John Peer Nugent. Maybe it should have been titled In His Own Words.

The movie studios abandoned Hollywood long ago, and the movie makers have found it less expensive to utilize the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, than to shoot films and TV shows locally. Such hard economic facts of life have done little to dispel the myth of Hollywood as the glamour center of the movie industry. If nothing else, the image promotes tourism, and in recent years the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce has made significant efforts to get rid of the sleaze and vice that crept in during the 1960s and 1970s. After all, tourists still want to press their hands in the impressions of stars of bygone eras in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese theater. Since the available area there is limited, opportunities for future and current people in the business can be found in the “Walk of Fame” on Hollywood Boulevard. The mastermind behind this promotion, Johnny Grant, the perennial “honorary mayor” of Hollywood and former DJ on now-defunct KMPC, continues to promote new sidewalk stars and to bring back at least some of Hollywood’s past glory. He’s worth a biography too.

Finally, one showman who is not in show business, travel agency executive Peter Ueberroth (1937– ), put on the greatest show in Los Angeles’ history, the 1984 Olympics. The precedent for going into millions of dollars in debt would have daunted a lesser being, but Ueberroth proved more than equal to the challenge. His leadership brought the 23rd Olympiad in with an astounding surplus of $250 million. Eight years later he was less successful in Rebuild L.A., the goal of more jobs in the inner city presenting more hurdles than the Olympics ever had. Kenneth Reich, Making It Happen: Peter Ueberroth and the 1984 Olympics (1986), examines Ueberroth’s success.

Print and Broadcast Journalism

After World War II a national trend developed in which metropolitan newspapers consolidated or went out of business. Los Angeles was not immune to the trend. The Los Angeles Daily News closed in 1954; the Mirror became the Mirror-News until a deal between the Hearst Corporation and the Times-Mirror Company in 1962 effectively ended newspaper competition in Los Angeles. The Times folded the Mirror and became the city’s only morning daily, while the Examiner ended morning production and merged with the Herald-Express to become the Herald-Examiner, delivered in the afternoon. The demise of the Herald-Examiner in 1989 after a bitter strike left the Times as the only major metropolitan daily in the Los Angeles area. In the 1990s the Daily News (no connection to the earlier paper of that name) evolved out of a throwaway paper variously called the Valley News and the Van Nuys News. Its primary base is the San Fernando Valley and its circulation only about a third of that of the Times.

During this era of consolidation Otis Chandler (1927– ) elevated the Times to one of the best newspapers in the nation. Scion of the Chandler dynasty, Otis dramatically changed the Times from its conservative business orientation and excessive pride in the size of its classified advertising section to comprehensive coverage of national and international events. Times reporters were awarded Pulitzer Prizes for their investigative stories. Politically, the paper began endorsing more liberal candidates, and it moved far enough to the left to anger long-time subscribers who preferred the old days. In this heyday the Times expanded its foreign news bureaus, opposed Mayor Yorty, hired women and minorities as staff writers, and came close to Otis’ vision of the Times as a first-class paper. But in 1980, after twenty years as publisher, Otis turned the paper over to Tom Johnson, the first person to run the Times who was not related to the Chandlers. In the twenty years that followed, four more publishers, each with diminishing tenure periods, ran the paper amid growing complaints of its decline in quality. The Chicago Tribune bought the Times in 2000, putting an end to the paper’s 119 years of independence.

Why did Otis walk away from the Times? Douglas McDougal, Privileged Son: Otis Chandler and the Rise and Fall of the L.A. Times Dynasty (2001) deals with this question. Another Chandler with a fascinating yet under-researched life is Dorothy Buffum Chandler (1901–1997 ), Otis’ mother and the wife of Norman Chandler, Otis’ predecessor in the Times publishing dynasty. Dorothy was a member of the family that owned Buffum’s department store in Long Beach. In the 1940s she became actively involved in the Times, taking charge of what was then called the “women’s section.”  Her interest in promoting cultural activities in Los Angeles made her a leader in rescuing the Hollywood Bowl from its financial problems in the early 1950s. She served as a University of California Regent, worked to move the Times out of its crusty conservatism, and took an increasing role in managing the affairs of the Times-Mirror Corporation. Perhaps her best-known achievement was her fund-raising campaign to create the Music Center, in recognition of which the Pavilion was named for her. For these and other accomplishments too numerous to mention, she should be the subject of a major biographical study.

