Category: Real People & Places
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Ivie Anderson
Ivie Anderson Jazz Singer Turned Restauranteur TOES: That, Ollie, is none other than Ivie Anderson. OLLIE: And who’s that…? TOES: She’s a singer, one of the best. Toured with Duke Ellington… The owner of “Ivie’s Chicken Shack” (who disapproves of Toes and company’s nickname for Ollie) was a jazz great. This profile from AllAboutJazz sums…
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SEASON 2 has begun!
It’s taken only two years, but Season 2 is finally here! (Thanks for your patience!) Episodes #1 and #2 are now available wherever you get your podcasts. Go to the podcast’s page on Podlink for links to Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other platforms. You can also listen on the Tinsel Front website Episodes page, The…
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Central Avenue
I couldn’t tell a story about Los Angeles in the 1940s without some mention of Central Avenue, the road that, running due south from downtown, was the cultural epicenter of the city’s black community and a musical mecca where jazz greats like Duke Ellington, Billy Holliday, Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald performed. Sadly, this…
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“That’s What The Best Dressed Man In Harlem Will Wear”
Ollie: “The guys arranged for me to come on set and watch them shoot their number — “That’s What The Best Dressed Man in Harlem Will Wear.” It’s a song about soldiers trading in their smart civilian clothes for army khaki. Joe Louis is part of it, doing a workout on a speed bag…” This…
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The Hollywood Canteen
Ollie: “So the next night I headed off to the Canteen by myself… There was a long line of servicemen waiting to get in… it struck me just how young most of us were, and how, -eager and rambunctious, we weren’t much different from a bunch of high schoolers on a field trip, goofing off,…
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Ted Geisel aka “Dr. Seuss”
Ollie: “I saw a man I recognized… and never thought I’d see in Hollywood. It was the cartoonist who publishes under the name Dr. Seuss. And he was in uniform with captain bars!“ Ollie: “… I made sure I read every cartoon you did for PM. I admired the way you took a stand against…
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“This Is The Army” – The Movie
Reagan: “You are thus being temporarily attached to the company performing the Irving Berlin muscial revue “This Is The Army.” Its cross-country tour over, it’s in town for the for the production of the film version over at Warner Brothers, to which you will report immediately…” This morale-raising cinematic ode to the U.S. Armed Forces…
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Culver City
Ollie: It’s in California in a town called Culver City, which is near Los Angeles… Culver City is a Southern California town with a rich history and the location for much of TINSEL FRONT’s first season. The city was founded in 1917 by developer Harry Culver at the junction of several rail lines. (See post…
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The Sunset Limited
Ollie: Am catching the train to L.A. tonight, well, actually, tomorrow morning. It leaves around three AM… The train Ollie would have taken from Louisiana to Los Angeles was the Southern Pacific’s SUNSET LIMITED. “The Sunset Limited is a long-distance passenger train operated by Amtrak on a 1,995-mile (3,211 km) route between New Orleans, Louisiana, and Los Angeles, California, with major stops in Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, and Tucson. Introduced…
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Union Station
Ollie: Dear Bet: A few hours ago we pulled into Union Station in Los Angeles. It’s a big, beautiful building — tall ceilings, impressive wood beams, beautiful Spanish tiles… L.A.’s famous train station — where a newly arrived Ollie takes note of a beautiful girl named Elle — was only three years old in 1942.…
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Pacific Electric Railway Red Cars
Ollie: As instructed, I got off the trolley at the National stop and walked up a block… “The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system in the world in the 1920s.” Wikipedia Los Angeles’ once great transit system plays a…
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Sound Editor Ray
Ollie: This morning, for instance, this sound editor named Ray offered to show me how he uses a machine called a Moviola to put in a sound effect and sync it with the action… I created the character of sound editor Ray to honor my father, Raymond Bomba, who worked as a film and TV…
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The Hal Roach Studios
Miller: No, before the war it was the Hal Roach Studios, you know, where Laurel & Hardy and the Our Gang films were made. When the Army took it over, Fort Roach seemed appropriate… The home of the USAAF First Motion Picture Unit during the war, the “Hal Roach Studios was an American motion picture and television production studio. Known…
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Lois’ house: Storybook Architecture
Ollie: I couldn’t tell whether the architect was being serious or ironic. It looked like someplace Hansel and Gretel would have stopped at if they were intentionally looking for the witch… Lois’ “Fairy Tale” house is not based on any specific home, either in the past or present. I came up with it, however, because…
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First Motion Picture Unit
Ollie: There was a stretch of large buildings strangely fronted by a mansion – or what looked like a mansion. Big letters over the front porch read “U.S. ARMY AIR FORCES.” But I gotta tell you, it was not like any base I’d ever seen… “The 18th AAF Base Unit (Motion Picture Unit), originally known as the First…