26 Vintage Photographs of of Hollywood Boulevard From 1928 When It Became Santa Claus Lane

Each November beginning in 1928, Hollywood merchants transformed a one-mile stretch of Hollywood Boulevard between Vine and La Brea into Santa Claus Lane to boost shopping. Part of the promotion was a daily parade featuring Santa Claus and a film star.

The brainchild of businessman Harry Blaine and the Hollywood Boulevard Association, which promoted the thoroughfare as the “world’s largest department store,” Santa Claus Lane lured shoppers away from downtown’s dominant Broadway retail district with winking lights, daily processions featuring a reindeer-drawn sleigh, and plentiful, brightly decorated Christmas trees.

The first year, 100 living firs were dug up from the forest near Big Bear and placed along Hollywood Blvd. in wooden planters. Once fully dressed in nearly 10,000 incandescent light bulbs, the trees lit the path for a nightly parade. Joined on his sleigh by a silver screen star, Santa Claus greeted passersby as a team of six live reindeer pulled him down the boulevard. After New Year’s Day, the trees were replanted on the grounds of the Hollywood Bowl.

In later years, metallic decorations replaced the living trees. Drawings of film stars’ faces smiled at shoppers from the center of tin wreaths hung from lampposts. Whimsical, shiny toy Christmas trees blinked with colorful lights. At the annual promotion’s peak, organizers boasted that Hollywood Blvd. was the most brightly lit street in the nation.

To complete the wintertime transformation, Hollywood Blvd. took on a new name. For one month, signs at intersections read “Santa Claus Lane,” and merchants updated their street addresses to reflect the temporary name change.

Though the elaborate decorations are no more, Santa Claus Lane gave birth to a Tinseltown tradition that survives today. In 1931, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce expanded Santa Claus’ nightly procession into an annual extravaganza, since renamed the Hollywood Christmas Parade. And in 1946, grand marshal Gene Autry, who rode on horseback just paces in front of the parade’s main star, turned the screams of delight he heard from children into a classic holiday tune: “Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane).”

Mary Pickford turns Hollywood Blvd into Santa Claus Lane ca. 1928.

Daytime view of the fir trees along Santa Claus Lane in 1928. (California Historical Society Collection, USC Libraries)

In 1928, the first year Hollywood merchants organized Santa Claus Lane, live fir trees were transplanted from Big Bear. (California Historical Society Collection, USC Libraries)

Another view of Hollywood Boulevard as Santa Claus Lane in 1928. (California Historical Society Collection, USC Libraries)

Conical, metallic toy trees followed the wreaths on Hollywood’s Santa Claus Lane. (Photo Collection, Los Angeles Public Library)

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30 Rare Behind the Scenes Photographs From the Morrison Hotel's Album Cover Photo Shoot in Los Angeles, 1969

Morrison Hotel is the fifth studio album by American rock band the Doors, released February 9, 1970 by Elektra Records. The Doors entered Elektra Sound Recorders in Los Angeles in November 1969 to record the album which is divided into two separately titled sides; “Hard Rock Cafe” and “Morrison Hotel”. The group included session bassists Lonnie Mack and Ray Neapolitan on the album’s songs.

Front and back album covers of Morrison Hotel.

The album peaked at number four on the Billboard 200, and performed better overseas than the preceding album. Only one single from the album was released, You Make Me Real/Roadhouse Blues, but it reached only a position of 50 Billboard 100 chart.

The album’s cover of Morrison Hotel was shot by photographer Henry Diltz through the window of this transient hotel in Los Angeles back in December of 1969. The location was ‘discovered’ by Ray Manzarek and his wife a few days before the shoot. When the group returned with Diltz and approached the desk clerk about taking photos inside the building, they were turned down. So Diltz took several shots of the group outside the building. Eventually the clerk took a break and the group was able to sneak in and take their places inside the window for what would end up as the album cover. Today the hotel sits vacant and is near the Staples Center.

After the photo shoot, the group traveled north to get a beer and came across a bar called the Hard Rock Café. A photo of the bar would serve as the back album cover and a few years later a restaurant chain would take it’s name from this album. The building is now home to a convenience store.

Years later photographer Henry Diltz recalled; “I guess though sometime the next year after the album came out with that picture on the back, they [The Doors] got a call from England and this guy says, ‘Hello. Would you mind if we use that name on the back of your album? We’re starting a cafe over here in London and we would like to use that name.’ And they said, ‘No, go ahead,’ and that was the beginning of it. Now every time I go into a Hard Rock Cafe, whatever city I’m in, I always feel like I should get a free hamburger.”

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Abandoned Baby Sleeping in Desk Drawer at Los Angeles Police Station, 1971

Policewoman Pat Johnson, 28, tends a baby girl, about 9 months old, who was found alone and crying in a downtown hotel room in Los Angeles, California.

