1940s - Peddling Papers in Gower Gulch

         View of Columbia Square Diagonally Across from My Newspaper Stand

At age 14 my first job was selling newspapers on the corner of Sunset Blvd. and Gower St., which was a short distance from Columbia Studios and diagonally across from Columbia Square, which housed the KNX radio studios.

The intersection of Sunset and Gower was better known in those days as "Gower Gulch" because of the part time actors from Western movies that used to
hang around there.

I had met a kid at Le Conte Jr. High, named Carl Von Papp, who had been handling this job for a while and who asked if I'd like to split the job with him, since it covered too much territory for one person to handle effectively.

I could hardly wait to get started.

Carl and I sold the Los Angeles Herald-Express and the Hollywood Daily News (which was later bought by the Los Angeles Times, renamed The Mirror, and finally dismantled to be just a section of the Times). The Herald-Express was eventually combined with the Los Angeles Examiner to become the Herald-Examiner, which eventually went out of business altogether.

In those days newspapers sold for a nickel, and we got to keep two cents out of each sale.

Something I learned early on was that the intersection of Sunset and Gower had become known as "Gower Gulch" because an assortment of part-time cowboy bit players tended to congregate there.

Most of these rodeo-rejects drifted in and out of the general area on an irregular basis, but one fellow was there nearly all the time.

Jack was the proto-typical middle-aged frontiersman who would usually be seen in the movies as a gold prospector or a chuckwagon cook. He had a full white beard, a self-confident manner, and rarely spoke.

Jack would stand next to our newsstand for hours on end, leaning against the drug store wall and surveying everything that went on in Gower Gulch.

For some reason, Jack didn't like Carl and would never refer to him by his name, preferring to identify him as "that tall, skinny kid." (Carl actually was taller than I in those days, although I ended up being slightly taller than he after we grew up.)

But Jack liked me, and would actually talk to me at times. He once told me that he had been in the Merchant Marines and used to write poetry about life at sea. He would recite them to me on occasion, but all I can remember is the beginning of one poem:

Tell me a tale of the days of sail,
Said a beardless youth in his teens,
To an old and grizzled sailor,
Who fished for a chaw in his jeans.

Wish I could remember the rest of it.

Personally, I found Jack Evans to be an intriguing guy, around whom I felt very comfortable. Also, he was almost always there when Carl and I arrived after school, and he would still be standing there when we went home in the evening.

As for peddling the papers, Carl and I had a few local deliveries we made each day, and the rest of the time we were expected to hawk the periodicals by approaching passing pedestrians and drivers who were waiting for a signal to change.

But we never did that.

There were too many other interesting things to do around there. What we did was stack our papers on an inverted orange crate, and put a cigar box on top of the papers.

Then we would go off and have fun at various places.

Weren't we worried about people taking a paper without paying for it—or just plain stealing the cash out of the cigar box?

Well, as long as Jack Evans was there, we never suffered any losses. So when Jack was absent, we stayed pretty close—but would go places and have fun when he returned. Sadly, there were a few times when he had to leave while we were gone—and it was on those occasions we were occasionally burgled.

So what was the fun we had? Well, the owner of the drug store across the street would let us sit on the floor and read comic books, as long as were careful not to mishandle them and make the unsaleable. (The owner of the drug store our newsstand was next to hated our guts. More on that later.)

But our very favorite fun hang-out was Wallich's Music City, on the corner of Sunset and Vine. Wallich's was Hollywood's largest record store in those days, and they had "listening booths" where you could sample records before making a decision to buy.

Of course, they frowned on anyone spending time in the booths just listening and never buying, which is mainly what Carl and I did. However, we got away with it by being careful never to ask the same clerk twice in a row for a record (or records) to sample. And we were good at making it appear that we were genuinely interested in buying something.

And, occasionally, we did buy a record or two.

Another fun thing was hanging around Columbia Square, where we often got to watch a radio show being rehearsed. The rehearsals were often more entertaining than the actual shows, since the performers would clown around and throw in some adlibs that would have been disallowed on the air.