Over the years several columnists for Los Angeles newspapers wrote accounts of their journalistic careers. Matt Weinstock wrote a column for many years for the defunct Daily News, and continued it on the Mirror and the Times until his death. A collection of his columns is in My L.A. (1947). Lee Shippey (1884–1969), a Times columnist from 1927 to 1958, wrote several autobiographical works, including Luckiest Man Alive (1959). Times sports columnist Jim Murray (1920–1998) wrote Jim Murray: An Autobiography (1993). Jack Smith(1916–1995) wrote several books, not autobiographies but collections of his columns that observed the city scene. Jack Smith’s L.A. (1980) and The Big Orange (1976) were his best-known books. It was Smith who coined the term “Big Orange” as a metaphor for Los Angeles to mirror New York’s “Big Apple.” Another Times reporter, Ruben Salazar (1928–1970), was killed during the Chicano Moratorium demonstration in August 1970 under circumstances that have never been fully resolved. See Della Rossa, The Day They Killed Ruben Salazar (1994).

Adela Rogers St. Johns (1894–1988) worked as a reporter for more than six decades, covering events as wide-ranging as the trial of Bruno Hauptmann, who was convicted for the Lindbergh baby kidnap-murder, and an expose of homeless problems in Los Angeles during the Great Depression. Mentioned in Part Two, St. Johns continued her career into the 1970s. She worked for the Hearst chain of papers, including the Los Angeles Herald and the Examiner. Over the years she wrote several versions of her autobiography, including The Honeycomb (1969) and Love, Laughter, and Tears: My Hollywood Story (1978). She wrote fiction, covered the Hollywood scene for Photoplay magazine, survived personal misfortune, and in her later years was a favorite talk show guest, crusty and outspoken. She had intended to put out a final version of her autobiography but never got around to it. We’ve heard her side of it; someone should study her life from the biographical perspective.

Although gossip columnist Jimmie Fidler (1899–1988) may not be as well remembered as Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, he was easily the most controversial of the Hollywood reporters, second only to Walter Winchell on the national scene in making acerbic comments about celebrities. His radio program attracted more than forty million people in the 1940s, and his gossip column went to 360 newspapers across the nation. The last of his genre, Fidler worked until 1983 on the radio, but in the latter years of his career no station in Los Angeles would carry his syndicated program. The film industry found his reviews too unsparing. His career stretched more than six decades, from 1920 to the 1980s, and a biography about him should be more than a rumor.

Other publishers besides the Chandlers have published newspapers in Los Angeles (the Hearst family dynasty lives in the San Francisco area). For the modern era, Manchester Boddy (1891–1967) published the Los Angeles Daily News as the city’s lone liberal newspaper from the 1920s through the 1940s. It was Boddy whose political ambitions led him to oppose Helen Gahagan Douglas in the 1950 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate nomination. Many Democrats were disappointed in his vicious editorial attacks against Douglas. Shortly after the election Boddy sold the paper, and it ceased publication in December 1954. Boddy owned extensive property in La Canada, and his interest in horticulture led to the creation of Descanso Gardens which the county purchased from his estate after his death.

Boddy wrote three books, Japanese in America (1921), The Yellow Trail (1922), and Thinking and Living (1929). The first two reveal his preoccupation with Asian immigration; the last consisted of his essays from the Daily News. Between his controversial role in the 1950 election to the Descanso Gardens and his long career as publisher of the Daily News, Boddy merits study.

Ignacio Lozano’s long career with La Opinión was discussed in Part Two. Three other publishers with lengthy careers in local newspapers also deserve attention. Joseph Cummings published the B’nai B’rith Messenger for many years, and Samuel Gach did the same for the California Jewish Voice. These weekly newspapers presented news and a forum for the Los Angeles Jewish community on such issues as Zionism, Jewish charitable and religious organizations, and community events. They were the important predecessors of such current publications as the Jewish Journal. Al Waxman, uncle of Congressman Henry Waxman, published the Eastside Journal when Boyle Heights was one of the city’s major Jewish areas. All of these publishers lack biographies, though research may well reveal their contributions to Los Angeles history.

Moving from print to broadcast journalism, television reporters have presented the news to Los Angeles viewers since the first TV sets were marketed in the late 1940s. The dean of TV reporters, Stan Chambers (1923– ) has been covering local news for KTLA for half a century, beginning his career there in 1947. His autobiography, News at Ten: Fifty Years with Stan Chambers (1994), traces his life from his childhood in Los Angeles during the Great Depression through his Navy service in World War II to his joining the KTLA staff soon after the station began commercial operation. Chambers seems to have always been there for the major news stories–the tragedy of Kathy Fiscus, the Baldwin Hills Dam failure, the Robert Kennedy assassination–and every major fire, flood, traffic jam, and kitten up a tree for almost six decades. His autobiography should be a model for all local long-time print and broadcast journalists who have been intimately connected with Los Angeles history in the making.

