A Word About Popcorn

Popcorn is an American staple.  We eat it by the tubful--especially at the movies.  As a matter of fact, we consume about 16 billion quarts of popcorn annually—that’s around 52 quarts per person.  But what do we really know about this tasty treat?

Popcorn probably came from Mexico where 80,000-year-old corn pollen was discovered 200 feet below Mexico City.  Although it was grown in China, Sumatra and India, the oldest known popcorn was found in central New Mexico dating back more than 5,000 years.  Columbus discovered popcorn when he landed in the West Indies, and the Aztecs served it to Cortez when he marched into Mexico.

Popcorn was originally cooked by stirring the kernels in hot sand until they burst.  Decorative pots, used for popping corn, first appeared in Peru around 300 A.D.  With one handle and a hole in the top, these primitive poppers got the job done.  Native Americans used clay or metal pots and they offered deerskin bags filled with popped corn to the pilgrims at the very first Thanksgiving.  The colonists were so impressed that they ate it for breakfast with cream and sugar—a form of puffed cereal, if you will.

The popularity of popcorn rose in the 1890s as portable popcorn machines designed by Charlie Cretors became available.  Now vendors could push, or have their horses pull, these machines taking popcorn directly to the people.  Charlie Cretors’ family still makes most of the poppers used today in movie theaters and other places of entertainment. 

Sales slumped briefly during the early 1920s when theater owners banned popcorn because of its loud crunch.  Once they realized that they were heading for financial disaster, they once again began selling the popular snack.  Sales boomed again when home poppers became available during the mid-1920s.  Then came World War II with sugar being used for the war effort.  With less candy made on the home front, Americans consumed three times more popcorn than usual.

During the 1950s, popcorn sales declined once more when television caused the movie going public to stay home.  This situation was only temporary, however.  Americans soon figured out that they could enjoy their favorite treat right in their own living room.  With microwavable popcorn produced in the 1980s, sales soared again and the crunchy treat has steadily stayed in the forefront of favorite snack foods to this day. 

So how would you like your 52 quarts this year?  Buttered or plain?

Enchanted Hill

When William Randolph Hearst decided to build a vacation home high above San Simeon, he didn’t let a little thing like location get in his way.  Camp Hill, the site he picked, rose 1600 feet above sea level with five miles of winding cattle paths connecting it to the village below.  With the Pacific on one side and the Santa Lucia Mountains on the other, it was an isolated spot that wouldn’t take kindly to development.

It all began in 1865 when George Hearst bought the Piedra Blanca Ranch for $30,000.  The 40,000 acres were located 200 miles south of San Francisco near San Simeon Bay.  The ranch became a favorite campsite for George, his wife, Phoebe and their only child, William Randolph.  As a man, the younger Hearst took his own wife and sons to the ranch whenever he could.  There they stayed, with as many as 50 people, including guests and servants, in a complex of tents.  Despite the remote location, the Hearsts entertained with style throwing lavish dances and elaborate parties. 

By the time, Hearst reached his mid-fifties, he decided it was time to get rid of the tents.  He envisioned a permanent vacation home high atop Camp Hill, now referred to as Enchanted Hill, overlooking the Pacific.  He first met with architect Julia Morgan n 1919.  Choosing a Mediterranean style, Hearst and Morgan made plans for the main house and three smaller guesthouses.  Before construction even started, however, Morgan had her work cut out for her.

Getting materials to San Simeon was next to impossible.  Forced to come by ship from San Francisco, a waterfront strike delayed deliveries.  Finally, in December 1919, the first shipment of lumber, nails and tools arrived on an old freighter.  Next, Morgan had to get the supplies and equipment up the hill.  She had the five-mile road rebuilt and found trucks powerful enough to haul everything to the top.  She also reconstructed the pier so larger ships, carrying more materials, could dock and unload in San Simeon Bay. 

