2025-05-16 Topanga New Times - “Topanga Storyville” by Pablo Capra

“Topanga Storyville”

by Pablo Capra

The Topanga Beach Auto Court, 1939. Photo c/o Topanga Historical Society.

With the royalties of jazz musician Jelly Roll Morton (1890-1941), his ex-wife Anita Gonzales (1883-1952) bought the Topanga Beach Auto Court in January 1950. He’d left her everything of worth on his deathbed. The will, which she’d written for his signature, falsely stated that they were still married, ignored his current wife, and misspelled the name of one of his sisters.

In September 1950, The Southern California Hot Jazz Society met with Gonzales and her current husband, John Francis Ford (1892-1956), at the motel.  

We sat comfortably on the plush red velvet sofa in the living room. The room was filled with art and expensive furnishings. It looked remarkably like a parlor in a bordello. 

—The Ghost of the Cuban Queen Bordello by Peggy Hicks (Arizona Discoveries, 2011)

[She] spoke in warm tones with an accent reflecting her New Orleans heritage. A portable record player and several albums stood on a bookcase near the door; I wondered if the stack included any of Morton’s rare old records. A large theatrical blowup of a nearly nude girl hung on one wall. Noticing my interest, Gonzales said: “That’s my [granddaughter]. Her name is Aleene. She’s a striptease dancer at the Follies Theater.”

—Classic Jazz by Floyd Levin (University of California Press, 2002)

The Society was fundraising to buy a headstone for Morton’s still unmarked grave. Embarrassed, Gonzales told them, “I cannot allow strangers to buy the marker for my beloved,” and committed to finally paying for it herself.

Anita Gonzales and Jelly Roll Morton in Los Angeles, circa 1917. Dead Man Blues (2001)

Morton and Gonzales’s connection went back to Storyville, the red-light district of New Orleans where many early jazz musicians started out. She was Bessie Johnson then, a sex worker with a daughter named Hattie Seymour (1904-1992). In 1908, she moved to Las Vegas to open her own brothel, the Arcade Saloon, disguising her African American ethnicity with a Mexican name. Her brothers Bill and Dink Johnson founded The Original Creole Orchestra, the first jazz band to leave the South on a tour that she financed in 1912.

Piano player Ferdinand Morton began entertaining in Storyville when he was only 14, playing “jass” when it was still a dirty word. He took a stage name that was equally naughty, and published the first ever jazz song in 1915, “Jelly Roll Blues.”

Gonzales and Morton reconnected in 1917 in Los Angeles. The pair enjoyed showing off with fancy cars, clothes, and especially diamonds, like the one that Morton set in his tooth as a symbol of their love. She became the madam of the Anita Hotel on Central Ave. and 12th St. in Los Angeles, and he bought a gambling club next door. They later ran The Jupiter, a jazz club in San Francisco, before jealousy broke them up. Morton wrote two happy songs about Gonzales, “Sweet Anita Mine” and “Mama Nita,” and remained sentimental about their relationship.

Anita was a very beautiful woman and she dressed very handsomely with plenty of diamonds to elaborate the condition. I couldn’t wish for a finer woman than Anita. In fact, I don’t believe there was ever one born finer than Anita and I know I’ve missed an awful lot by leaving her. It was all a mistake, but nevertheless it happened….

—Mister Jelly Roll by Alan Lomax (Grosset & Dunlap, 1950)

Seeing opportunity in a new mining town, Gonzales built The Cuban Queen Boarding House, one of the grandest buildings in Jerome, Arizona, in 1922. She soon met Ford, an Irish American who drove the train in the mine. Together, they ran the brothel successfully until 1927, when a Mexican prostitute was mysteriously murdered there. A client was found guilty, even though he’d been shot as well, twice. Gonzales and Ford abducted the woman’s four-year-old son, Enrique “Henry” Villalpando (1923-1996), and left for Canyonville, Oregon, where they bought a campground with eight cabins and opened Ford’s Auto Camp.

Jelly Roll Morton, 1920s. Publicity photo.

