A Random Thievery Robs a Family of Its History

Melody Doff’s family history was crammed into a little red trunk in the garage of her Los Angeles apartment.

There were more than 1,000 photos in all, among them pictures of her grandfather--who owned the Mocambo nightclub--with Frank Sinatra and Lena Horne. There were snapshots of her mom with her first husband, bobby-soxer heartthrob Johnnie Ray, and pictures of her movie producer dad with Mickey Rooney.

But now the trunk is, well, history.

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Late Wednesday night, someone burglarized the garage, making off with the footlocker and a few other knickknacks.

“It’s so sad that this random thievery can change the value of the history of my family’s life,” Doff said. “Whoever has the pictures is in for quite a show.”

The family’s saga, captured in the pictures in the trunk, spans nearly six decades:

Doff’s grandfather, Charles Morrison, opened the Mocambo in the late 1930s, quickly making the club one of the hottest hangouts on the Sunset Strip. He was known for his willingness to take a chance with young and unknown talent at his plush club and was credited with the development of many stars, among them Horne and Milton Berle.

On any given night, there were about 200 people at the club, a brightly lit, lavishly decorated place where celebrities would mingle--sort of the Spago of the ‘50s.

“It was ‘the place’ in the old days,” Doff said.

After Morrison died in 1957, word got out that he had left tremendous debt.

“Frank Sinatra called my grandmother and said, ‘Mary, I have nothing to do for 12 days,’ ” Doff said. “He came in with his orchestra and played for two weeks, sold out every night to raise money. They gave my grandfather a send-off funeral in style and put a sign on the door that said, ‘Gone fishing.’ ”

And with that, the club was closed.

Morrison’s daughter, Marilyn, virtually grew up at Mocambo, befriending Sinatra, Berle and Vic Damone. A strikingly beautiful woman with raven-colored hair and blue eyes, she was labeled one of Hollywood’s golden girls by Life magazine.

Marilyn Morrison had her own weekly radio show for a time in Palm Springs, but she gained international attention in 1952 when she married Ray, known for his tearful trademark song “Cry.” (Inside the trunk was the Life magazine issue that included a photo of the wedding party.)

Marilyn Morrison later married film producer Red Doff, who produced such 1960s films as “Andy Hardy Comes Home” and “Everything’s Ducky,” both starring Rooney. The trunk was full of black and white photos of Red Doff, now 75, and Rooney mugging for the camera. He and Marilyn produced four children, including Melody.

Melody Doff, 32, added to the collection some of her own memorabilia: Pictures she collected while working as a publicist for the television shows “Silver Spoons,” “Who’s the Boss?” and “Facts of Life.” Among the photos of her with the cast members was a “Different Strokes” script, autographed by gymnast Mitch Gaylord when he appeared on the show.

The last thing Doff put in the trunk was an old picture of her grandparents with Dave and Maude Chasen outside the restaurant that bore their name.

“My grandmother thought I would want it, since Chasen’s just closed down,” Doff said.

Among the stacks of glossies and black and whites were the usual family photos: Pictures of baptisms, weddings and trips to Europe. But the most precious, Doff says, were the pictures of her entire family--especially because she lost her mother to cancer last year.

“I always told people that the trunk was one of those things I would throw out the window first if there ever was a fire,” Doff said. She said she moved the trunk into the garage in December to make more room for a gathering after her mother’s funeral.

She figured it would be safe there until she got a chance to move it back into the apartment.

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Sometime late Wednesday evening, someone cut the padlock on the detached garage behind Doff’s apartment, located just south of Beverly Hills off Pico Boulevard.

Other garages in the complex also were burglarized, but Doff said: “It looks like they took the majority of the material from me.” The thieves also made off with a lamp made from a silver champagne bucket from Mocambo and an old tea set.

The red trunk, with gold trim, was about four feet long and a foot and a half tall. Doff said she got it when she was 16 as a Christmas gift from her parents. Her mother picked out the color, Doff said, because “my father’s name is Red.”

Los Angeles Police Department Det. Marjorie Kempner said police have no clues in the case.

Doff said she figures that since the trunk was locked, the thieves didn’t know what they were stealing.

Said her father: “I’m sure these things can’t be of value to anyone but us. I probably can’t get five dollars for the trunk.”

Doff remains hopeful that the trunk will be returned.

“I know that there is so much crime in Los Angeles, but I’m still trying to fight for this,” she said. “This is so important to me.

“I find my family history to be so fascinating, and I hoped to preserve it and pass it along. This has been historically life altering.”