Morgan’s job wasn’t limited to the buildings.  The grounds were rugged and not in keeping with Hearst’s Mediterranean theme.  First, the rocky ridge had to be terraced with some particularly stubborn areas requiring dynamite.  Next, topsoil was hauled up the hill and the terraces leveled.  Water had to be piped down from natural springs in the surrounding mountains.  Once the ground was ready, trees, plants and shrubs had to be shipped to San Simeon, and then carted up the five-mile road before being planted in their designated spots.

By 1921, the Hearsts were staying in Casa del Mar, the largest of the guest houses.  It took another five years before they moved into the main house, Casa Grande, which was only partially complete.  A passionate collector of antiques, Hearst filled the place with historic items from all over the world.  He even bought European castles, as well as a complete Spanish monastery stone by stone across the Atlantic to incorporate into his estate.  His love of animals moved him to build a private zoo.  His menagerie included ostriches, llamas, giraffes, lions and an elephant named Marianne.  The descendents of the original zebras still roam the ranch today and are often spotted by motorists driving along the Pacific Coast Highway.

Although, Casa Grande was never totally finished, Hearst called it home, affectionately referring to it as ‘the ranch’.  In his later years, when his son, William Randolph Hearst, Jr., questioned why he built such a fabulous estate in such an odd spot, his father replied:  “I just wanted to.  Period.  I loved the place.”

The Very First Barrymore

Herbert Arthur Chamberlain Hunter Blythe was born in India in 1849.  His father , a British citizen, worked in Fort Agra as a civil servant.  Growing up in the shadow of the Taj Mahal, Herbert later boasted that in deference to the local sacred cows, he was raised on goat’s milk.  That, he often told his friends, caused his children’s odd behavior.

As a young man, Herbert shocked his family when he traveled to London and took up boxing.  He was so good in the ring that in 1872, he won the Marquis of Queensberry Cup, which was awarded annually to the best amateur boxer in any class.  He also found work in the theater.  One evening his boxing prowess, along with his desire to act, joined forces when he came across the stage comedian, Charles Vandenhoff.  The entertainer was trying to protect his girlfriend from two attackers.  Herbert stepped in and saved the day with his fancy fisticuffs.  Vandenhoff was so grateful, he gave the young hero a job in his stock company.  To save the Blythes from any further embarrassment, Herbert then changed his name to Barrymore—Maurice Barrymore.  Legend has it that he saw the name on an old playbill hanging in the Haymarket Theater.  Wherever he found it, the extraordinary name he chose was destined for distinction.

Eventually, the handsome actor came to the United States where he found great success on the stages of New York.  He also found a best friend—actor John Drew.  Drew brought Barrymore to his mother’s house In Philadelphia.  The family matriarch, Louisa Lane Drew, a popular actress and manager of Philadelphia’s Arch Street Theater, disliked Barrymore immediately, but her daughter Georgiana was smitten.  After a quick courtship and against her mother’s wishes, the couple married on New Year’s Eve in 1876.  Their first child, Lionel, arrived on April 28, 1878. 

Georgie soon found herself expecting again.  Unfazed by his personal responsibilities, Barrymore, left his pregnant wife and infant son in the care of his mother-in-law and went west with a traveling troupe.  Unfortunately, the actor crossed paths with an outlaw and was shot in Marshall, Texas where he underwent extensive surgery that saved his life.  Upon his return to Philadelphia, Georgie delivered a girl, Ethel, on August 15, 1879. 

A recovered Barrymore continued working in the theater.  His good looks and quick wit earned him matinee idol status, but by the time their third child, John Sidney, was born on February 14, 1882, Barrymore was spending less and less time at home.  His drinking and philandering put a strain on the marriage.  Nonetheless, when Georgie died from tuberculosis in 1893, her death hit him hard—for a bit.  He soon found comfort in a much younger woman and married her without even telling his children. 

Eventually, Barrymore’s hard living caught up with him.  Divorced from his second wife, he began acting irrationally.  Always a quick study, he experienced difficulty remembering things and then became delusional often falling victim to rages.  Doctors diagnosed him with end-stage syphilis for which there was no cure at the time.  The disease ravaged him both physically and mentally forcing his children to commit him to the Long Island Home in Amityville.  Originally given six months live, Barrymore lasted four years in the sanitarium.

