Sincerest condolences CaliNative.

So sorry, Cali. My mother was born in 1920 as well and died in 2000. She moved here as a small child and grew up across the street from Echo Park. One of my most cherished possessions is a letter she wrote to her travelling salesman dad about riding out the 1932 earthquake. Its great your mom had a chance to share her stories with you. We can honor them by sharing their stories with others. Take care.

Pioneer Chicken and the Egyptian Theater, playing They Only Kill Their Masters,
at Hollywood Blvd. & McCadden Place, 1973.

The film opened in November, 1972. So an early 1973 date with Christmas decorations could be correct.

https://www.hollywoodphotographs.com...KDHeh5g6oo.jpg

I'm gonna guess 1984 due to the Olympic logo on the sign.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...s_logo.svg.png

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Summer_Olympics

An odd thing about that photo is that the Pinto station wagon is obviously photoshopped into the pic. Weird.

Thank you, Hoss and the others with kind words. In the end she was in pain, so at least she is free. But I can't believe she is gone, but almost 102 years is a long mostly happy life and she saw so many things. From the Roaring Twenties to the Internet Age. She used a tablet computer until her eyes no longer allowed it and her mind began to fade. She enjoyed life until the last few months. A good long life well lived.

Thank you

.

:previous:
I wonder if people tried to smuggle chicken into the Egyptian? Nothing like fried chicken, fries, later popcorn, candy and a movie. The ushers were probably told to look for food smugglers, since theaters made most of their profits from the food stand out front.

The street side of the Egyptian is so ordinary and modest. Unless you knew, nobody would suspect a big and famous premier movie palace was there. The Chinese Theater doesn't hide it. Grand even on the street.

Did they premier the 1963 Taylor/Burton film "Cleopatra" at the Egyptian? That film almost bankrupted the studio that produced it...was it MGM? Can't recall.

Another Taylor/ Burton film from that period is much better..."The Sandpiper". Still worth watching. Set in Big Sur, and filmed there. Tells the story of a private school master and minister, Burton, who has an affair with a bohemian artist (Taylor) who has her son enrolled in the school, and all the consequences that ensue. Really captures the mid 1960s feel, in the transition era from the beats to the hippies. A good film.

An even better film with the two is 1967's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?", based on an Albee play. Liz is fantastic as Martha, a foul mouthed tenured English Professor's wife in constant real/mock/play battle with her boozing hubby George (Burton) over issues in their long marriage. You can't say George is the henpecked victim, because he can inflict as well as receive pain. In many respects this is Taylor's best acting performance, and Burton shows his acting chops as well. Personally I like the Sandpaper just as much, maybe more. The Big Sur setting is gorgeous and the story is gripping. Watch them both.

"Cleopatra" is just a big sprawling cesspool of a film. Rex Harrison doing Julius Caesar with a British accent and British aplomb and reserve is a hoot. Never do you believe for one moment this is Julius Caesar. I almost expect Caesar to blurt out "The Rain in Spain", and Aubrey Hepburn who starred with Rex in "My Fair Lady" might have made a more bewitching Cleopatra than Liz. And come to think of it, Burton as Mark Antony (Marcus Antonius) is unconvincing, just going through the motions. The whole film straddles the camp boundary. The 1930s Cleopatra with Claudette Colbert is better, and mercifully much shorter. You don't feel like you've just wasted 4 hours of your life.

I would like to add my condolences to CaliNative on the passing of your mother.


A photo from pinterest.com....


https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...720&fit=bounds

A dapper young fellow and his '65 Ford Galaxie, apparently purchased at Jim Fisk Ford, which was at Manchester Blvd. and Florence Ave. in Inglewood.


I tried enlarging to read the street name, no luck it's just too blurry....our best clue is the Pronto Market sign....this was the chain's Downey location....

https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...720&fit=bounds


I could not turn up a list of all Pronto locations, but in addition to Downey I found references to stores in Pacific Palisades, South Pasadena, Culver City, West Covina, and Garden Grove.  


I'd never heard of the store, turns out they were started by Rexall Drugs as a competitor to 7-Eleven, and were the predecessor to Trader Joe's....excerpt from a history of Trader Joe's....