(Photo by Cal Montney/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Baby was placed in file drawer for a nap after she was fed milk, Jell-O and cottage cheese. She later was taken to a foster home. The hotel manager called police after receiving complaints that the baby had been crying for hours.

The photo of the sleeping baby was taken by Times staff photographer Cal Montney on July 8, 1971.

In 2006, the Safely Surrendered Baby Law took effect in California.

Dug Up a Dino: How a 1974 Ferrari Dino Ended Up Buried in Someone's Backyard

It was February 1978 and a group of kids were digging in the mud outside a house at 1137 W. 119th St. in the West Athens section of Los Angeles. Just below the surface, they struck something that felt like the roof of a car. They flagged down a sheriff’s cruiser. After assessing the yard, Sergeants Joe Sabas and Dennis Carroll decided that they would need to assemble a team.

Later, Sabas and Carroll returned to the house accompanied by a skip-loader and a crew of diggers, who began removing tons of earth from the scene. In fact, they painstakingly excavated the yard, finally exposing something so magnificent that it would become a permanent part of Los Angeles urban folklore.

What did they find? Nothing less than a 1974 Dino 264 GTS Ferrari – a singularly stylish vehicle then worth some $22,500, or around $110,000 in today’s money. Intent, Carroll peered through the grubby windscreen and saw no bodies or contraband visible. However, the car had been listed as stolen some four years earlier.

The strange discovery immediately caught the eye – and imagination – of local reporters who saw parallels with the eccentric funeral of a certain Sandra West. It seemed that, a year earlier, Ms. West had died from an unintentional pharmaceutical drug overdose in Beverley Hills. And her last wish was to be buried inside a Ferrari next to her late husband.

But what of the buried Dino? Who had owned it, and how had it been stolen? The Los Angeles Times only reported that the car had been procured in October 1974 by an Alhambra, California, plumber called Rosendo Cruz before it was stolen two months later. In fact, it wasn’t until 1986, thanks to some investigative work by Greg Sharp of AutoWeek, that some further details became public record.

According to Sharp, the Dino was picked up by Cruz from Hollywood Sports Cars – the preferred dealership of the rich and famous – as a gift for his wife’s birthday. She drove it just 500 miles before the fateful night of December 7, 1978, which also happened to be the couple’s wedding anniversary.

Sharp wrote that Cruz had apparently been spooked by “the anticipatory gleams in the eyes of the valet parkers” at the Brown Derby eaterie on Wilshire Boulevard. So instead of parking in the restaurant, Cruz had left the Dino on the street. However, when he and his wife returned from their romantic dinner, the car was gone.

Entrance of the original Brown Derby restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard in Hollywood.

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Candid Behind the Scenes Photos of Janis Joplin During the Photoshoot for Pearl's Album Cover in California, 1970

Janis Joplin wasn’t around when her second solo album, Pearl, was issued in January 1971. She wasn’t around a few weeks later when it shot to No. 1, either. The singer had died of a heroin overdose on Oct. 4, 1970, while recording the sessions that would make up Pearl.

That unfortunate turn of events illuminates the album’s legacy, which stands as her most defining work. Cheap Thrills, the second LP she made with Big Brother and the Holding Company, made her a star, but Pearl is all Joplin, from the striking cover photo of the singer dressed like an 1880s saloon worker and grasping a drink to the handpicked songs, which included tailor-made Kris Kristofferson and Bobby Womack covers to a couple of originals.

The album cover, photographed by Barry Feinstein in Hollywood, Los Angeles in 1970.

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Take a Look Inside Jayne Mansfield's Splendor "Pink Palace"

In November 1957, shortly before her marriage to Mickey Hargitay, Jayne Mansfield bought a 40-room Mediterranean-style mansion formerly owned by Rudy Vallée at 10100 Sunset Boulevard in Holmby Hills, Los Angeles. Much of the investment to buy the house came from the $81,340 ($726,531 in 2018 dollars) she inherited from her maternal grandfather Elmer Palmer.

Mansfield had the house painted pink, with cupids surrounded by pink fluorescent lights, pink furs in the bathrooms, a pink heart-shaped bathtub, and a fountain spurting pink champagne, and then dubbed it the "Pink Palace".

It was, according to her, a "pink landmark". Hargitay, a plumber and carpenter before getting into bodybuilding, built a pink heart-shaped swimming pool. Mansfield decorated the Pink Palace by writing to furniture and building suppliers requesting free samples. She received over $150,000 ($1,339,804 in 2018 dollars in free merchandise, paying only $76,000 ($678,834 in 2017 dollars) for the mansion itself. It was still a large sum, when the average cost of a house at the time was under $7,500 ($66,990 in 2018 dollars).