Barrymore passed the time feverishly writing.  He filled page after page of foolscap paper explaining to anyone who would listen that he was penning a new play.  Upon closer inspection, his handwritten words revealed the phrase ‘It was a lovely day n June’ written over and over again.  Finally on March 25, 1905, Maurice Barrymore died and his children buried him in the family plot in Philadelphia. 

The Purple Gang

The Five Points Gang ran Brooklyn while the Northside Gang ruled Chicago.  Philadelphia claimed the Boiler Gang.  But the City of Detroit was home to the baddest boys of all—the Purple Gang.  Their supremacy over the Motor City began in 1918 when the State Prohibition Referendum (a forerunner of national Prohibition) banned alcohol in Michigan making Detroit the first major city to go dry.  While some folks saw this as a problem, the Purple Gang heard opportunity knocking. 

Troublemakers from an early age, Abe, Ray, Joe and Izzy Bernstein formed a street gang who terrorized local merchants.  Supposedly one shopkeeper described the brothers as ‘tainted’ like bad meat turned purple.  With the state’s alcohol ban, the young Purples tried their hand at rum running.  Driving cars with false floorboards and second gas tanks, they headed south to Toledo, Ohio where legal booze was plentiful.  These sordid trips, however, were just practice runs for the real deal, which began in 1920 with the advent of national Prohibition. 

American laws were meaningless in Canada, and with only the Detroit River separating Windsor from the Motor City, rum running came naturally for the Purples.  Not only did the Bernstein Brothers and their bad boys control liquor prices in Detroit, they became the major supplier of illegal booze to the New York and Chicago underworlds.  For the next five years, the Purple Gang ruled with a strong arm and deadly bullets.  Known for their violent methods, even Chicago-boss Al Capone didn’t dare cross them.  As much as he wanted to expand his territory and cash in on the liquid loot, he held back.  Capone knew better than to risk the rage of the Purples. 

The Bernsteins wasted no time taking over most of Detroit’s blind pigs and cabarets.  They never thought twice about shooting up a joint if a proprietor refused to cooperate.  They even perfected a method of cutting liquor.  For every bottle of smuggled whiskey, they produced two and a half bottles of diluted brew.  By 1928, there were over 100 cutting plants operating in Detroit.  The illegal liquor trade became second only to the city’s auto industry.  While the Purples cashed in, their booming business also caused their downfall.

Stressed by the huge demand of their customers and the government’s crackdown on the city’s criminal element, the Purple Gang slowly unraveled.  In 1931, their infighting resulted in a triple killing known as the Collingwood Manor Massacre—one of Detroit’s worst gangland murders.  Three Purple leaders were convicted and sent to Marquette Prison in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with life sentences.  Although they remained a relatively strong force in Detroit’s underworld until 1935, the national crime syndicate eventually absorbed the remnants of what was once the powerful Purples.

When Doug Met Mary

When Douglas Fairbanks met Mary Pickford for the first time, he swept her off her feet—literally.  By chance, one Sunday afternoon, actress Elsie Janis invited Doug and his then wife, Beth Sully, along with Mary and her spouse, Owen Moore, to visit her home in Tarrytown, New York.  As the five-some took a stroll around the estate, they reached a rather wide stream.  Elsie and Doug nimbly skipped over several stones to the other side, while Owen not-so-nimbly followed.  Afraid of falling, Beth turned back, but Mary in her high-heeled boots decided to try.  She found herself hesitating as she perched atop a log.  That’s when Doug took matters, and Mary, into his own hands.  He came to her rescue, picked her up and whisked her safely to the other side. 

Despite their respective marriages, the couple’s mutual attraction grew.  Mary liked that Doug treated her as an equal while he was happy to find someone who understood the entertainment world he lived in.  When his mother died in 1916, his overwhelming grief brought them closer and Mary soon left New York for California.  The situation was touchy, however, since silent film stars were presented to the public as wholesome, morally upstanding citizens.  An adulterous affair could destroy their careers.  Rumors ran rampant as each worked toward dissolving their respective marriages.  Finally on March 28, 1920 with both of their divorces final, Doug and Mary wed in a secret ceremony.

