Watch Polo At Will Rogers State Historic Park

Will Rogers Polo Field

When I think of the sport polo, the one where men or women on horseback gallop across a giant field and swing mallets at a ball, I usually think of wealthy, high class, international types. I don't really think of polo as an American sport, although, in the 1930s, polo was much more popular in America, particularly in Hollywood.  According to the Pacific Palisades Patch, there were more than 25 outdoor polo fields in the Los Angeles area in the 1930s. Today, there is only one, at the Will Rogers State Historic Park.

My earliest memories of polo are of watching some of the early Disney animated shorts. There were a few Disney cartoons that featured polo in the story line, but the one that stands out the most was a 1936 short called Mickey's Polo Team. In this short, Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Big Bad Wolf, and Donald Duck play against a team of movie stars, which included Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Harpo Marx and Charlie Chaplin. Not surprisingly, during the 1930s, Walt Disney was a fan of the sport and would often play in weekend matches at Will Rogers' polo field. 

Mickey's Polo Team

Many actors played polo during this time, including Clark Gable and Leslie Howard, but one of the most avid players was actor Spencer Tracy. Actresses such as Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, and Joan Bennett could be seen in attendance as spectators. Studio executives also played the game too.  Darryl F. Zanuck was even known to carry a mallet around his office and the 20th Century Fox studio lot. After matches at Will Rogers' polo field, Rogers and his friends would go to to the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The restaurant acquired its name because of all the movie stars visiting the restaurant after polo matches.

Spencer Tracy and Walt Disney

Right now the Will Rogers Polo Club is encouraging the public to attend the polo matches that take place on weekends from April through October at the Will Rogers State Historic Park. Parking at the grounds is $12 but admission to watch the matches is free! For more information on the Will Rogers Polo Club click here. For more information on Will Rogers State Historic Park click here.

Walt Disney's Swimming Pool

4053 Woking Way, Los Feliz 

(c) The Walt Disney Company

Apparently, one of the realtors showing Walt's former home at 4053 Woking Way says that there was no pool at the house when Walt lived in the home? This doesn't seem quite right to me. I remembered that in the documentary film, Walt: The Man Behind The Myth, Diane Disney-Miller, Walt's daughter, shared her memories of the home in the Los Feliz hills. Diane specifically mentions how she had fond memories of Walt's animators coming over to use the pool and for barbecues. 

The photo at the top is a screenshot of how the home at 4053 Woking Way looked at the time of the documentary. This is the house that they show as an establishing shot when Diane goes on to talk about the pool. The documentary then shows some vintage home movie footage of one of Walt's pool parties. The two black and white screenshots below show how the pool looked. What's amazing is how undeveloped the Los Feliz area looks in the background. If you own the DVD, this clip is about 35 minutes in.

Pool Party at Walt's House

(c) The Walt Disney Company

An undeveloped Los Feliz can be seen in the background.

(c) The Walt Disney Company

Does anyone have more information on the swimming pool at Walt Disney's 4053 Woking Way home? I'm assuming Walt's daughter's memory and the vintage home movie clips are correct and there was a pool. Perhaps, more likely, the realtor meant that the pool at the home today isn't the original pool?

I Just Bought Walt Disney's Los Feliz Home!

Walt Disney's Residence at 4053 Woking Way

Ok, so I didn't buy Walt Disney's home. I was just fantasizing.  But, if you haven't heard, Walt's former residence at 4053 Woking Way in the Los Feliz hills is up for sale. If you have $3,650,000 you could live just like the creative studio mogul. All of these photos (and there are more where these came from) are from the official Walt Disney LA Home website. I picked a few of my favorite rooms.

Love the stained glass touches!

Can you picture Walt and wife Lillian 

brushing their teeth together here?

I bet Walt read a lot of scripts here.

The pool where Walt would invite some of his animators 

over to enjoy on hot summer days like the country is having now.

Isn't this ceiling great? It looks like a fairy tale home.

