Hardly a storybook ending: A package sent...
Hardly a storybook ending: A package sent to the offices of billionaire Marvin Davis arrived Friday at the 32-story Fox Plaza Building in Century City bearing the words, “This is a bomb threat.”
Members of the LAPD’s bomb squad rushed in, hoping they wouldn’t experience a real-life version of “Die Hard,” the Bruce Willis thriller that was shot there. Fortunately, when the package was destroyed with a low-charge explosive, it was determined to be “a movie manuscript,” Detective Lawrence Garrett said.
Since the thoughtful sender left a return address, officers found him and were told that he “wanted to draw attention to his package.” The unidentified screenwriter was not charged. Incidentally, Garrett said the script appeared to be “about a human bomb.”
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Dives of the Rich and Famous: Here are some home furnishing ideas that we picked up from celebrity studies by authors Charles Lockwood and Ken Schessler.
* Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Beverly Hills: Installed a 55-by-100-foot swimming pool with a sandy beach so they wouldn’t have to drive all the way to Santa Monica.
* Joan Crawford, Brentwood: Removed all her bathtubs, explaining that “it was unsanitary to sit in one’s bathwater.”
* Harold Lloyd, Beverly Hills: Kept a 15-foot-tall Christmas tree decorated with more than 1,000 ornaments standing year-round.
* Auto maker E.L. Cord, Beverly Hills: Raised chickens as a hobby, installing them in luxury coops, which--like his mansion--had brick floors, wood paneling and satin drapes.
* Rudolph Valentino, Beverly Hills: Kept a perfume lamp at the foot of his bed, which sprayed the room whenever the light was turned on.
* Norma Talmadge, West Adams Boulevard: Hid her jewelry in the icebox “in brown paper bags next to the vegetables.”
* Marion Davies, Santa Monica: Beach house had 55 bathrooms and 37 fireplaces.
* Jayne Mansfield, Bel-Air: Painted nearly everything pink, including the heart-shaped swimming pool and the heart-shaped toilet seats.
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A note from the teacher: Our mention of Beverly Aadland, the 15-year-old girlfriend of grown-up actor Errol Flynn in the 1950s, brought a letter from her former junior high school teacher.
“In my English/Social Studies classes, she was a pretty sharp little gal,” writes Ellen Rainier, who taught at Horace Mann near Florence and Normandie avenues in L.A. “I haven’t forgotten her and am sorry to have lost track of her. However it hasn’t been too difficult to keep track of (grads) Joel Wachs (1953) and Gil Garcetti (1956). They both were pretty sharp little guys, too.”
Hmmm. Wachs . . . Garcetti . . . The names sound sort of familiar but. . . .
miscelLAny:
Pasadena’s Suicide Bridge, the jumping-off spot of more than 100 people since 1912, was a safe place to be Jan. 17. The Colorado Street bridge came through the big quake with no damage. Still standing, in other words.