11 November 2009

Mod Squad '71 | Peggy Lipton Behind The Scenes



Actress Peggy Lipton during the shooting of the TV show "Mod Squad" in Los Angeles, 1971.

10 November 2009

Hey Mr. Tambourine Man | Eyewear of Fairfax Village

Street eyewear spotted on Fairfax and Rosewood, around the corner from the HDV boutique.


A few views of HDV Fairfax below...



Visit HDV Fairfax on Rosewood, next door to The Hundreds, in Fairfax Village.

09 November 2009

Each Maid a Heroine and Each Man a Friend | Team Swifty & Collins, 1991

Actress Joan Collins and agent Irving "Swifty" Lazar enjoy a drink together before suing Random House for $1.3 million, 1991.

In September 1991, Joan Collins delivered a 690-page manuscript to Random House. However, the publishing firm later demanded the return of its $1.3 million advance from Collins, claiming she failed to deliver completed books as per her contract. In court, Collins stated that Random House had received her novel, The Ruling Passion, in 1991 plus another novel, Hell Hath No Fury, in September 1992. Her Random House contract, negotiated by agent Irving Lazar, required that she was to be paid even if her completed manuscripts were not published.

On February 29, 1996, a jury determined that she could keep the advance for the first novel, but the publisher did not have to pay for the second manuscript since it was a reworking of the first. Judge Ira Gammerman then ruled that Random House owed Collins $925,000 plus interest for a grand total of $1.3 million. The Guinness Book of World Records cites Collins as holding the record for retaining the world's largest unreturned payment for an unpublished manuscript.

06 November 2009

Gene Kelly in Blue Blockers | 1986

Gene Kelly v.s. Macular Degeneration, 1986

Unlike UV light, blue light is visible to us. Blue light waves are what makes the sky, or any object, appear blue. Blue light waves are also very short and scatter easily, so a great deal of the glare we experience from sunlight also comes from blue light.

Blue blockers do not act like regular sunglasses. They appear tinted, but they do not reduce overall light or make the world look darker. They alter the appearance of blue and green colors and reduce glare, but they don't affect the way other colors appear. In fact, they may even improve color contrast. Many people with macular degeneration find them particularly helpful regardless of their health benefits, because they reduce glare indoors and outdoors while keeping the world bright and visible.

*In many primate studies, blue light has been shown to cause a photochemical reaction that produces free radicals in the rods and cones of your eye. Researchers believe that these free radicals interact with the high oxygen and lipid content in human rod and cone tips to produce abnormal chunks of metabolized waste that cannot be properly processed, thereby clogging up the macula's maintenance system and producing dry macular degeneration.

05 November 2009

Ben on Bunker Hill | Art + Architecture, 1959

Artist Ben Abril paints in front of the former residence of Judge Brousseau on Bunker Hill. The home's Queen Anne architectural elements are visible throughout the background. On the right side, on the porch of the home, a man sits and watches the artist work.

Summer 1959, Old Edison Building, looking South from Bunker Hill Ave by Ben Abril.

04 November 2009

Flavor Flav the Diplomat | 89 at the Shrine in L.A.

Flavor Flav, diplomat (center), with D.J. Jazzy Jeff, left, and the Fresh Prince. The duo won the award for "Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Artist" at the 16th Annual American Music Awards, held on January 30, 1989 at the Shrine Auditorium.

03 November 2009

Plaid, Polka Dots, and Tinted Aviator | Tennessee Williams with Dorothy Jeakins, 1964

Tennessee Williams congratulating costume designer Dorothy Jeakins at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

Jeakins was a three-time Academy Award-winning costume designer who went to public school in L.A. from first grade through high school. When she was a senior at Fairfax High School, she was offered a scholarship to study at the Otis Art Institute. Her fashion career began as a designer at I. Magnin's, where she was spotted by director Victor Fleming and chosen to work as a sketch artist for Joan of Arc (1948).

Jeakins worked steadily for the next thirty-nine years, winning another two Oscars, for Samson and Delilah (1949, shared with Edith Head and others), and Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana (1964), and another 12 nominations.

I can put my world down to two words:
Make beauty. It's my cue and my private passion.
-Dorothy Jeakins