He was Hollywood’s version of King Tut....

He was Hollywood’s version of King Tut. And now he’s the subject of a book, “The Career of Elmer McCurdy, Deceased.”

The woebegone bandit was killed after an Oklahoma train robbery in 1911. When no one claimed McCurdy’s body, a carnival owner took him on the road. He led a quiet nonexistence until 1976, when a scene for the television series, “The Six Million Dollar Man,” was being prepared in a fun house attraction at the old Pike amusement park in Long Beach.

A technician tried to move what was billed as a wax dummy but pulled off a real arm. It was Elmer.

Dodge City, Kan., author Richard Basgall relates how McCurdy was eventually identified with the help of far-flung carnival ticket stubs found in the badman’s throat. Spectators had apparently stuffed them in there over the years.

Once Elmer’s story got out, Oklahoma authorities were inundated with requests from newspapers around the world for photos of McCurdy. L.A. radio talk show host Bud Furillo printed up T-shirts that said, “Elmer McCurdy, 1869-1911,” on the front, and “Elmer McCurdy, 1911-1976,” on the back.

Meanwhile, at the urging of Fred Olds, director of the Oklahoma Territorial Museum, McCurdy was returned the next year to Guthrie, Okla., for burial with some other bad guys in that town’s Boot Hill.

It has taken Basgall 13 years to write the book. But Elmer’s used to long waits.

“More evidence of the tightening job market,” says Jim Foy, executive director of the Greater Los Angeles Press Club, who contributes the following:

An ad for a “Stage Laborer,” published in a Hollywood trade publication, states that the duties include the “ability to perform heavy physical labor.”

The ad concludes: “Bachelor’s degree preferred.”

Here’s one set of civic rankings where Los Angeles will happily take a back seat.

The City of Angels ranked 37th in the nation in motor vehicle thefts per 100,000 residents in 1988. The National Automobile Theft Bureau reports that 57,331 vehicles were stolen in L.A. (about 1 per 1,700 people).

Newark, N.J., was No. 1. The car-thief capital of Southern California--ranking No. 9 overall--was Huntington Park.

The Yorba Linda City Council has voted unanimously to direct its staff to prepare a resolution making the Jan. 9 birthday of native son Richard M. Nixon a city holiday. But the town of Whittier, where the former President grew up and attended college, has shown no inkling to follow suit.

“I’ve always been a fan of Nixon’s,” said Whittier City Councilman Myron Claxton. “But I think we have enough holidays as it is.”

If you can’t get your fill of insects around the house, more than 20 species of bugs are on display at the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum. Live bugs.

The stars include giant hercules beetles from Costa Rica, rhinoceros beetles from Arizona, tarantulas, scorpions and the headliners, Medflies donated by state agriculture authorities.

Don’t worry about a mass escape. The Medflies are sterile.

Freeway commuters are only too used to hearing radio bulletins warning of jam-ups caused by another spill of some rig’s big load.

That wasn’t the case on the Hollywood Freeway Thursday morning. Instead, southbound traffic was bunched up because drivers in the fast lane were swerving to avoid a sort of tiny load.

It was a single license plate that had fallen on to the pavement, and somehow remained standing upright in its frame.

Did anyone get the car of that license number?