[Albany NY]

Originally Posted by Martin Pal

I recently posted about Mom (Anne) Lehr's Hollywood Guild and Canteen here:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=20396
HossC provided some further info on the same page.

I found two interior photos of the place on LAPL.
(Sources sometimes confuse the Hollywood Canteen with the similarly titled Hollywood Guild and Canteen.)

Lucky Ervin!

LAPL

Lucky No. 2,000,000! Ervin Hermann, sailor from Oklahoma City, talks over what happened to him with Anne Lehr, founder and president of the Hollywood Guild and Canteen, and Mary Pickford, vice president, when he was the 2,000,000th serviceman to register at the haven for G.I.'s on North Crescent Heights Blvd., in what is now West Hollywood. Hermann was presented with a war bond, whisked onto a national radio program, and had a date with Diana Lynn, screen starlet, at Earl Carroll's for dinner. Later, he was taken on a tour of night clubs.

LAPL

According to the Miami Daily News from August 9, 1945, the other woman kissing Ervin was Mary Pickford. The article listed his age as 18, which would make him 87 today. There is an Ervin C. Hermann, age 87, alive and well today living in Houston. If that is him, just imagine how many hundreds of times over the last 69 years he has told the story of being kissed by Mary Pickford!