Jerry Dunphy (1922?-2002) was another Los Angeles TV news institution. Beginning in 1960, he anchored and reported the news for KCBS (when it was called KNXT), KABC, and KCAL. His “From the desert to the sea to all of southern California, a good evening” greeting became familiar to millions of television viewers. A biography of his career would also be a mirror of the major news events that have affected southern California and the nation for almost half a century. Other local newscasters should be working on their memoirs–George Putnam, Hal Fishman, Tricia Toyota, Kelly Lange, Warren Wilson, and Furnell Chatman, for example. In future years they will be fertile subjects for biographies, for in reporting what was happening they made contact with business, political, religious, and other leaders, and, of course, lots and lots of celebrities.

As with television newscasters, radio personalities have forged long-term alliances with thousands of listeners. Al Lohman (d. 2002) teamed with Roger Barkley on radio stations KLAC, KFWB, and KFI from 1963 to 1986, regaling listeners with satirical characters and frequent jabs at Mayor Sam Yorty. Other local radio hosts who continue to challenge listeners include Larry Elder, who has written The Ten Things You Can’t Say in America (2000) and Showdown: Confronting Bias, Lies, and the Special Interests that Divide America (2002) and Dennis Prager (1948– ), author of Think a Second Time (1995), Happiness is a Serious Problem (1996), and other books.

Writers

Writers who tell stories about Los Angeles, as well as writers who live here, have contradicted the inaccurate but persistent stereotype that southern California is some kind of cultural desert. Carey McWilliams (1905–1980) cast a critical eye on southern California, and his best writing are considered classics. His Southern California Country (1946), retitled Southern California: An Island on the Land (1973), remains in print to this day and should be required reading for anyone interested in southern California from its beginnings through World War II. His other works include North from Mexico (1948), a pioneering study of Mexican American history; Factories in the Field (1939), which many critics consider the nonfiction counterpart to John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath; and California: The Great Exception (1949). He wrote his autobiography, The Education of Carey McWilliams (1978), borrowing the title idea from Henry Adams. A number of articles dealing with McWilliams’ life and work have recently appeared, and a full-length biography would be welcome.

Although award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer Ray Bradbury (1920– ) has written relatively little about Los Angeles, he writes in Los Angeles, and he has lived here most of his life. He envisions Los Angeles for better or worse as a wave of the future, and it is perhaps a hallmark of his optimism that he is not afraid to stay here. However, Bradbury’s presence is more than residential. The author is a strong supporter of the public library system, book fairs, and school reading programs. Jerry Weist, Bradbury: An Illustrated Life: A Journey to Far Metaphor (2002) is a recently published study of his life. The author of The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and many other books, Bradbury also writes mysteries set in Los Angeles, including his latest work, Let’s All Kill Constance (2003).

John Fante (1909–1983) wrote about Los Angeles in a series of novels that focused on downtown Los Angeles and the continuing character of a poet, Arturo Bandini. His novel Ask the Dust (1980) has been considered a literary classic. Besides novels, Fante wrote screenplays for motion pictures. Steven Cooper, Full of Life: A Biography of John Fante (2000), is an important biography, and Fante has been discovered by a younger generation of readers.

Joan Didion (1934– ) has written novels about Los Angeles, the best known being Play It as It Lays (1970). Her approach is stylized, either winning readers or repelling them with a noir description of the city. Mark Royden Winchell, Joan Didion (1989), studies her life and work in the Twayne author series. See also Katherine Henderson, Joan Didion (1981). Didion’s husband, John Gregory Dunne (1932– ), writes nonfiction as well as fiction. His novel True Confessions (1977) presents a fictionalized account of the famous Black Dahlia murder case. Among his nonfiction works are The Studio (1969) on the motion picture industry, and Delano: The Story of the California Grape Strike (1967). Dunne has written two autobiographical accounts, Vegas: A Memoir of a Dark Season (1974) and John Gregory Dunne (1989). A dual biography of the Didion-Dunne team would be a most interesting study.

