20 Years Ago Today

Former Columbia Pictures President David Begelman pleads no contest in Burbank Superior Court to charges that he embezzled $40,000 from the film studio. * Pendants shaped as zodiac signs (with small but authentic diamonds) retail for $22 at May Co. * Quote of the day: “When I have a few thousand people, I really pour it on. I’m like a goddamn Baptist preacher. I tell them how government is clobbering them. I rev them up.”--Howard Jarvis, expressing confidence in the passage of his factious property-tax limitation measure, Proposition 13.