I remember the name...or am I just remembering Lee Grant addressing her maid in ludicrous baby talk--“Mona, Mona, Mona”--in Shampoo?

Guess I thought maybe she was an actress in the Betty Furness vein, opening Westinghouse ice boxes, etc, but no, she was BIG:

https://s8.postimg.cc/yucqru4gl/monaposter.bmp.jpg

Well, the picture was small, but it did have Scott Brady in it, who was very very BIG


https://s8.postimg.cc/qouotsith/mona2.jpgebayhttp://highlighthollywood.com
Brady and Freeman--I assume this is from that megahit I Was a Shoplifter


Here's Mona with Mr. Dinah Shore, holding in his stomach to great effect. She's not looking so dewey here though.

https://s8.postimg.cc/c5njstko5/mona1.jpghttp://www.listal.com/viewimage/9384476h


Some info from the "Highlight Hollywood" site

"Beautiful actress Mona Freeman, cast as a perpetual teenager throughout the 1940s and ’50s in such films as The Heiress, Junior Miss, Dear Ruth and I Was a Shoplifter, has died. She was 87.

Freeman died May 23 in her Beverly Hills home after a long illness, her daughter, actress Monie Ellis, told the Los Angeles Times. Miss Freeman also was a painter, whose portrait of Mary See has been displayed for years in See’s Candies stores across the U.S.https://s8.postimg.cc/xmyt06rd1/mona7.jpg

Freeman played Marian Almond, the cousin of Olivia de Havilland’s character who gets engaged in William Wyler’s acclaimed film The Heiress (1949)"


Actually, Mona was a little bigger than I thought. She was in a movie with William Holden, and in one of the best movies ever made (IMO)...have seen it many times--but I don't remember Mona Freeman in it at all. But here she is:


https://s8.postimg.cc/pp4dy0bcl/mona...poster.bmp.jpghttps://s8.postimg.cc/7ddqgsxjp/mona6.bmp.jpg

Thanks for the information on Mona Freeman GW. I wasn't sure who she was.

like how I remember Geraldine Chaplin calling out for her maid-- "Nanine, Nanine, Nanine." ---in 'Welcome to L.A'.
_____________________________________

:previous: "Nanine, Nanine" originated in a much more famous movie...Camille (1936)
In Welcome to L.A.---Geraldine Chaplin has some sort of weird Greta Garbo complex, and is calling out for Garbo's maid!

"Nanine. Nanine. Nanine!" [GASP. DEAD]

re: The New Zoo

The Los Angeles Zoo trams.. fresh from the factory. [1967]

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/pglKYi.jpg
ebay



You can see them in action HERE
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/3...923/8jdRn6.jpghttps://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/3...921/ajgl2D.jpghttps://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/3...921/QcBeOS.jpg

I think they just borrowed it from Universal Studios. ;)

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Before we get too far removed from our recent discussion of Catalina...

I would like to post this magnificent Kodachrome slide of Avalon that was taken in 1965.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/924/4waQmq.jpg
old file / found on ebay

There's so much to see! Be sure to pan right to see the seaplane ------>

Where are all the people?
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hmmm...and where's our mystery fountain? (oh wait. nevermind...I see it :))

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_TUmrEJJqV_...story+Sign.jpg

From:whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com

Catalina Island Map

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...CublN8hhBb9L56

found on Catalina Island Explorer

Thanks, e_r--wonderful image! Note on the steamer pier (the second pier "in"), there's a portion (with red-tiled roof) going onto terra firma that comes off the pier at an angle. The horde of steamer passengers would exit the pier this way, normally; the "straight ahead" portion of the pier was for the carts of luggage unloaded from the ship, and for the captain and crew and I suppose Island Company employees, to use. If I'm not mistaken, during some repaving or renovation work on the portion of front street directly in front of where the steamer pier had been, there were found remnants of an underground passage with an apparent rail system, seemingly from the earliest (pre-fire) days; presumably this was to "rail" the luggage unloaded from the steamer(s) under front street to a location across the street, where the luggage would be arranged as to destination (the various hotels) preparatory to being variously dispatched to said destinations.

The lack of people is silent testimony to one of the rarely-discussed aspects of Catalina life, the formerly rampant cannibalism. This was successfully put down in Avalon decades ago by the banning of open fires, cauldrons, and Worcestershire Sauce; but I cannot address what might be the current situation at the Isthmus.

I've heard this as well, I don't believe it. I have a sensitive sense of smell and have detected the faint aroma of Worcestershire Sauce on my visits to Avalon.

I suspect it was used for

S H A N G H A I I N G !
https://imageshack.com/a/img923/3664/Bht63W.gif
giphy

Exactly, that's where the residents got their dinner.