Morton had remarried and was at the height of his fame during the 1920s Jazz Age with his band The Red Hot Peppers (whose name inspired the present-day Red Hot Chili Peppers). By 1930, “Hot Jazz” had evolved into the “Big Band” sound, which focused less on improvisation and shady characters. Morton felt he had to start his own Big Band to keep up, but needed legal help first to collect his royalties. In 1938, he was stabbed in a bar, sustaining respiratory and heart injuries that led to his decline. In 1940, he asked Gonzales for a loan. She gave him the money on condition that he make her a partner in all future recordings. When he died in 1941 before making a comeback, she felt that her investment entitled her to his estate.

Gonzales’s friends John P. Amacher (1895-1978) and his wife Katherine (1901-1990) operated a motel called Alpine Lodge in Canyonville. In 1937, the Swiss immigrants moved to California and bought the Topanga Beach Auto Court. Gonzales and Ford took it over from them in 1950, as Morton’s music became popular again, and the royalties started coming in. Henry stayed in Oregon to manage Ford’s Auto Camp. Hattie’s daughter Rose Mary Johns (who would eventually inherit Morton’s royalties with her sister Aleene) worked at the Topanga Beach motel during summer vacations. Gonzales prohibited the Black girl from calling her “grandma” so customers wouldn’t know they were related. A year and a half after buying Morton’s headstone, she died from heart failure.

In 1952, two UCLA students celebrated their graduation by watching a televised boxing match in a Santa Monica bar. 

Alone in the next booth sat a rather loudmouthed older man who was also watching the fight, which involved a black and a white boxer. “Hit that nigger!” he shouted; “Kill the black sonofabitch.” Finally, Joe, the jazz fan, got tired of listening to the man’s mouth and complained to him about his use of the word “nigger.”

—Dead Man Blues by Phil Pastras (University of California Press, 2001)

The man with the dirty mouth was Ford. He assured the students that he wasn’t a racist by telling them he’d been married to the same woman as Jelly Roll Morton. He even pointed to Morton’s diamond, now set in his own tooth. (Morton’s casket had remained closed at his funeral because extracting the diamond had disfigured his mouth). Seeing their amazement, he led them to Morton’s black Cadillac with maroon seats in the parking lot, and finally to the Auto Court, where he brought out a trunk of Morton’s papers.

Ford saw the space in front of his Auto Court get developed into the Rainbow Plaza in 1952, with a rainbow-shaped sign that echoed the motel’s entrance arch. The strip mall included the Rainbow Plaza Grill (later, The Chicken Coop), a Thrift-D-Lux Cleaners, and a Los Angeles Athletic Club office. It was renamed George’s Market around 1958.

He continued living at the motel until his death from a heart attack four years later. Morton’s royalties remain with Gonzales’s descendants. The trunk of Morton’s memorabilia is now in the Louisiana State Museum’s Jazz Collection.

***

Pablo Capra is the Archivist for the Topanga Historical Society and author of Topanga Beach: A History (2020).

2024-10-03 The Malibu Times - "Malibu's Greek Fishermen" by Pablo Capra

“Malibu’s Greek Fishermen”

 

by Pablo Capra

 

Part of a series on overlooked Malibu history

Spere Aneme fishes for lobsters with Mike Leonis, and mends a net with John Foundoukos. Photo c/o Illustrated Daily News, 1925-11-01.

A Greek fishing community at the Mile Long Pier, near Santa Monica, moved to Topanga Beach as soon as Cooper’s Camp offered rentals in 1919.

 

Their leader, Spere Aneme (b.1884), who “hasn’t worn shoes for 12 years,” shared a cabin with John Foundoukos (1894-1969), “from Spere’s own island in Greece,” and Mike Leonis (b.1892), “the handsomest Greek fisherman on the coast with gay ties and shirts.”

 

Together, they opened a fish market of unknown name in 1923, which might have operated out of their cabin, because big waves destroyed both in 1926. Spere had predicted the disaster when he caught three giant lobsters, believing that a great storm had driven them towards shore. (His neighbor, “Greek George” Conios, had drowned on another high-surf day in 1920.)