I wish I could afford to move into this home, but unfortunately, it's just a little out of my price range. I only hope, that whoever does end up purchasing this home, they preserve the unique design details. It always sickens me when some classic Hollywood home is torn down only to be replaced by a large, modern, and gaudy building. 

Your thoughts?

2011 Tiki Celebration at the Egyptian Theatre

King Kukulele and his Friki Tikis

This past Saturday, the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood hosted their annual Tiki Celebration which included performances by the comical and kitschy performer King Kukulele and his Friki Tikis, Polynesian food and tropical drinks at neighboring Maui & Sons restaurant, vendors selling tiki themed products, a tiki fashion show, a tribute to legendary Disney clown Wally Boag for his contributions to the Disney tiki themed attraction, "The Enchanted Tiki Room," and a screening of the 1951 Polynesian themed film, Bird of Paradise. It was a beautiful summer evening in Hollywood, perfect for such a tropical themed event. Although the turnout was not large, it was great to see such a diverse group in attendance. There were young kids probably experiencing tiki culture for the first time, older adults who probably have been sipping strong tropical drinks from tiki mugs for many years, and everyone in between.

King Kukulele and his Friki Tikis

The event started in the courtyard of the Egyptian Theatre with solo artist Ukulele Davey playing some musical standards on his uke.  Then the band King Kukulele and his Friki Tikis took to the stage, pulling in the audience with their melodies and lively performance. This was my first time seeing King Kukulele, who is not only a singer and musician, but quite the comedian too. To see a Youtube video of King Kukulele, click here.

Tiki Crafts

I only have two complaints with the Tiki Celebration. 

First, the way I interpreted the event info on the American Cinematheque website, was that Maui and Sons restaurant would be serving BBQ and Polynesian themed drinks in the courtyard. This was partially true. If you were lucky enough, you could eat/drink in the courtyard but only in the area attached to the Maui & Sons restaurant near the entrance of the courtyard. The thing is, you could hear the music from that location but not watch the performers. The other option was to go inside the restaurant and not see nor hear the musical performances at all. I figured the restaurant would have some kind of catering set-up to serve the attendees in the courtyard where they could eat, drink and still watch the music. At the TCM Classic Film Festival they didn't serve food, but they did at least have a station to order drinks which you could then take with you around the Egyptian Theatre courtyard. I thought the Tiki Celebration would be set up in a similar manner.

Second, when my friends and I arrived at the theatre, just a few minutes past the start time of 5pm, we couldn't find anyone around who was working the event. There was no one at the ticket booth to pick-up will call tickets, no one at the doors to the theatre or in the courtyard, or at least anyone making themselves noticeable, to answer questions. When you go to a regular theatre, a restaurant, a hotel, and many other service oriented businesses, there is usually some kind of host/hostess to greet guests and answer questions. I wish the Tiki Celebration would have had some kind of host available to answer questions. That way, instead of listening to rumors from other clueless attendees who said the festival would be bringing food/drink to the courtyard where the performance area was, I could have asked someone official working the event and found out that I should have gone straight to the restaurant to grab a decent spot.

Nevertheless, my family, friends, and I still had a good time. I mention the above only so that maybe next year these two items could be fixed for an even better experience. 

Disney Legend, Wally Boag

After the musical performances outside in the courtyard, the event moved inside the Egyptian Theatre. King Kukulele hosted a tiki fashion show, where women dressed in tiki fashions, such as Polynesian inspired dresses, sarongs, and grass skirts strutted their way to the front of the theatre. This was followed by a video tribute to Disney comedian, Wally Boag, which was shown on the Egyptian's huge theatre screen. Boag was most famous for his performances in the long running stage show at Disneyland, "The Golden Horseshoe Revue." Boag also added his comedic talents to many other Disney related projects, including writing most of the script and doing voices for the the attraction, "The Enchanted Tiki Room." Boag unfortunately passed away earlier this year, but he had attended the Tiki Festival a couple of years ago to talk about his experience at Disneyland and his involvement on the Enchanted Tiki Room attraction.

