Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyingwedge
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Good eye
Flyingwedge! I don't believe I would have noticed the totem pole in the Sten-Frenka photograph.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyingwedge
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Your post reminded me of a story I recently read in
NEW YORKER magazine.
YOU SEE.....John Barrymore liked to sail his 120 ft. yacht
Infanta up to Alaska in the early 1930s.
vilda.alaska.edu
HERE'S A PIC of
John Barrymore and his wife, actress Dolores Costello, on one of their trips to Alaska. (Barrymore was also a hunter)
Juneau Empire
On one of these trips (most likely 1932) Mr. Barrymore looted a nearly 40 ft. totem pole from a deserted Tlingit village.
He had members of his crew go ashore and saw the totem pole into three pieces until all that remained was a stump.
The three pieces were then loaded onto the
Infanta and taken back to Los Angeles.
The totem pole stood on his estate until he died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1942.
NEW YORKER
John Barrymore, left, with an unknown person. photo by Bill Nelson
After Mr. Barrymore's death...the totem pole went missing for a number of years....until it turned up at Ralph Altman's antique shop on La Cienega Blvd.
The totem pole was eventually purchased by Vincent Price (actor and art collector) and placed on
his estate in Benedict Canyon. (supposedly turning it into a fountain)
...or was it Barrymore that turned it into a kitschy fountain?
it's a bit confusing.
NEW YORKER
Vincent Price; his wife, Mary; and Edward R. Murrow, on the Prices’ patio, in 1958.
This article says the totem pole may have contained human ashes.
HERE(which makes Barrymore's actions all the more atrocious)
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In 2015, the totem pole was returned to the Tlinget people. Read about
HERE