 

The Greeks rebuilt their fish market, and re-opened with the help of two more friends: Lambros Hagis (b.1886) and Christ Yianulis (b.1895).

 

One day in 1929, while fishing two miles offshore, Spere, Mike, and Christ caught a 20-foot basking shark. After a four-hour fight, which nearly sank their boat, they managed to drag the shark onto the beach. Hundreds of motorists stopped to gawk at the monster, which was really a plankton eater with tiny teeth, and a photo made the Los Angeles Times.

Aristides “Harry” Marinos wasn’t from Greece, but from Turkey’s ancient Greek villages, 1938. Photo c/o Ancestry.com.

Aristides “Harry” Marinos (1880-1947), a Greek grocer living in downtown Los Angeles, opened Marinos’ fish market at Topanga Beach in 1933, perhaps taking over the older business. Like several of his fellow expatriates, he wasn’t from Greece, but from Turkey’s ancient Greek villages, and had fled, with his wife Anna (1887-1977), at the beginning of the Ottoman Empire’s Greek Genocide in 1914. The Armenian Genocide was part of this ethnic cleansing.

 

The Marinos family belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church on San Julian St. in downtown. Anna was the sister of Helen Flesuros, a former president of the Greek American Progressive Association (GAPA), which helps Greeks integrate into American life without sacrificing their traditions.

 

Harry fished for his market from Topanga Beach with his two sons, Harry Jr. (1915-1985) and Chris (1916-1987). His daughter Mary (b.1918) taught at the Topanga Beach Bible School, located behind the fish market, at the home of Grace McFarland on Topanga Lane. In 1935, the Bible School produced a Christmas play there, with music by the Topanga String Orchestra.

 

A small fire, caused while smoking fish, closed Marinos’ in 1937. When it reopened in 1938, Harry Jr. took over the fish market, while Chris oversaw a restaurant that had been added.

 

Harry died in 1947 after a “brief illness.” Shocked, Anna had to recover in a convalescent home before moving in with Harry Jr.

 

Later that year, the sons added a liquor store to Marinos’. And in 1948, they painted Marinos’ green (“a definite improvement”), created a cocktail lounge called “The Living Room” with rattan furniture and “shiny new decorations inside and out,” and hired a popular bartender from The Malibu Inn named Harry Davis.

Marinos' seafood restaurant, c. 1954. Photo c/o Barry O. Balin Historical Archives.

 

In 1954, Chris sold Marinos’ to two chefs, Earl Holbert and Lionel LeBourget. Earl had worked at the Las Flores Inn, Malibu’s oldest restaurant, under Greek owner Christ Georgeopolos (1888-1986). Chris Polos (for short) wasn’t a fisherman, but that same year he turned his Inn into The Sea Lion seafood restaurant. Since 1996, it has been Duke’s Malibu. Earl and Lionel planned to keep Marinos’ the same, but there might have been “too many cooks in the kitchen,” because they soon lost the business.

 

In 1956, the restaurant became The Ebb Tide, under Elizabeth Ryder, a painter who belonged to the Malibu Artists Association. Staying open until 2:00 a.m., The Ebb Tide featured Jeannie Lee at a piano bar, and Southern chef Pel Hicks cooking “just good food.” Pel had once been the personal chef of Duke Ellington. Within a year, the District Attorney shut down the restaurant because it was a “hangout for homosexuals.”

 

The Mexican restaurant Caracol came next, in 1958. Run by a gay couple, owner George W. Evinger (1920-2003) and manager David Jimenes (1929-2008), with Frank Campo as “cuisinero,” it stayed open until an astonishing 3:00 a.m. Local surfers remember fending off advances from the waiters, who plied them with free drinks and games of pool, but Caracol didn’t get shut down.

