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Verdugo Views: Glendale’s Frank Kurtis dominated famous race for years

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Frank Kurtis’ name is well known among race car enthusiasts, especially those who follow the Indianapolis 500.

For several years, starting in the late 1940s, Kurtis designed and built vehicles that dominated the race. And he lived and worked in the Glendale area.

There’s a lot of information about Kurtis on the Internet and in newspapers and magazines, but some data conflicts, so I’ve tried to glean as much as possible from local newspapers on file in Special Collections at the Glendale Public Library.

The Kurtis family moved from Colorado to Los Angeles in the early 1920s, and young Kurtis soon went to work as a mechanic for Cadillac.

“His father, then foreman in the plant, was responsible for guiding Frank and encouraging him to continue in that line of work,” Mack Pollitt wrote in the April 13, 1949, edition of the Glendale News-Press.

His obituary in the News-Press on Feb. 19, 1987, noted that Kurtis watched his father work at Don Lee Cadillac in Los Angeles and “in 1931 began building parts for the cars. By 1938, he developed midget cars at his Kurtis-Kraft shop in Glendale and, by 1939, was building sports cars.”

By 1949, when Kurtis sent a Meyer & Drake Offenhauser, built at a cost of $28,000, to the race, he had lived in Glendale for four years and had already sent “25 big cars” to Indianapolis, Pollitt wrote in his 1949 article.

That was the same year Mickey Rooney played an Indy 500 driver in “The Big Wheel.” Turner Classic Movies’ website said some scenes included footage from the 1949 race.

Kurtis’ first win came in 1950, according to Jack Cook, who wrote in an Aug. 12, 1981 Daily News story, “Johnnie Parsons of Van Nuys drove a Kurtis-Kraft to the victory lane in a race called because of rain after 345 laps, the second shortest 500 in history.”

Wikipedia notes that Clark Gable and Barbara Stanwyck were at the track that month to film scenes for “To Please a Lady,” and that Stanwyck provided the “traditional celebratory kiss to the winner.”

In 1953, many of the 33 entrants were Kurtis-Kraft designs. Bill Vukovich won the race in one of Kurtis’ cars. With the temperature in the high 90s, and the track temperature exceeding 130°F, Wikipedia called this race one of the “Hottest 500.”

Vukovich drove another Kurtis car to victory the next year and another in 1955. That was the year three drivers crashed in front of him.

“Vukovich died in the ensuing smash, Cook wrote in 1981. Despite the tragedy, the race continued and, according to Wikipedia, a Kurtis car driven by Bob Sweikert won.

In 1956, Kurtis entered several cars, including the one pictured with this column which came in at 33rd place. However, another Kurtis-Kraft, driven by Sam Hanks, came in second. The 1956 race is known in Indy 500 lore as “Cagle’s Miracle.” After torrential rains flooded the speedway, Supt. Clarence Cagle supervised a massive clean-up effort, pumping out hundreds of thousands of gallons of water.

Crews worked nonstop for 48 hours straight and had the track ready for race morning, according to Wikipedia.

With five Indy wins to his name, Kurtis was a celebrity. Reporters and photographers loved him. Veteran News-Press photographer, Louie Deisbeck, who passed away in 2016, told me that he and fellow photographer Sal Felix visited Kurtis every year, right before Memorial Day, to do a story on his entry in the Indy 500.

Kurtis died at age 79 in Glendale.

“He was a giant among his peers in the early 50s,” his obituary in the News-Press stated.

Readers Write:

Nick Friesen, who suggested that I write about Frank Kurtis, has been a race car enthusiast all of his life. “I was captivated by them at an early age,” he wrote in an email.

If you have a Frank Kurtis story to share, please contact me via the information included with this column. And be sure to include your name and number.

A special thank you to Chuck Wike of the Glendale Public Library, who, during the library’s recent renovation, went above and beyond the call of duty to provide requested pictures from Special Collections. Thanks, Chuck.

KATHERINE YAMADA can be reached at katherineyamada@gmail.com. or by mail at Verdugo Views, c/o Glendale News-Press, 202 W. First St., Second Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Please include your name, address and phone number.

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