Another Disney legend, Richard Sherman, who wrote the song, "The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room" for the Enchanted Tiki Room attraction was supposed to attend this years Tiki Festival, but turned out unable to make it.

Bird of Paradise (1951)

After the tribute to Wally Boag, the event ended with the feature presentation, the 1951 film, Bird of Paradise. The film, beautifully shot on location in the Hawaiian islands, is quite stunning to watch on a large screen. The story however, is a bit campy. I felt like I was watching one of those cheesy films that the television show, Mystery Science Theatre 3000 would have poked fun at.  I don't think I'll need to watch this film again, but it was fun to watch to go with the whole Polynesian/tiki theme for the evening.

All in all, the Tiki Celebration was a fun summer event that I hope will continue in future years and continue to grow each year with new offerings. If you want to learn more about the tiki culture, a good starting pointing is the Tiki Magazine website.

Visiting Disneyland in 1956

Disneyland Dream (1956)

A friend of mine recently referred me to this incredible documentary film called "Disneyland Dream" and I'm thankful that he did. The video, which documents the Barstow family's 1956 trip from Connecticut to California, is an amazing time capsule from that time period. In 1956, the Barstow family entered a contest presented by Scotch tape in order to win the prize - a fully paid trip to Disneyland. The Barstow family won of course and captured their magical trip on film. Some of the sites that you can see in the video include their 1950s home in Connecticut, the Huntington Shertaton Hotel in Pasadena, Knott's Berry Farm when it actually looked more like a farm than a theme park, Southern California orange groves, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood and Vine, the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Universal Studios Hollywood, Will Rogers's home, Catalina Island and a tour of the Disneyland theme park as it appeared back then.

The video is about 34 minutes long but worth taking the time to watch until the end if your a nostalgia or Disneyland buff. The video uses the film footage from 1956 with an added narration track that Robbins Barstow, the father, created in 1995. Some of my favorite things in the video are seeing the family wearing their Davy Crocket jackets or boarding a TWA airplane that holds 64 people. The family is also quite amusing and with the narration provided by Robbins, you feel like you're right there with him as he retells this memorable experience.

So when you have the time, take a moment to step back to 1956 as you watch Disneyland Dream. If the video doesn't play you can also see the video here: Disneyland Dream

The Nethercutt Collection: Antiques, Vintage Cars, Mechanical Instruments & More

Me in front of Fatty Arbuckle's 1923 McFarlan Auto

To kick off the month of December and get into the Christmas spirit, a friend of mine invited my wife and I to the Nethercutt Museum for a special holiday themed organ concert. When I heard that the concert was to be performed on a Wurlitzer organ, an instrument one does not regularly get to hear, and that the amazing Rob Richards (probably most well known for being the house organist of Disney's El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood) was going to perform, I knew we had to go.

What I didn't know at the time was how amazing of a place the Nethercutt Museum is. I had never heard of this gem located just north of Los Angeles, in Sylmar, California. The main building of the museum is four floors containing antique automobiles (some previously owned by Hollywood greats such as Cecil B. Demille and Fatty Arbuckle), "Mechanical Musical Instruments," antique furniture, clocks and other items to tantalize the eye.

The most exclusive of the antique autos are housed in what looks like a grand ballroom with marble columns and floors, lighted by crystal chandeliers and covered by painted ceilings. The room seems rather appropriate for the classy cars of the 1910s, 20s, and 30s found in this room. Some of cars in this room include Maybach, Duesenbergs, Renault, early Cadillacs and so many other exotic brands that are no longer.

The Grand Salon

As you work your way through the Grand Salon and up the stairs to the next level, you pass large display cases containing a vast collection of hood ornaments. These ornaments are so spectacular that they look more like trophies, something perhaps that would be handed out at an award ceremony - not something you would have on the hood of your automobile. 

Above the Grand Salon is a more cozy room with plush carpet and dark walls. All around the room are what are various mechanical musical instruments including self playing pianos, phonographs, cylinder music boxes, and what I thought were said to be European Orchestrations. These European Orchestrations are about the size of an average armoire and some are so large they cover an entire wall. Think of these like the 19th century version of a jukebox. These contraptions contain actual instruments built inside - drums, xylophones, piano, bells, violins, accordions, etc. - that will play music when turned on. Apparently these were popular in hotels and dance halls in Europe as they could mimic a full orchestra without needing all the musicians. 