"Although Trader Joe's was not officially founded until 1967, its origins can be traced back to the Pronto Markets chain of food stores that were started in the late 1950s. Pronto Markets was initiated by the Rexall Drug Co. in 1958. The venture reflected the intent of Rexall, an operator of a chain of drugstores, to get in on the burgeoning convenience and corner food-stand market. Rexall appointed Joe Coulombe to head up the new division. Coulombe was only 26 years old at the time and had been with Rexall for only three years. Nevertheless, his managers were impressed with his performance and believed that he could handle the job. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Coulombe managed to build Pronto into a chain with a considerable presence in Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

Despite its expansion, Pronto was experiencing growing profit pressures by the mid-1960s as a result of increased competition. Southland Corp.'s successful 7-Eleven chain, in particular, was bearing down on smaller competitors like Pronto and was even planning an aggressive expansion in Pronto's region. Rexall elected in 1966 to jettison its Pronto Markets division and escape the convenience store industry. Coulombe, still at the helm, was faced with a choice--attempt a buyout of the chain that he had built and remain as chief executive, or bail out and look for a new niche in the retail industry. Coulombe took an extended Caribbean vacation before deciding to stick with Pronto. With the financial backing of Bank of America, he purchased Pronto from Rexall and went to work.

Coulombe knew when he bought Pronto that the strategy he had used to grow the business in the past would be ineffective in the face of growing competition. 7-Eleven was targeting his customers, and his organization lacked the resources to compete with the national chain. The ever-innovative Coulombe considered two prevalent social trends as he devised a new marketing scheme. First of all, consumers were becoming increasingly educated and sophisticated, and were expecting more from their shopping experiences. Secondly, the surge in global travel, made possible by plummeting jumbo-jet airfares, was exposing Americans to new foods. Coulombe decided to develop a food store at which well-educated, well-traveled, but not necessarily wealthy, people could buy foods that would impress themselves and their friends. "I wanted to appeal to the well-educated and people who were traveling more," he explained in the October 2, 1989 issue of Forbes, "like teachers, engineers and public administrators. Nobody was taking care of them." Coulombe opened the first Trader Joe's outlet in South Pasadena in 1967--the rest of the Pronto chain would soon become transformed into other Trader Joe's outlets."

:previous: Thank you Riich and thank you Hoss for your condolence message. I tried to reply but not sure if it went through. Anyway, I enjoy your posts here. I will try to post her stories and memories here and on my modest 1920s/30s blog as I get more time. Cheers.

Nice work riichkay. You found the location in one.

It is the Pronto Market in Downey - 10846 Downey Ave. :)

The dapper fellow was parked on 4th Street with the Pronto behind him at the junction with Downey Ave.

The view nowadays with the old Pronto location arrowed.


https://i.imgur.com/mUDEMGr.jpg
GSV

with a pick-up truck parked in the same location in both photos.

.
CaliNative, I'm so sorry to hear that your mother passed... It should be a great comfort to you that she is no longer in pain.




A mystery pocket park.

The seller believes this is Los Angeles and I tend to agree.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/924/qDhFBb.jpg
eBay

At first glance there doesn't appear to be many clues but if you closer there are several. . .including a bridge in the far distance.

Hmm. .perhaps the amazingly tall palm tree will help us find the location if it's still alive.

.

The bridge, of course, and the medium sized street below and the bodega(?) with the SAVERITE sign on the roof. For some reason it looks like the eastside to me. Somebody needs to chase down a SAVERITE business license. Late forties-mid-fifties

A Galaxie convertible no less. If the car is still around, that will add to the value considerably.

I would never have guessed the name of that street is "New" St., either!

The building the man was in front of is obviously changed now, but I like that the two houses across New St. are still there.
The one closest to the camera with Christmas decorations.

There is something...well let's use the word marvelous. There is something really marvelous about this photograph.

My condolences to CaliNative

(((( CaliNative ))))

Although that would've been oh so appropriate, the photos below suggest Cleopatra premiered in Hollywood at the Pantages Theatre.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2wPmFLCUAAHMFm?format=jpg
Channing Thomson/twitterissä

https://thedigitalbits.com/images/co...leopatra01.jpg
DigitalBits This link has a history of it's roadshow engagements.

It was 20th Century Fox and there's a lot of misconception about the idea that Cleopatra was a flop and the reason that forced Fox to start selling off it's backlot and such in Century City. The guy who wrote the book about Fox and it's backlot set the record straight, according to him, but when something becomes a "fact" because it gets repeated so often it's hard to change those "alternate facts."