If the police can’t solve the crime, call in a private detective. Los Angeles has several famous fictional private eyes, including Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer. Since 1990 Walter Mosley (1952– ) has written a series of novels featuring an African American private detective, Easy Rawlins. In such stories as Devil in a Blue Dress (1990), A Red Death (1991), and Black Betty (1994), Mosley sets the scene in the South Central area of the 1940s and 1950s, but he writes with a modern perspective. To date no biography of Mosley has appeared, but his string of hard-boiled detective novels has already set new standards for popularity and performance.

If the private detective can’t solve the crime, maybe the police can do it after all. Los Angeles’ preeminent police novelist, Joseph Wambaugh (1937– ), has written one successful novel after another about officers and detectives in the LAPD, among them The New Centurions (1970), The Blue Knight (1972), and Fire Lover (2002). Wambaugh has also written nonfiction, most notably The Onion Field (1973). Many of his books have been made into motion pictures, and Wambaugh’s work was the source of the TV series Police Story. A former police sergeant, Wambaugh has not written of his own life; his biography also is yet to be written.

The Business of Giving a number of entrepreneurs have also contributed to the economic and cultural development of Los Angeles. Norton Simon (1907–1993), is one who has enriched southern California with his collection of art treasures. Simon built his fortune on Hunt-Wesson Foods and other businesses, dabbled in politics, and gradually acquired a major art collection. Inevitably, he ran out of wall space, engendering a hunt for a suitable place for his 12,000 artworks. In 1975 Simon worked out an agreement with the Pasadena Art Museum. He bailed out its financial difficulties and placed his art there, and the place in turn would get his name: the Norton Simon Museum of Art, now one of the world’s major art museums. The story is told in Suzanne Muchnic, Odd Man In: Norton Simon and the Pursuit of Culture (1998).

Howard Ahmanson (1906–1968) built Home Savings and Loan to the largest savings and loan in America. He agreed with Dorothy Chandler in the creation of the Music Center and donated the money to establish the Ahmanson Theatre. Other beneficiaries of his philanthropy were the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the USC Center for Biological Research. Years after Ahmanson’s death, Washington Mutual absorbed Home Savings. The recent controversy over the development of Ahmanson Ranch, owned by Washington Mutual, should not detract from Ahmanson’s generosity and support of city cultural affairs. Ahmanson deserves a biography, as does S. Mark Taper (1902–1994). Taper made his fortune in post-World War II suburban housing developments, most famously Lakewood, and several bank acquisitions. As a Jewish community leader, Taper had been left out of the traditional Protestant circle that dominated local cultural affairs. However, when Dorothy Chandler asked him to help realize her Music Center vision, Taper provided $1.5 million. In return, Chandler named the Mark Taper Forum for him.

Less known than Ahmanson or Taper, Isadore Familian (1911–2002) came to Los Angeles as a two-year-old and grew up working for the family plumbing supply business. Eventually he bought the Price Pfister Manufacturing Company, and in 1969 he became chairman of the board of Norris Industries. Familian used his wealth for a wide range of philanthropic activities, including the founding of the University of Judaism and construction of its Mulholland Drive campus; the City of Hope; the United Jewish Welfare Fund; and other causes. A Los Angeles resident for 88 of his 90 years, he believed in giving back part of his success to the community, and he gave millions. Familian would make an idea subject for a biography as a study in philanthropy.

Earlier generations celebrated the lives of bankers, entrepreneurs, and highly paid professionals such as attorneys rather than what they did with their wealth. The standard has shifted to acknowledging the generosity of successful people who put money back into the community. Earvin “Magic” Johnson (1959– ) seems exceptional in this regard, moving from his successful career as a Los Angeles Laker basketball player to the founding of the Magic Johnson theaters, creating jobs and helping bring economic opportunity to the inner city. Johnson has already been the subject of several biographies, including Sean Dolan, Magic Johnson (1995) and a ghost-written autobiography, My Life (1993). However, the books are focused on Johnson’s athletic career, and most are uncritical works aimed at a juvenile audience. Given the possibility that Johnson may run for mayor of Los Angeles in 2005 (rumors are floating), it seems that any future critical biographies about him will have much to deal with in recording the life of the former Laker.