Stairs leading to the Mezzanine Level

Looking down at the Grand Salon

Walking pass antiques and the hood ornament displays.

Carpet in the Music Room

Top of a European Orchestration

A European Orchestration

Antique Watches

After checking out some of the cars, antiques, and mechanical musical instruments, my wife, friend Dave and I took our seats for the organ concert. Rob Richards performed on the museum's restored Wurlitzer organ, accompanied by Alex Zsolt on piano. The two played mainly Christmas tunes - some popular and some a little obscure. Between songs Richards and Zsolt really hammed it up for the audience as they explained the songs, cracking jokes like true entertainers.

In addition to the holiday music Richards and Zsolt played a few other tunes to show off the splendor of the Wurlitzer. As a special treat for Disney fans, Richards performed the music from the 1978 Disney animated short, The Small One. The website DisneyShorts.org has the following synopsis for The Small One: "A young boy must sell his undersized donkey to raise money for food. But instead of being sold to the local merchants, the donkey is destined for a very special passenger on a very special journey." That special journey was the journey of Mary and Joseph. I vaguely recall seeing this short when I was a kid but I would not have seen it since. The short was directed by legendary Don Bluth and according to the book "Disney A to Z," by Dave Smith, "this was the first Disney production created exclusively by the new generation of animators at the studio, except for 'old timer' directing animator Cliff Nordberg, to prove their ability to create a success."

Up out of the trap door floor came the organ, but the massive amount of pipes of all sizes, of which there are over 1,500, were located behind the walls. There were two walls that were see through so you could get a glimpse of the stunning pipes.

The Organ

One view of the organ pipes.

Antique Clock

Looking into the Dining Room

Cecil B. Demille's Car

DMIL CAD

Demille Car

Fatty Arbuckle Car

Me checking out the dashboard.

I saw some of the museum by attending the holiday concert, but you can visit the museum most anytime and tour the exhibits. Check out the museum site here. The collection has become so large they had to expand to another building. I plan to go back to see the rest of the exhibits.

And if you haven't had the opportunity to see Rob Richards perform on a Mighty Wurlitzer Organ you can usually catch him by seeing a movie at Disney's El Capitan Theatre. Richards often performs on the theatre's Wurlitzer before the feature - Disney songs of course.

Your thoughts?

Snow White's Home for Sale

Adriana Caselotti, Voice of "Snow White"

The name Adriana Caselotti may not be instantly recognizable, but her voice sure is. At the age of 18, Caselotti starred in her one and only film, performing the voice of Snow White in Disney's 1937 film. The home that Caselotti had lived in, located at 201 S. Larchmont Blvd in the Larchmont neighborhood of Los Angeles, is currently up for sale. The asking price is $1.499 million.

Home of Adrianna Caselotti (a.k.a. Snow White)

To view more photos of the house, including many interior photos, visit the Curbed LA post by clicking here.

Early Homes and Studios of Walt Disney

Walt Disney

Here are some of the locations that Walt Disney lived and worked at when he first arrived in Los Angeles. This was part of a post I did a while back for another blog but wanted to incorporate here.

In 1923, Walt Disney, unable to get the funds needed to keep his Laugh-O-gram cartoon business going, decided to file for bankruptcy. At the urging of his older brother Roy, he left the Kansas City business behind and boarded a train for California. Roy, because of health reasons, was already living in California, staying at a veterans hospital in west Los Angeles. Their uncle Robert Disney had retired to Los Angeles and was living in the Los Feliz neighborhood. When Walt arrived in California he stayed at his uncle Robert's place at 4406 Kingswell Avenue.

