Quote:
Originally Posted by mdiederi
Anyone have info on the "Night Mayor" of Hollywood?
I recently bought an artist portfolio of over 100 portrait drawings by Hollywood artist Philip A Ramus at an Abell estate auction in Los Angeles. All of the drawings are dated from the 1920s and 1930s. A lot of them look like Hollywood actors and actresses. Thought this one of "Smoke" B. Turner (Night Mayor of Hollywood) was interesting. It's dated 1932. I can't figure out who Smoke B. Turner is (other than the night mayor).
my photo
The artist Philip A Ramus was one of the founders of the Hollywood School of Art, which I also can't find much information about. This hand-painted sign was also in the portfolio lot.
my photo
Found this ad from 1948 about the Hollywood School of Art, which is probably ten years or so after it was founded, but can't find much else about the school. Think they mostly trained commercial artists and cartoonists. The ad does show an address on Hollywood Blvd.
found on flickr
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"Smoke" Turner was Bowditch Morton Turner, an actor in the late teens and early 20s. A motion picture directory from that time lists him in 1919 and again in 1920.
He was born in Cumberland, Maryland (according to the directory) in 1878. Actually, according to his WWI draft registration, he was born on August 8, 1877. He died in los Angeles in 1933 according to "Who Was Who on Screen. Third edition. By Evelyn Mack Truitt. New York: R.R. Bowker, 1983."
When he registered for the draft in WWI his address is listed as 1620 Formosa Avenue, Los Angeles. That registration card indicates that he was of medium height, with a slender build, with gray eyes and black hair. Apparently he only had one eye,(there goes his chance of being drafted).
IMBD list him as being in one movie "Are All Men Alike" in 1920, but there were apparently others as well in the teens and twenties, including "Scaramouche" and the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse".
In 1922 he went to Hawaii. The ship manifest lists his permanent address at that time as the "Christie Hotel" in Hollywood, located at Hollywood Blvd and McCadden Place.
He was apparently a character actor so I can't find any specific pictures of him.