For the next three days, Mary went to work with tape wrapped around her ring and the newlyweds spent their evenings in seclusion.  Fearing the worst, they finally gave in and announced to the world what they had done.  While the media tried to condemn them, their fans wouldn’t buy it.  In their eyes, Mary could do no wrong and if Doug made their sweetheart happy, than that was fine by them.  Triumphant, Doug and Mary embarked on a European honeymoon where cheering crowds greeted them wherever they went.  The Hollywood couple soon became America’s answer to royalty and Pickfair their castle.

Their grand estate evolved into a focal point for famous visitors such as Amelia Earhart, Albert Einstein and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle  Even kings and queens, dukes and duchesses, lords and ladies from Alba to Vienna deemed Pickfair a must-see when traveling to the States.  Parties at Pickfair were legendary, but even when social events were not planned, their dining table was always set for 15.  According to Mary, Doug had a habit of inviting ‘funny people’ to dinner.   

Inseparable for the first eight years of their marriage, the couple eventually found their relationship strained as Doug’s wanderlust conflicted with Mary’s preference to stay home.  When Doug carried on with the much younger Lady Sylvia Ashley during a trip to London, Mary just couldn’t forgive him.  She filed for divorce.  Doug tried his best to change her mind, but as far as Mary was concerned, their life together was over.

Devastated, Doug gave up and traveled to New York with his only son, Doug, Jr.  They talked about making a movie together, but the elder Fairbanks impulsively sailed for Europe without saying a word.  Shortly after his departure, a telegram from Mary arrived at his hotel.  She was sorry and wanted him to come home.  Doug, Jr. frantically searched his father’s room for the name of the ship he was sailing on, but by the time he placed a call out to sea, Doug, Sr. wouldn’t listen.  He angrily accused his son of lying and always taking Mary’s side before he hung up. 

 

Despite the fact that Doug and Mary each remarried, they continued spending time together until Doug’s death in 1939.  Just before her own death forty years later at the age of 87, Pickford (who remained living at Pickfair) asked her friend and reporter Adela Rogers St. Johns:  ”Will Douglas ever forgive me?”  She must have still felt guilty about their unhappy ending.

The Sinking of The Empress

The tragedy of the Empress of Ireland is mostly forgotten today, but just two years after the Titanic struck an iceberg and only one year before the Lusitania became a casualty of war, the waters of Canada’s St. Lawrence Seaway claimed her.  In the early hours of May 29, 1914, The Empress was broadsided by a Norwegian coal ship and within fourteen minutes, she plunged 170 feet below the surface taking more than 1,000 doomed men, women and children with her. 

Capable of carrying 1,550 passengers, (300 in first class, 450 in second class and another 800 in steerage), the grand ship weighed 14,000 tons and could cruise up to 20 knots.  She made the 2,800-mile trip from Liverpool to Quebec in a remarkable six days—four on the formidable Atlantic and two in the relative safety of the St. Lawrence Seaway.  As the Empress sailed down that seaway for her 96^th and final voyage, she carried sixteen steel lifeboats, 20 collapsibles and six canvas types.  All together, these rescue boats accommodated 500 more people than were actually on board that morning.  Since the Titanic disaster, mandatory fire, navigation and evacuation drills were routine.

After a brief rendezvous with a pilot cutter, the Empress picked up speed with Seaman John Carroll watching from the crow’s nest.  He spotted two tiny lights off to the east as a low bank of fog crept toward them from the shore.  The captain gave three short blasts from the Empress’ whistle hoping to make the other ship aware of their presence.  As the fog worsened, the captain ordered the engines turned off and then put the ship into full reverse hoping it would come to a complete stop.  The oncoming ship signaled back with a single long blast, but kept moving closer.