Did Catalina had a tram too? I found these 1964 snapshots in the Handsome Family photo archives. The first snap suggests we're looking out the side of a tram. And my then-8-year-old sister could never have been talked into walking that far up the hillside at Avalon.

https://s33.postimg.cc/hje3n8n8f/09_...o_Catalina.jpg

https://s33.postimg.cc/v0b26459r/12_...o_Catalina.jpg

(No photos of the fountain were found, alas.)

On Madame and my first trip to the island, we took a bus tour that went out to the airport, your pics look like the same route.

My pleasure!
Looking at aerial maps provided here earlier, it seems pretty much a match for where the laundry/home site was located. Fascinating.

Santa Monica Incline Railway
 

Since we recently looked at two former incline railways, I wondered if anyone knows anything about one at the
end of San Vicente Blvd., just south of the mouth of Santa Monica Canyon. Except for this article, I couldn't find
any information on the Santa Monica incline railway:

http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...psdjy5xspp.jpg

http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...psjx2f58hb.jpg

December 27, 1913, Los Angeles Herald @ CDNC

A few follow-ups re 241 N Figueroa...



Here's an image of the original configuration of ER's Figueroa Street mystery building. After assuming at first that it was a new structure going up ca 1970, I think I then wrote that it was a remodeling of an earlier building...here is that building, built in 1951, in a photo dated Dec 13, 1959... just as foreign cars were really getting popular (I spy an example of our old friend, the uberlemon Renault Dauphine, and two Volvos).

(I wish they'd left it alone):


https://s33.postimg.cc/x3qjasgi7/hea...959pic.bmp.jpgLAPL




And some sad Wong noir, right in front of the laundry:

https://s33.postimg.cc/oy3vypne7/wongdeath.bmp.jpg
LAT Nov 12, 1930

I haven't found any more pictures of the Santa Monica inclined railway, but I did check the old aerials. The detail below is from an image taken on January 2, 1928. I can't see any sign of a railway opposite San Vicente, but there is a straight line down the bluff opposite Adelaide Drive (arrowed). The path down to Ocean Way seems to cross it halfway down the slope, which corresponds to the picture above. The area to the left is now the 101 Ocean Avenue condominiums.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...SMIncline1.jpg
mil.library.ucsb.edu

:previous: Thanks, Hoss. That must be where the incline was.

You mean there was another incline we didn't know about? :shrug:

'mystery' theater [I figured out the theater toward the end of the post / I decided to leave the post as is because these slides are quite exceptional.]

Here are more slides taken by the man that was stationed at Camp Pendleton in the 1950s. [the same man that took the Mona Freeman / Grauman's Chinese Theater pics].
His daughter [the seller] says he visited Hollywood and Los Angeles numerous times while on leave.


The first person we see is Eddie Fisher.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/HgfqHg.jpg





https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/mH2l39.jpg
ebay / can't find the link





This is what I call a CLOSE UP!

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/BSs0bE.jpg
ebay

:previous:I think the banner might hold some clues. (but KRNT is a radio station out of Des Moines Iowa :shrug:)






He snapped this one right in his face. OUCH!

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/5UoHgE.jpg
ebay





This next slide gives you a good look at the stage stairs. It doesn't appear to be a fancy place.

Dog Act
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/T8LX20.jpg
ebay






Dean Martin

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/WvEzzn.jpg
ebay






Jerry Lewis

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/OcBwpe.jpg







Lewis & Martin

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/924/vcPd06.jpg
ebay

lots of chipped paint.







I was just beginning to toy with the idea that this might be a 'road show' in some other town

when ROBERT MITCHUM shows up!

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/8hnqy3.jpg
ebay





There was also this guy doing some kind of Popeye impersonation.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/vMNu2s.jpg
ebay





In our last slide we see Jerry Lewis, and numerous other people, taking off in a limo.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/921/pHLQ9B.jpg
ebay



here's Jer
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...921/3ApTQp.jpg
detail


and a very nice looking lady in the front seat (actually the middle seat)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/O5SKXZ.jpg
detail



This is Des Moines. -not Hollywood. sorry.

EBAY

At least all the performers are Hollywood people. -well maybe not that Popeye fellow...and that ugly dog.


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I feel bad the previous slides were taken in Des Moines so here is one that were definitely taken in Los Angeles.


Joan Crawford in her car, possibly going to a movie premiere * 1953 Original Red Border Kodak Kodachrome Slide.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/eNmZYi.jpg
EBAY

note from the SELLER:

"This image was taken by my father who was stationed at Camp Pendleton from 1951-1953. He would often go to Hollywood while on leave."

See, I wasn't pulling your leg. :)

_