Last Post

This will be the last post for the foreseeable future. Thank you for reading.

A Problem With This Blog

I am having a problem with the posting system of the blog software and I can no longer for some reason upload photos. I have contacted Google but have gotten no response. I am looking into moving every thing to another host. I may be doing this soon as it seems there is not to be a response from Google.

The Holly Chateau

Built in 1909 the Holly Chateau looms ominously over Hollywood. Now called the Magic Castle the building has a storied past. The house built in the "chateau" or Gothic Renaissance style was originally the home of real estate investor Rollin B. Lane and his wife Katherine. The Lane's were members of turn of the century Los Angeles society and were very generous with their money. Mrs. Lane was such a tree lover and avid donor of trees to the city she was known as "the tree lady". One of their investment properties Lanewood Ave. in Hollywood is to this day lined with pines planted by Mrs. Lane.
 The Lanes entertained extensively at Holly Chateau. They entertained LA society but specifically not with members of the entertainment industry.
Rollin Lane died in Holly Chateau in 1940. Katherine Lane died five years later leaving the house to her son who held onto the property until 1955. The Chateau was turned into a multi-family house and then was turned into a boarding house. The house once owned by people who dislike the "movie people" was now home for struggling actors.
In 1963 Milt Larsen a witer on "Truth of Consequences" bought the house with his brother their idea was to turn the house into a club house for Magicians. It was then it became The Magic Castle.

January

Well tomorrow it will be January. The new year will be starting.  But of course you probably know that. Did you know there was no January until sometime in the area of 713 BC? The previous calendars only had ten months and in the winter there were no months. There was no January or February. The Romans added to two months to make the calendar and the lunar year match.
January first is naturally New Years Day and is celebrated world wide but it is also know as The Feast of the Circumcision among many Christians. Makes the mind reel doesn't it!

Happy Birthday Sister Morphine

Marianne Faithful is now eligible to be a pensioner. Sister Morphine is 65 today and it is some what amazing she is alive. She was the embodiment of swinging 60's London and barely made it out alive. Name a drug she did it, name a rock star she did him is the reputation, deserved of not, that swallowed her. Cocaine in the 60's and heroin in the 70's those were her most public addictions. Her career was never really much of anything but a train wreck until she cleaned herself up in the 80's. The once lilting high voice now smoked a raspy baritone her career is better now at 65 than it has ever been. Happy Birthday Mariane Faithful, glad you did what you did!

The Girl With Three Names

Mary Tyler Moore turned 76 today. That's right Laura Petrie aka Mary Richards is 76 years old! America's career girl and favorite wife is Mary Tyler Moore and has been since 1961 when Carl Reiner cast her in The Dick Van Dyke Show. Ms Moore had played some small roles and "Happy Hotpoint" a dancing elf before the role of Laura Petrie. She had auditioned for the role of Danny Thomas' daughter on the Danny Thomas show but was turned down as Thomas thought no one believe that a girl with such a small nose could be his daughter. Thomas did remember her and when he was producing the Dick Van Dyke Show he suggested the girl with three names to Carl Reiner. Mary Tyler Moore went on to play the role of Laura for five years.

In 1970 Mary Tyler Moore and her then husband Grant Tinker formed MTM Enterprises and they pitched the idea of The Mary Tyler Moore Show to CBS. The character of Mary Richards was the first single career woman to be an independent and happy woman. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was one of the most successful sitcoms of the 1970's. MTM Enterprises also produced the spin-off series Rhoda and Phyllis along with The Bob Newhart Show, Hill Street Blues, WKRP in Cincinnati and Newhart.
Married three times Mary Tyler Moore had only one child during her first marriage,a son named Richard. Her son died at the age of 24 from an accidental gun shot wound. Her second husband Grant Tinker was her partner in MTM Enterprises and eventually became Chairman of NBC. They divorced in 1981. Moore met her third husband a doctor when he treated her mother and made a house call.
She will always be Laura and Mary in the eyes of the television watching public even though she did play one of the coldest mothers ever in the film "Ordinary People". One of her other film roles more fitting to the perception of her persona was that of a nun in the Elvis movie "Change of Habit".

S & H Green Stamps

There was a time when the grocery stores, dry cleaners and gas stations of America would do all kinds of things to get your money and one of the most popular gimmick was "Green Stamps". The stamps were given out at the cash register and the more money one spent the more stamps one got. These stamps were then put into books that could be redeemed for premiums. These premiums were usually housewares and appliances and could be gotten at the S&H Green Stamp Redemption Center.

The S&H in the company name stands for Sperry and Hutchinson. The company was founded in 1896 by Thomas Sperry and Shelly Byron Hutchinson in Michigan. They grew to be the largest trading stamp company in the country and during their heyday 1960's the issues more stamps the the US Postal Service.
Their small green stamps came in denominations of one, ten and fifty points and were stuck into books that when filled counted 1200 points. When a customer had enough points accumulated the books were then brought to the Redemption center and exchanged for items. One could also redeem them through a catalog. The popularity of Green Stamps slowly started to decline in the 1970's and eventually was discontinued in the 1990's.