It was the worst possible situation.  The Storstad was a powerful Norwegian collier weighing 6,000 tons and hauling a full load of coal.  In the thickening fog, the Storstad’s confused first mate ordered his ship to turn what he thought was away from the Empress.  Instead they headed straight for her.  Built with a sharp vertical stern designed to cut through ice-filled waters, she hit the Empress below the water line.  With a gaping 25-foot hole, the damaged ship instantly took on water—60,000 gallons per second.

A hasty SOS was sent, but authorities were unable to determine the ship’s exact location.  Lifeboats were launched but within eight minutes, the Empress lost power and listed hard to the right.  Two minutes later, she rolled onto her right side crushing one of the lifeboats beneath her.  Fourteen minutes after the collision, she succumbed to the water completely disappearing below the surface.  While only 465 people survived, 1,012 perished including 134 children.

Although, the sinking of the Empress of Ireland was the worst maritime disaster in Canadian history, her story lacked the dramatic element of the Titanic.  She was not as glamorous nor was she on her maiden voyage.  Foundering in the St. Lawrence Seaway was not the same as sinking in the vast Atlantic Ocean.  Of course, timing was also a factor.  Just two months later, World War I erupted in Europe and modern warfare preoccupied the world.  The following year, when the Lusitania was torpedoed generating international headlines, the tragedy of the Empress faded into oblivion.

 

Dance Man

He couldn’t read music.  He never took a single dance lesson.  He did, however, drink martinis in the bathtub where he often found inspiration to create the most lavish production numbers ever seen on the silver screen.  Busby Berkeley was surely outrageous, but the dance routines he dreamed up remain unmatched.

After graduating from military school in 1914, Berkeley found work in a shoe factory.  Making shoes was not exactly what he had in mind, so three years later he enlisted in the U.S. Army and went to France during the First World War.  While there, he conducted military drills.  Not happy with the same old routines, Berkeley designed new ones.  He taught 1200 men a ‘trick’ drill explaining each movement by numbers.  His method allowed the drill to be completed in silence.  It was an amazing sight to see such a large number of soldiers marching in patterns without hearing any orders.  It was also the beginning of Berkeley’s magic.

After completing his military service, he brought his skills to Broadway and by 1928, he was the hottest dance director in New York.  Hollywood took note.  Filmmaker Sam Goldwyn hired Berkeley to direct production numbers in the movie version of Ziegfeld’s Whoopee (1930).  He found the work challenging so he stayed on with Goldwyn for two more years as a dance director, but it was after moving to Warner Bros. in 1933 where he made movie history. 

42^nd Street (1933) was a festival of music and Berkeley’s first major Hollywood triumph.  He dared to be different using dozens of women to form complex geometric patterns as he moved the camera itself, allowing the audience to view the action from all sorts of angles.  42^nd Street was followed by Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) and Footlight Parade (1933).  The dazzling costumes and showy sets created a unique imagery new to filmgoers. 

Berkeley spent up to $10,000 (about $175,000 today) for each minute of his flamboyant production numbers with Warner Bros. footing the bill.  He had a monorail built for overhead tracking shots.  He used cranes, hoists and aerial platforms.  He even cut holes in the roofs of the sound stages in order to achieve the necessary height for his kaleidoscope-like shots.   In the midst of all this equipment, he never used more than one camera.  While filming Cain and Mabel (1936) with Clark Gable and Marion Davis, Berkeley outdid himself.  He cut the sound stage off at its base and raised it with enormous jacks, enabling him to film one of the dance numbers exactly as he envisioned it.  Davies’ lover, William Randolph Hearst, picked up the $100,000 tab without so much as a blink.

Springing from the Great Depression, Busby Berkeley musicals brought joy and hope to despairing Americans.  Even today, one of his productions can still make toes tap and lips smile.  Oh, and did I ever tell you where he got that name?  He was named after actress Amy Busby, a member of the Tim Frawley Repertory Company where his parents worked.  It turned out to be an appropriate name for a one-of-a-kind showman who got his best ideas relaxing in the bathtub with martinis.