 

The Raft brought back seafood in 1963, under Jack Dorfman and Jim McDonald. Ralph O’Hara was a bartender. The dark dining room had sawdust floors, and tables made from the hatch covers of ships, covered with resin-embedded coins and shells. Specialties included freshly baked bread and abalone (one of the last places to serve the endangered mollusc). A patio nightclub, called The Zoo, burned in a fire of unknown origin in 1979, leading to The Raft’s demolition. Jim went on to open The Sand Castle restaurant at Paradise Cove.

 

For the next seven years, small businesses popped up in the empty space like Gigi Wisdom’s nursery Discount Pottery, Bob Purvey’s Graphlite Surfboards, and Henri-Philippe de Lignieres’s T-shirt business French Kiss Printing.

 

In 1986, brothers Lance and Warren Roberts built The Reel Inn seafood restaurant we know today.

The Point’s veranda, c. 1950. Photo c/o Pepperdine University.

Although Marinos’ closed in the 1950s, it had actually split into two restaurants. In 1949, Harry Jr. opened a more casual version called The Marinos’ Point, where the Tides Cafe had burned at the east end of Topanga Beach. The Point’s neon sign was shaped like an artist’s palette, a veranda overlooked the beach, and a jukebox played songs like Russ Morgan’s “Close Your Pretty Eyes.” Retired General Harvey S. Burwell (1890-1955), who lived across the street in The Rodeo Grounds, spent so much time there that Harry Jr. made him the honorary manager.

 

Between 1965 and 1967, The Point was repeatedly robbed. Harry Jr. also lost a son, who suffocated in a sand tunnel while digging under the family home on Carbon Beach in 1966. These misfortunes seem to have brought about the restaurant’s end.

 

An eatery called The Hut, which had shared space with The Point for a year, took over in 1968, offering sandwiches, tacos, and milkshakes. In 1970, the restaurant was torn down to make room for a steak-house chain, The Chart House, followed by another one in 2014, Mastro’s Ocean Club.

 

And yet, the Malibu Greeks’ biggest legacy may not have been their restaurants.

 

In 1924, The Los Angeles Athletic Club (LAAC) bought Topanga Beach with the dream of turning it into a yacht harbor; but, after long delays, they found it difficult to evict the renters who had built houses. In 1953, a Greek named James Lambrinos (1889-1959) sued the LAAC for abusing the rights of homeowners in order to clear the land. He won a stay for the beach houses that ultimately lasted until 1979, and for the houses across the street that lasted until 2006.

 

The LAAC never got to build their yacht harbor, and the residents enjoyed living at Topanga Beach for decades longer.

 

***

Pablo Capra is the Archivist for the Topanga Historical Society and author of Topanga Beach: A History 1820s-1920s (2020).

2023-11-30 The Malibu Times - "Las Tunas Isle Motel" by Pablo Capra

"Las Tunas Isle Motel"

by Pablo Capra

Part of a series on overlooked Malibu history

Las Tunas Isle Motel, postcard, 1950s. Photo c/o Barry O. Balin Historical Archives.

A lit cigarette, left on the couch, set ablaze the Las Tunas Beach house of actress Natalie Talmadge (1896-1969) on September 25, 1943, at 2:30 a.m. Fire Captain Tom Cheney concluded this because the couch burned through the floor.

Natalie’s surfer son, James Talmadge (1922-2007), had taken over the house with his teenage wife, Barbara Tichenor (1925-2023), a local tennis star. Barbara would later become the first female Fire Commissioner in California, in Lake Tahoe; but, that night, the newlyweds’ negligence destroyed the second story, and ended the family’s residence there.

In 1945, Tom Bennett (b.1903) and his wife Margaret (b.1916) created the Las Tunas Isle Motel with a tropical theme that included faux animal skins, tiki masks, and walls covered with arundo from local creeks. The motel’s 18 rooms (later reduced to 14) had names like Jungle and Leopard, but the mirrors on the ceiling signaled that the fun was meant for adults.

