Alice Blackburn; Pioneer L.A. Businesswoman
Alice Blackburn, pioneering Los Angeles businesswoman who was an executive of Arden Farms Co., has died. She was 86.
Blackburn died July 19 in a Chico, Calif., hospital, said her son, William J. Blackburn III of Mount Shasta, Calif.
In 1948, she was featured in Life magazine when she gave a party during the moving of her home to make way for construction of the Hollywood Freeway. Blackburn wrote a story about the historic move, “Alice Moves Her Dream House.”
Born Alice Collins in Los Angeles, she was orphaned as a child and attended Mooseheart, a school in Illinois for children of members of the Loyal Order of Moose.
After jobs with Pacific Electric Railway and Glendale radio station KIEV-AM, Blackburn joined Arden in the early 1940s and rose to president of some of its subsidiaries.
She was head of two automobile agencies, Nash La Brea and Nash North Hollywood, and in 1959 paid $1 million to buy the Lone Palm Hotel in Palm Springs from bandleader Horace Heidt.
Blackburn was married successively to John Blackburn, Andy Hervey and Leonard Lazarus.
The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the Mooseheart School, Mooseheart, Ill.
In addition to her son, Blackburn is survived by two grandsons.
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