The Pink Palace was sold after her death and its subsequent owners have included Ringo Starr, Cass Elliot and Engelbert Humperdinck. In 2002, Humperdinck sold it to developers, and the house was demolished in November of that year.

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Institute Of Oral Love, a Classic L.A Landmark in the Mid-1970s

Every major U.S. city has its Santa Monica Boulevard. In Chicago, it is called Wells Street. In Minneapolis, it is Hennepin Avenue. San Francisco has its Broadway, and New York City its Times Square. Santa Monica Boulevard is neither the busiest nor the worst. It is only typical.

As it knifes through Los Angeles' West Hollywood residential district, Santa Monica becomes a garish, grubby, milelong gauntlet of sex-book stalls, theaters and 8-mm. peep shows for voyeurs, and massage parlors and sexual encounter centers for those who want direct action.

In the 1970s, the Institute Of Oral Love was situated on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Spalding Avenue, Los Angeles. The Institute Of Oral Love mainly dispenses talk, and Wild Mary's massage provides local stimulation only if the costumers pays extra.

Though, according to Dangerous Minds, there has been the bizarre suggestion this was a dentist and oral surgeon, as well as the more obvious belief it was “blow job central”, the Oral Institute Of Love was informed by the lovelies over at World of Wonder, not exactly what it seemed, as it mainly “dispensed talk”.

Adorable Photos of Baby Leonardo DiCaprio With His Mom and Dad in Los Angeles in 1975-76

Leonardo DiCaprio is a renowned American actor and producer known for his good looks and exceptional acting skills. Marking his entry through television in 1991 with ‘Santa Barbara’, he went on to become an international star.

He ventured into the film world through a horror flick ‘Critters 3’ and continued with many more like ‘This Boy’s Life’, ‘Titanic’, ‘The Man in the Iron Mask’ and others. His participation in dramas like ‘Romeo + Juliet’, ‘The Basket ball Dairies’ and ‘Catch Me If You Can’ brought him tremendous acclaim. It was ‘Titanic’ that served as a milestone in turning around his overall image as an actor. He received his first Golden Globe Award post ‘Titanic’. He has touched upon various genres of cinema ranging from romance, historical and period drama, thriller and even science fiction.

Apart from being a producer and an actor, he is also a philanthropist. His concern for the society and the environment is clearly evident from the donations he makes towards wildlife and environment conservational groups.

Below are some adorable snaps of Leonardo DiCaprio as a toddler with his parents in Los Angeles in 1975 and 1976.

Leonardo DiCaprio with his mother, Irmelin, and father, George

(Photos by Peter Fleming—Retna Ltd./Corbis)

The Queen of the Groupie Scene: Candid Vintage Photographs of Sable Starr Hanging Out With Rock Stars in the 1970s

She was the queen of L.A. baby groupies and she did everything to caught the rock gods eye. She had a small thin frame but she wore outrageously sexual clothes. Baby groupies were small girls wearing grown up sexy clothes. She wore all the smallest spandex pieces, all the sexiest corset tops and nothing else and all the shortest jean shorts. Her trade mark was platinum blond curly hair with bangs which also Nancy Spungen copied.

Lori Maddox, Dave Hill from Slade and Sable Starr in 1973.

Sable Starr (1957-2009) was a noted American groupie, often described as the "queen of the groupie scene" in Los Angeles during the early 1970s. She first attended concerts around Los Angeles with older friends who had dropped out of school in late 1968. She lost her virginity at age 12 with Spirit guitarist Randy California after a gig at Topanga, California. She had a younger sister, Corel Shields (born 1959), who was involved with Iggy Pop at age 11. Pop later immortalized his involvement with Starr herself in the 1996 song "Look Away."

“I slept with Sable when she was 13,
Her parents were too rich to do anything,
She rocked her way around L.A.,
'Til a New York Doll carried her away…”

Starr became one of the first "baby groupies" who in the early 1970s frequented the Rainbow Bar and Grill, the Whiskey A Go Go, and Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco; these were trendy nightclubs on West Hollywood's Sunset Strip. The girls were named as such because of their young age. She got started after a friend invited her to the Whiskey A Go Go at the age of 14. Starr later described herself at that period as having been "nuts to begin with. I always liked getting into trouble". She had considered herself unattractive, so she had a nose job when she was 15. During the time Starr was a groupie, she continued to live at home with her family and attended Palos Verdes High School to placate her parents.

Sable Starr and Lori Maddox celebrating John Bonham's 24th birthday, May 1972.

Sable Starr, Queenie, Lori Maddox with Led Zeppelin

Sabel Starr and Legs McNeil, ca. late 1970s.

Sable Starr and Iggy Pop in 1973.