Here's a couple quotes from online sources:

This one from Los Angeles Magazine:

Did Cleopatra really bankrupt its studio and force the sale of the back lot Twentieth Century Fox purchased a large property in the hinterlands near Beverly Hills in 1926. By the 1950s, studio chief Spyros Skouras realized the city had grown around the land and that a fortune could be made selling off 280 acres for development. Sales began in 1957, three years before Elizabeth Taylor signed her contract for Cleopatra. So stop blaming the lady in the blue eye shadow.

Heh!

From an L.A. Times article:

There seem to be more myths and legends surrounding “Cleopatra” than the actual Queen of the Nile herself.

“You can’t really say what happened [with 20th Cent. Fox] was anybody’s fault,” according to Burns, who directed and helped write a documentary about Cleopatra and Fox. He says, “I think that is the most important part of what we tried to do. We also tried to dispel a lot of myths about the film. The film was not a bad film. It was not a flop. It was too expensive. It was a financial mess, but it made $24 million in its initial release. It was one of the top 10 grossing films of the ‘60s. It was by no means a failure on any level. It is one of the most beautiful films ever shot. It has some incredible performances. It is very intelligently written and deserves to be seen.”

I'm going to disagree. The first time I saw this film was on VHS and it was pan & scanned, not in it's widescreen format. So when AMPAS showed the film in it's Great to Be Nominated series about 15-20 years ago I went to see it. On it's own terms it's excesses are delightful. It's never dull and visually stunning; compelling. I loved seeing it with a sold-out audience, too. I know at the time it was released that critics were lying in wait for it because of all the things in the press at the time. Can't imagine if the internet had been around then.

One can disagree about the Brits playing those characters, but the actors themselves are talented. I didn't care much for Brando playing Julius Caesar much, either, in that early 50's film.

I do equally enjoy this art deco version of Cleopatra! (Which also did not premiere at the Egyptian.)

By the way, in 2020, it was reported, in an item from ShowBiz411: Paramount Studios has won an auction to take a new crack at Cleo with the “Wonder Woman” team. Patty Jenkins will direct her Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot, as Queen of the Nile. Who will play Mark Antony, Chris Pine? More recent news says that Patty Jenkins has moved to the producing role.

Columbia (Sony) is also making a Cleopatra movie, directed by Denis Villeneuve, and based on a Stacy Schiff novel, and there's a third movie called 21st Century Cleo. A fictional story about Cleopatra in her teen years which starts out in Ancient Egypt, but King Pharaoh sends her into the 21st Century because of her "bad behavior."

So if one doesn't like the 1934 or 1963 versions there's three more on the way to sample!

And speaking of the Egyptian Theatre...

Hollywood Heritage is Celebrating the 100th Annoversary of the Opening of the Eqyptian Theatre in Hollywood

https://www.hollywoodheritage.org/ev...-exhibit-party

(Please note in this info that one must be a Hollywood Heritage Member to attend. When it says "Join Hollywood Heritage in attending...they really mean join.)


Tuesday, October 18 | Los Angeles

100th Anniversary of the Egyptian Theatre Exhibit & Party
Join Hollywood Heritage in celebrating the 100th anniversary of opening night at Sid Grauman’s Hollywood Egyptian Theatre, with a special one night only exhibit and refreshments to celebrate this important centennial.

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4...ce440d~mv2.jpg

About the Event
The Egyptian Theatre is still under renovation, so festivities are at the Hollywood Heritage Museum, set amidst a variety of actual artifacts from the 1922 movie palace - the first of its kind on Hollywood Boulevard. The extensive exhibit will include items from the Hollywood Heritage collection, as well as material from other collectors from 1922 to the end of the MGM roadshow period. The exhibit will also highlight the pioneers who contributed to the success of Grauman's Hollywood theatres.
_________________________________________________________________

From Los Angeles Theatres Blogspot:

1922 - "Robin Hood" is advertised in the display cases on either side of the entrance. It ran from the theatre's opening on October 18, 1922, until "Covered Wagon" opened on April 10, 1923.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.co...P_usNhAg=s1000


1922 - A look in the Egyptian Theatre's forecourt.

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rXNksawIc...hs-T-018-7.jpg