Designs on Los Angeles

For a city long known for razing buildings to put up bigger ones (“wasn’t a gas station on that corner?”), local architects have built a number of enduring monuments–well, enduring until someone with plans for a bigger and better edifice comes along. The contributions of Frank Lloyd Wright, Paul R. Williams, Irving Gill, and others were noted in Part Two. In the modern era, individual architects have given way to firms handling the complexities of designing major constructions–not just a building, but complexes and even communities. Notable among such endeavors is the firm of Welton Becket (1902–1969), designer of the Music Center, the Sports Arena, and master plans for UCLA and Century City. Victor Gruen (1903–1980) designed the Leo Baeck Temple, the Pacific Design Center, and the master plan for the community of Valencia. Albert C. Martin and Associates was founded in 1906 and is in its third generation, with grandsons of the founder active in designing buildings. Their work includes the Department of Water and Power (recently named the Ferraro) Building, ARCO Plaza Towers, Wells Fargo and other bank buildings, and other high-rise edifices that have transformed the Los Angeles skyline. In 1960 City Hall was the tallest building on the urban horizon of southern California; times have changed. To date no biographies have been written about these architects and their firms.

Religious Leadership

Besides the extremes of Aimee Semple McPherson and others who cornered the market on publicity about religion in 20th century Los Angeles, less sensational religious leaders have also provided for the spiritual guidance and needs of their congregations. The first cardinal for the Catholic community was John Joseph Cantwell (1874–1947). James Francis McIntyre (1886–1979) was the second cardinal, from 1948 to 1970, and the third cardinal, Timothy Manning (1909–1989) served from 1970 to 1985. All three are subjects of biographies by Francis J. Weber: John Joseph Cantwell, His Excellency of Los Angeles (1971); His Eminence of Los Angeles: James Francis Cardinal McIntyre (2 vols., 1997), and Magnificat: the Life and Times of Timothy Cardinal Manning (1999). As for Manning’s successor, Roger Mahony (1936-), the first California born cardinal who became archbishop of Los Angeles in 1985, a biography of his life and career must await the time when historical perspective can objectively assess his accomplishments and place in local history.

For the Protestants, James W. Fifield, Jr. (1899–1977) built the First Congregational Church from a debt-ridden congregation of a thousand members in 1935 to the largest Congregational Church in the United States, with 21,000 members and a full range of religious and social services for his congregation. An autobiography, The Tall Preacher: Autobiography of James W. Fifield, Jr. (1977), was written with the collaboration of Bill Youngs.

Of special interest is the career and accomplishment of Charles E. Fuller (1887–1968), founder of the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. Fuller created the Old Fashioned Revival Hour in the 1930s, broadcasting from the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium. During World War II soldiers in remote battlefield areas could tune in the program; thousands wrote letters to Fuller in appreciation of the connection he helped them make with their homes and families. With the advent of television Fuller utilized the new medium, putting his program on TV. Dated but still useful is J. Elwin Wright, The Old Fashioned Revival Hour and the Broadcasters (1940), with information on Fuller’s radio program. Daniel P. Fuller, Give the Winds a Mighty Voice: The Story of Charles E. Fuller (1972) was written by his son. Recent scholarly research is underway on Fuller and his accomplishments.

Conclusion

Asserting that biographies have not been written or published about certain people can be hazardous to the person making the claim. It is entirely possible that at this moment zealous historians, biographers, students, scholars, investigators of every stripe are digging out information on any number of people mentioned in this essay. Since there is no way of knowing who is doing what and whether the result is a doctoral dissertation, a master’s thesis, an academic or popular endeavor, or a labor of love, no disclaimer for the sin of omission is necessary. In a sense everyone becomes a winner when teachers can refer a student to a biography of a person whose life has sparked the student’s interest. As a focus of attention for its cultural, racial, and ethnic diversity, its economic and political significance, and its many points of historical and social interest, Los Angeles also offers the experiences of the people who have contributed (warts as well as dimples) to its history.

Again, Leonard and Dale Pitt’s Los Angeles from A to Z: An Encyclopedia of the City and County (1997) was indispensable to this work. Internet search engines were also invaluable and helped to open up a world of information and links to important web sites.

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Abraham Hoffman, a native of Los Angeles, attended local schools and received his Ph.D. in History from UCLA. He teaches California history at Los Angeles Valley College. Dr. Hoffman’s book, Vision or Villainy: Origins of the Owens Valley–Los Angeles Water Controversy, was awarded a Donald F. Pflueger Local History Award by the Historical Society of Southern California. His articles have appeared in California History, Pacific Historical Review, Western Historical Quarterly, and other publications. He is active in the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners and is a member of the Board of Editors of the Southern California Quarterly. He was awarded the Francis M. Wheat award for his article, “Water Famine or Water Needs: Los Angeles and Population Growth, 1896–1905,” published in the Fall 2000 issue of the SCQ.