One of our favorites was Mayor of the Town, starring Lionel Barrymore. I was surprised to see that he read his lines from a wheelchair. I had no idea he was disabled, since there was no suggestion that the "town's mayor" was, when we heard him on the radio.

Comedy shows would often "warm up" their audiences by doing some vaudevillian-like shtick before the show started. A guy named Jack Kirkwood had a 15-minute nightly program—and his warm-ups were often funnier than the shows.

While Jack Kirkwood was introducing himself to the audience, a guy would boogie across the stage behind him, holding an ink-stained desk blotter next to one ear. Jack would ask what he was doing and the guy would reply, "Listening to the Ink Spots." Another guy would walk across the stage carrying an empty beer case under his arm with a very serious look on his face. When Jack asked where he was going, he would say, "I'm taking a case to court." He'd return a few minutes later, still carrying the beer case, but carrying a ladder under the other arm. "Where are you going now?" "I'm taking it to a higher court."

Okay—so the gags were pretty hokey—but we had a lot of laughs anyway.

Singing Elevator Operator

Another thing fun about Columbia Studios was that they had a singing elevator operator. (Yes, there was a time when elevators were not self-service.)

Shirley had an exuberant personality, along with a beautiful voice, and she loved to sing the popular hits of the day as well as Broadway show tunes. It was not uncommon for the other three elevators to be sitting idle while people waited to ride in Shirley's.

"Brewer's" was a short-order bar and grille a few doors away where we would spend time having some homemade pie a la mode, listening to the jukebox, and chatting with the waitresses and other customers (in the grille part, of course). This was an especially favorite spot if the weather turned cold.

Not surprisingly, Shirley was in hopes of being discovered by a talent scout—but I never heard her on the radio or saw her in the movies. As for TV, it was still a few years away—but I never saw her there either. I do hope she became an entertainer somewhere, because she seemed like a natural to all of her elevator-riding fans.

Mayor of Gower Gulch

Back at the Gulch, some of the local merchants decided it would be a good publicity stunt to elect a "Mayor of Gower Gulch." So they had some "ballots" printed up with the names of several hangers-on that frequented the corner, along with some blank "write-in" spaces.

One of the candidates was a guy who usually showed up with a dog. But Carl and I were sure that Jack Evans was the obvious shoe-in candidate. After all, he was always there—and everybody liked him (except the drug store owner who also hated Carl and me).

Guess who won. The dog got it on write-in votes.

He Hated All Three of Us

About the guy who hated us—his name was Sigmund Schlingleman (try saying that five times in a row). Why did he hate us. Well, he thought Jack Evans was an eye-sore, just leaning against Sigmund's wall all day—and he felt the same way about Carl and me having our newsstand there.

He was always complaining to our route managers that we should be across the street next to his competitor's store. But the manager's let us choose our own corner, and this one had more foot-traffic, what with Columbia Studios being right down the street. Speaking of which, one of Carl's most profitable parts of the day was 5:00 PM, when the studio workers would get off work. No matter where else we went during the rest of the afternoon, Carl would be on duty at the gates at closing time, where it was also not uncommon to see an occasional star. I was surprised to see that Humphrey Bogart and I were about the same height.

Soda Fountain Stools Boobie-Trapped

Another reason Sigmund Schlingleman hated Carl and me was that he thought we were the ones who had played a practical joke with his soda fountain stools. But it was a couple of other guys who had discovered that the revolving stools could be raised slightly on their pedestals, and twisted so that they caught on a piece of metal that kept them elevated.

Eventually, when a customer would sit down, the stool would suddenly drop an inch or so, causing him or her to gasp and look around, trying to figure out what happened. It took Sigmund a while to figure out how this prank was perpetrated, and when he did, he was sure Carl and I were the saboteurs.

Well, we were observers on a couple of occasions, but our worst prank was to ask a new waitress if we could have a "pine float." When she would ask what it was we would reply, "A glass of water with a tooth pick floating in it." (Even Jack Kirkwood's gags were funnier than that.)