Verdugo Views: The misadventure of the ‘Adventures in Fantasy’ float

A huge crowd, estimated at 1.5 million, watched Glendale’s 1959 Sweepstakes award-winning float — which had just collided with another float — make its way down Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena’s Tournament of Roses parade.

The crowd, lured by warm sunshine, became so big that some could not even view the 63 floats, bearing beautiful girls and millions of fresh flowers, according to the next day’s Glendale News-Press.

Our float, “Adventures in Fantasy,” featuring the Queen of Fantasy ruling her fairyland from a large chair covered with roses, narrowly averted disaster. At the turn from Orange Grove, the driver slowed in response to a call from the photographers’ scaffold for “just one more.”

Unfortunately, the driver of the following float failed to observe the slowdown.

“Horrified onlookers screamed a warning as the Hawthorne float literally rear-ended the Glendale float,” read the next morning’s Los Angeles Times.

The front of that float slid 2 feet under the rear of Glendale’s, stopping just as the legs and feet of the young Hawthorne women were less than a foot from Glendale’s understructure, added The Times.

The young women on the Glendale float, princesses Roberta O’Brien, Carolyn Coggan and Diane McBain and queen Kay Farrington, avoided injury,

O’Brien recently recalled the event.

“Just as we were turning from Orange Grove to Colorado where the TV cameras were, I was almost knocked off my feet,” she said in an email.

No one told them what had happened. “I never knew that another float hit us,” she added.

Damage to the float — designer Sam Coleman’s first for this city — was relatively minor and only a few flowers were disturbed. Volunteers rushed to rearrange them and the float — preceded by an 80-piece Glendale High band — moved on.

This dramatic event came to light when O’Brien sent me a stack of newspapers, thinking that I might want to write about the float. But I also wanted to know more about her experience as a Rose Parade princess.

“Riding on the Rose float was an event that changed my life,” her email stated. “I was asked to ride on the float because I was a princess in the Days of Verdugo contest. As if coming in second to Diane McBain (who became a movie star) wasn’t enough, I got to ride in the Rose Parade.”

They were driven to the parade area in a Glendale police car.

“Some kind condo owners let us come in (it was 6 a.m. and cold) and freshen up. When we returned to the float, the judging had finished and we discovered our float had won the grand prize,” she said in her email.

O’Brien, a Hoover High graduate, put her height (5 feet 9) and good looks to use and went to modeling school in Pasadena with “Adrian,” who trained only teenage models. Through his tutelage, she received a trophy as “Model of the Year.”

“The modeling and the contest and the Rose Parade literally changed my life,” said O’Brien, who still lives in Glendale. “I had been very, very shy. This new confidence was beyond description.”

The 1959 float, Glendale’s 10th sweepstakes winner, received many accolades.

“Not since the famed peacock float strutted to sweepstakes honors in 1923 has Glendale received such rousing applause,” the News-Press noted.

That evening’s Herald Express called the float, with its thousands of Vanda orchids, “magnificent.”

To the Readers:

“I enjoyed reading your article on Webb and his men’s store. [Verdugo Views, May 22, 2014] Bob’s mother worked for Webb’s in the ‘department’ store around the time we were married. My wedding dress came from Webb’s and I still remember the gloved elevator operator. Thanks for a good memory.’’

Sue McGrew

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If you have questions, comments or memories to share, write to Verdugo Views, c/o News-Press, 202 W First St., second floor, Los Angeles 90012. Please include your name, address and phone number.