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“Give Him Air! Give Him Air!” – Ethel Kennedy in the Moments After Robert F. Kennedy's Assassination, 1968

This dramatic photograph of Ethel Kennedy stirred controversy and debate over the ethics of photojournalism following its publication hours after the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles, 1968. Led to where her husband lay Mrs Kennedy bent down by his side and whispered “I’m with you my baby”. She then stood, turned to the crown and shouted “give him air.”

Ethel Kennedy, shortly after Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1968. (Photo by Harry Benson)

Harry Benson has captured this moment of raw emotion and trauma perfectly. Her outreached hand is blurred and slightly obscures her face, yet her eyes engage the viewer and reveal her anguish. Just after securing this shot, Benson was knocked to the floor by a Kennedy aide. Instinctively he changed films and hid the valuable spool, which featured many of his iconic pictures of the scene, down his sock.

“Bobby Kennedy, to me, was the first celebrity political person,” Benson says. “He was like Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney. He was an event.”

Senator Robert F. Kennedy speaks to a jubilant crowd at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, minutes before his death. (Photo by Harry Benson)

Legendary photographer Harry Benson is best known for his intimate photographs of the Beatles, but his wide-ranging career as a journalist spanned pop culture, politics, and social upheaval; from relaxed photos of celebrities like Princess Diana and Michael Jackson to shots of the Berlin Wall coming down and scenes of Martin Luther King Jr.'s funeral.

His front-row seat to history includes the day that Bobby Kennedy was tragically shot in Los Angeles in 1968. Kennedy was giving a speech at the Ambassador Hotel after winning the California presidential primary when he was shot several times by Sirhan Sirhan, a 22-year-old of Palestinian descent who felt betrayed by Kennedy's support of Israel. Five others were also wounded in the attack; Kennedy died the next day.

“You’d thought of yourself like the guy in the bar who would say, ‘God if I was there that night—I would have done this, I would have done that.’ Now, I’m there; Now I’ve got to do it. So my main thing, purpose was to get as close as I could to Bobby, take pictures and walk around there,” Benson says of the famous night in Los Angeles.

Shortly after the photograph was taken, Benson was knocked to the ground. “They punched me and all that, and while I’m changing film, other people were shot around me. I was the last photographer to leave.”

“I put the film in my sock, because if a policeman comes up to me and says, ‘I want your film,’ and he’s got a gun, I want to photograph for Life magazine; I don’t want to die for it,” Benson recalls.

Robert F. Kennedy moments after being shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, 1968. (Photo by Harry Benson)

Some people have criticized Benson for taking the pictures, and that fateful night still haunts him. But he has no regrets: “Other photographers who were there held back, but I knew I needed to record this. History was happening right in front of me. I am a photographer and this is what I do.”

Rare Photos of the Lost French Village of Hollywood in the 1920s

Once, long before the Hollywood Freeway obliterated everything in its concrete wake, there sat at the mouth of the Cahuenga Pass an enchanting little group of bungalows and artist’s studios known as the French Village.

The French Village was the work of the extremely talented Walter S. and F. Pierpont Davis, sibling architects who, during their all too brief partnership, designed some of Hollywood and Los Angeles’ most beautiful and romantic structures. Although their oeuvre included homes, commercial properties and even churches, the Davis brothers’ are perhaps best admired for a set of deluxe apartment courts they designed in the 1920s, most notably the Roman Gardens at 2000 North Highland Avenue (1926) and the Court of the Fountains (today known as Villa D’Este) at 1355 North Laurel Avenue in West Hollywood (1928).

Completed in 1920, the French Village was immediately hailed for its charm and uniqueness with the Brothers and Withey receiving a citation of achievement from the local chapter of the AIA. Unlike most earlier bungalow courts, the French Village was intended for the transitory well-to-do and its construction helped to usher in a vogue for ever more elaborate apartment courts in Hollywood that would last the remainder of the decade with the Davis brothers and Arthur & Nina Zwebell as their master designers.

Throughout the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, the French Village was home to a revolving community of actors, writers, costume designers, dance instructors and singing coaches. Wallace Beery lived there for a while, as did costume designer. Gilbert Adrian (known to us simply as “Adrian”). In the 1940s, Irene Lentz (known to us as simply “Irene”) had a salon there. Unfortunately, that all came to an end with the construction of the Hollywood Freeway in the 1950s which is a huge shame, because it was a delightful enclave filled with the sort of charm we rarely see in Los Angeles these days.

This little nestle of buildings was known as the French Village. It was set on a triangular plot of land at the point where Highland Avenue and Cahuenga Boulevard converged as they entered the Cahuenga Pass.

South of France? No, Cahuenga and Highland!

Original Tower House (1920-25)

The surrounding gardens, which were later described as “the core of the little community,” were arranged with as much care as the cottages themselves.

Tower House

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