Seeing as how some of us are posting the histories of our parents...
My father was born at
Queen of Angels hospital. He was going to follow the family tradition of working in the movie industry, but when World War II broke out, my father volunteered for service (he served as an airplane navigator in the Pacific). After the war, he pursued his own path, and never worked in the movie industry again (he had been featured in a few of my grandfather's silent movies, playing bit parts as a kid).
Both of my parents were newspaper reporters. My father would always tell me that being a newspaper reporter was considered to be a
very glamorous job at the time - my dad would say “look at how common the roving reporter character is in movies - it was considered to be quite a big deal if you were a reporter back in those days”.
Since newspapers were pretty much the entire source of publicity back in those day, my parents
did lead somewhat glamorous lives as reporters - they were given free tickets and backstage passes to all the best shows, and they received many gifts from anyone trying to get publicity. For example, they were given hundreds of LP records, which I still have.
My dad knew and/or interviewed many top stars. He was at a restaurant one night when Humphrey Bogart and his wife, Mayo Methot, got into one of their famous fights - the pair were dubbed “The Battling Bogarts” - and apparently the two of them caused
quite a scene.
Once my father was using a urinal in a men's room when Groucho Marx walked up and used the urinal next to him. Groucho, adopting a very formal tone said to my father “I beg your pardon sir, but would it bother you terribly if I were to fart right now?” My father replied “Why yes, Groucho, that
would offend me greatly!” Groucho responded “Well sir, I'm afraid you're out of luck today!” and released an enormous fart.
Later on, my father also covered the trials of the Bell X-1 rocket fighter extensively, and knew Chuck Yeager. He also covered the moon landing.
My father was in John F Kennedy's press corp, and followed Kennedy across the nation as JFK ran for president. They visited all sort of places, including places like roadside diners. My father told me “I was shocked by how openly JFK moved around in public. All I could think was that anyone could shoot him at any time” - a prediction that sadly came true just a few years later. My father never had anything negative to say about JFK, who he had grown to like very much on the press tour.
My father was also at the Ambassador Hotel the night Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. After the shooting, the government agents (FBI, I presume?) locked everyone in the building, not letting them leave or make any phone calls - my mother had to wonder what had happened, until my father was allowed to return home sometime the next morning.
Later on still (circa 1970), my father left the newspaper industry for a job as a publicist in the corporate sector. He worked for many years at WOGA (The Western Oil and Gas Association) in the Fine Arts building, 811 West 7th Street in downtown.
I was lucky enough as a child to have spent a fairly sizeable amount of time in the Fine Arts with my father - even as a child, I appreciated beautiful architecture. If you'd like to see some photos of the beautiful Fine Arts building,
see here.
My mother was born in Colorado (like both of my paternal grandparents), though I am unsure in which hospital. I know, however, that it was a Catholic hospital - my grandmother named my mother
Mariko, and when the nuns wrote up her birth certificate, they changed her name to
Mary.
I am unsure as to why or when exactly my mother's family moved to Los Angeles, other than it being in the 1930s.
Being Japanese, my mother spent World War II in a Manzanar relocation camp, where she was a reporter for the camp newspaper (
ER helped me locate some of the articles she wrote online):
I've discussed my mother somewhat extensively before so I won't rehash everything, but she was one of the first women (let alone,
minority women) to work as a reporter in Los Angeles. At one point, she and her best friend, author-to-be Hisaye Yamamoto, worked as the only non-black employees at a black newspaper, the Los Angeles Tribune, run by civil rights activist,
Almena Lomax.
One evening, my mother was at the police station following up on some story, when a skinny young man was hauled in in handcuffs for getting into a fight. My mother decided she should do an impromptu interview with the young man, and despite his reputation as being sort of rough-edged, my mother said she found him to be quite charming and likeable. He was an up-and-coming crooner who went by the name of Frank Sinatra.
Like my father, my mother eventually left the newspaper business for a corporate job. She worked as the head publicist at CBS Columbia Square, specifically at KNX radio, a job she held for 34 years, until she retired.
I spent countless days in this building, probably hundreds of days. If school was on vacation, my mom would often take me to work with her. Things are probably(?) different today, but back then nobody minded if she brought me to work. I was a very well behaved kid, quiet, and I never caused any problems.
It was (and still is!) a beautiful building. Those circular windows are in the stairwell, I used to run up the stairs when I was a kid, trying to beat my mother (who took the elevator) to the third floor.
Anyways, please forgive me for droning on and on! If anyone cares to read it, here is an interview with my parents regarding their times in LA:
http://www.riprense.com/Dailynewspagekitano.htm