More Floyd Clymer...including his noirish pre-LA life
Along with what I saw on TV and in the movies, Floyd Clymer is responsible for for my fascination with Los Angeles... seeing him turn up in recent posts got me to dig out my collection of Clymer publications--I have at least 20 different pieces I bought in the '60s and '70s, basically untouched. I remember seeing two of his houses pictured in them-- including the house he bought ca 1938 at 1125 Keniston Avenue and his next, bought ca 1964, at 301 N Las Palmas in Hancock Park. Years ago I looked for these houses and drove by them...in part beginning my interest in LA neighborhoods and domestic architecture.
Anyway... I've done a little more digging and lo & behold I find that Mr. Clymer was not exactly the Ward Cleaver figure I'd imagined. Not that he didn't make good--no question about that--but it turns out that he had quite an interesting life before arriving in LA around 1932 (first living in Silver Lake, then in the apartment house on Kenmore mentioned by
Tourmaline). He appears to have been married at age 16...a son arrived 7 months later...there was a divorce and then a second marriage in 1925. THEN... the 1930 Federal census lists him as an inmate at Leavenworth. No, no, not MY Floyd Clymer, I thought, but the inmate's age, birthplace (Indiana) and birthplace of the inmate's parents are consistent...I haven't looked to see if I could find any reports of why he wound up in the slammer. The many good years began once he was sprung and got to LA.
A few titles from my collection
As seen in his book on his road test of the 1949 Ford, Clymer's house at 1125 Keniston Avenue, where he lived ca 1938-64. It was built in 1924 by developer A D Van Vranken; The Clymers appear to have done nothing in terms of alterations or major improvements in their 26 or so years in the house (i.e., no building permits seem to have been issued to them, in fact, none from 1924 to 1988).
The house today:
GSV
As seen in his book on the 1964 Mercury, Clymer's Hancock Park house (built 1925)--still there, but the hedge is now a green wall...
(I guess it's an Air B&B now)
GSV
The Clymer publishing operation was at 222 N Virgil in the '60s...
GSV
PS Re his prison time-- apparently it was for some business scam involving the misuse of the mail that Clymer wound up in prison for 15 months. He became editor of Leavenworth's
Jailhouse News, which led to his combining his interest in cars with publishing. He is described equivocatingly by Joe Scalzo in
Grand National: America's Golden Age of Motorcycle Racing this way: "Shamelessly ballyhooing his own name was old Floyd's thing, and self-aggrandizement his life's work. He was a publicity hound, sometimes a preposterous one, but always a likable one. Automobiles were his passion."
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I would be there Nathan if I wasn't so damn far away.
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