On The Tinsel Front

Tag: Los Angeles

  • The Zoot Suit Riots

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    Christopher Bomba
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    Dress and racial conflict in World War II Los Angeles SPOILER ALERT: While this post doesn’t given away any plot points, it’s best read after listening to Season 2, Episode 7: “Riot.” OLLIE: Dear Bet: Over the weekend war broke out between servicemen and zoot suiters in downtown Los Angeles and Mexican neighborhoods to the…

  • The Mexican Repatriation

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    Christopher Bomba
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    The more things change the more they remain the same. JULIE: My parents came here from Mexico in 1919… met, got married, had us. Everything was great until the Depression, when people started blaming Mexicans for the lack of jobs… and started sending them back to Mexico. As I conceived the character of Julie —…

  • S2 E7: “Riot”

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    Christopher Bomba
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    Season 2, Episode 7:  “Riot” Ollie attends a Private Snafu screening and offers to escort Julie home as the conflict between servicemen and Zoot Suiters escalates…  WRITTEN, PRODUCED AND DIRECTED by Christopher Bomba STARRING: with… Produced under the auspices of a SAG/AFTRA Micro-Budget Podcast Agreement. MUSIC: Martin Landström, Wicked Man.  Courtesy of Epidemic Sound SOUND…

  • Agness ‘Aggie” Underwood

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    Christopher Bomba
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    Agness “Aggie” Underwood “Tough as nails” reporter and first female city editor AGGIE: Nice to meet you, Ollie. Agness Underwood, with the Herald-Express. OLLIE: A reporter? AGGIE: Yeah, but don’t hold that against me. Back when I was beginning to map out the plot of Season 2, I decided I needed the character of a…

  • Ivie Anderson

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    Christopher Bomba
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    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…

  • Central Avenue

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    Christopher Bomba
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    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…

  • The Sunset Limited

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    Christopher Bomba
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    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…

  • Union Station

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    Christopher Bomba
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    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.…

  • Pacific Electric Railway Red Cars

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    Christopher Bomba
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    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…