Uncle Robert Disney's Home, 4406 Kingswell Ave

Walt first came to Los Angeles, not with the idea of creating another cartoon business, but with ambitions of becoming a director at one of the major studios. Walt even had business cards created that said he was a Kansas City representitive for Universal and Selznick newsreels so he could hand them out to people at the studios. On one occaision Walt handed a secretary at Universal one of his cards and requested a pass to the studio - which he was granted. 

After trying to get a job as a director with no success, Walt was ready to settle for any job at one of the studios, but was told there were no openings. Finally, Walt figured if he was going to get into the entertainment business he would have to go back to cartoons.

Walt set up shop in uncle Robert's garage and started by making cartoon joke reels for movie theatre chains. He would eventually start making what would become the Alice Comedies, cartoons that featured a live girl in a cartoon world.

Around this time Walt moved out of Uncle Robert's house and into the Olive Hill Apartments where he stayed for about a month, and then moved to a cheaper place at 4409 Kingswell Avenue that he shared with his brother Roy. The apartment is almost directly across the street from Robert's home.

Walt and Roy then rented a room in an office building on Kingswell Avenue, just a couple blocks from their apartment, to create their cartoons. The men called their business the Disney Bros. Studio.

Walt & Roy Disney's Apartment, 4409 Kingswell Ave

Disney Bros. Studio

Disney Bros. Studio Kingswell Ave

Disney's Alice Comedies would become a hit and Walt would need to hire other artists to help create his cartoons. One of Walt's early employees, an ink-and-paint girl named Lillian, would later become his wife. In 1925, after little more than a year of courtship, Walt and Lillian married.

Roy had married his sweetheart about a year earlier and had moved out of the apartment he shared with Walt. When Walt and Lillian married they moved into a small apartment located on Melbourne Avenue, close to the studio on Kingswell, and then later to a larger apartment on Commonwealth Avenue.

With the success of the Alice Comedies, Walt and Roy put a deposit down for land and an office building on Hyperion Avenue, in the Silver Lake neighborhood. The Disney's planned to grow their business here, and they would, but it would not be easy.

The Disney's would move the studio from the Kingswell location to the Hyperion office. They moved on from the Alice Comedies and introduced a new character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, which also proved to be popular with audiences. With the popularity of Oswald, Walt asked his distributor Charles Mintz for an increase in budget, only to learn that they wanted to decrease Walt's budget by 20 percent. Walt also learned that he didn't own the rights to Oswald, Mintz did, and he had hired away most of Walt's staff.

Walt, with his few loyal artists, would finish their contract with Mintz and complete the last of the Oswald cartoons while secretly working on a new character - Mickey Mouse. Mickey would prove to be more popular than anything Walt had done up to that point.

Below is an image of the Walt Disney Studios in the Silver Lake neighborhood and the site as it appears today (the studio is demolished and a grocery store stands in its place). It is at this studio that the early Mickey cartoons, Silly Symphonies, and the first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were all created. After the success of Snow White, the Walt Disney Studios would move to a new location in Burbank, a few miles away.

 

Walt Disney Studios, 2719 Hyperion Avenue

 

Former site of Walt Disney Studios, Hyperion Avenue

Walt Disney Studios, 2719 Hyperion Ave

In 1927, with the money the Disney's were earning from the Oswald cartoons, Walt and Roy bought matching homes on Lyric avenue in Silver Lake, near the new studio. The prefabricated homes were small, just 1100 square feet, with only two bedrooms, a living room, dining room and kitchen. It was at Walt's garage on Lyric Avenue that he and his loyal animators in secret worked on the first Mickey Mouse cartoon.

Walt Disney's Home on Lyric Avenue

  

Roy Disney's Home on Lyric Avenue

Walt Disney's Home, 4053 Woking Way

As Walt's success grew and news came that his wife Lillian was pregnant, he decided to move from the small home on Lyric Avenue to a larger home up in the Hollywood Hills. The home was located at 4053 Woking Way, just above the Los Feliz neighborhood. To get there you need to drive up some steep narrow roads. Walt would live in this home for a few years and then move again to his most famous residence, which was located in Holmby Hills (it was at the Holmby Hills residence Walt had his backyard train).