Information about the motel’s owners is scarce. In 1946, the Bennetts sold to Hugh Zimmerman (1890-1954) and his wife Hazel (1892-1969), who previously owned hotels in Pasadena, Ontario (Hotel Ontario), Santa Barbara, and Gallup, NM (El Rancho Hotel). In 1948, the Zimmermans sold to D. H. Huntington and James O. Thompson of Denver. In the early 1950s, the motel was run by J. Bennett (related to the creators?). In the late 1950s, it was run by Evan Mattison (1904-1958), a banker. Bert Kerley and his wife owned it in the 1960s.

Princess Radziwill in her tiki-themed room, 1952-11-14. Photo c/o University of Southern California.

Notable guests included Lois Evans (1928-1977), a University High School graduate who went to France for fashion design and married a Polish prince, Wladyslaw Jerzy Boguslav Radziwill (1881-1963). Their marriage lasted from 1950-51, but she spent most of that time away skiing. Of their 47-year age gap, she said,

"It’s true that he was much older than I was. But he is a striking man, so polished and suave; so considerate, too. He is one of the most famous big game hunters in the world and he shot 24 elephants. He fascinated and intrigued me. He was a hero."

—”Sick of Princess’ Life, Lois Awaits Divorce,” New York Daily News, 1951-11-26

In 1952, she returned to Los Angeles and took a room at the motel, where she was secretly robbed of $20,770 during a party she gave on November 13. Missing were her $7,000 seven-carat diamond ring, $3,500 gold ring with five diamonds, $2,700 diamond solitaire ring, $1,000 diamond bracelet-watch, and $2,500 string of pearls with a sapphire-and-diamond clasp.

Three of her friends were arrested, two of whom had criminal records. One had an outstanding warrant. Another is believed to have made the anonymous phone call that led police to a downtown LA locker containing the less-valuable jewels. Finally, a male model confessed, Leonard Bleecher (b.1931), saying that he had thrown part of the jewelry off the Santa Monica Pier during an argument with his getaway driver over how to divide things up. Sent to prison for two years, he was arrested again in 1956 for robbing actors Ginger Rogers and Kirk Douglas. The princess’s bad company hinted at the kind of life she was living, and in 1955 she went to prison herself for heroin possession.

Another motel guest, Ollie Browning, was the owner of LA’s biggest African American liquor store, the Liquor Spot, at 3004 Crenshaw Blvd. The “sexy size 12” of this “popular civic figure” was a frequent topic in the California Eagle, like when she wore “a snug fitting gold-and-white sports outfit with shoes to match.” She was also a princess, of sorts, with a diamond ring worth $5,000, and a white Jaguar car. In 1958, the newspaper published her praise of the “wonderful Las Tunas Isle Motel,” which she said had “everything to make your visit a pleasant one.”

Sculptor Claes Oldenburg created Bedroom Ensemble (1963), a life-size recreation of a motel room.

Artists Claes Oldenburg (1929-2022) and his wife Patricia Muschinski (b.1935) visited the motel in 1963.

“'I came to LA… because it was the most opposite thing to New York I could think of…. This isn’t to suggest I looked down my nose at the artists here—they looked down their noses at me because I couldn’t surf and didn’t have a motorcycle,'” he jokes, in an obvious reference to the artists associated with LA’s legendary Ferus Gallery.…

—”When Bigger Is Better,” Los Angeles Times, 1995-07-02

The motel’s kitschy decor, so opposite from high art, resonated with Oldenburg, who let everyday objects inspire his Pop sculptures. His Bedroom Ensemble (1963) is a life-size recreation of one of the rooms. “I was struck by the humour of them. They had a pseudo-functionalist look—like they were made to be enjoyed or to be seen rather than used,” he said. “Bedroom Ensemble… signaled the beginning of a new direction in my work.”

In 1964, the motel hosted six-year-old Fiona MacFarlane and her family from Scotland, the winners of a 10-day trip to California. Fiona had entered a national contest to promote dental hygiene by returning a form that came with her toothpaste. Walt Disney invited the family to stay at Disneyland for the second part of their trip, where Fiona was tasked with delivering “The Happy Smile” campaign’s message on a scroll to Happy the Dwarf.

The motel was condemned for not meeting fire code in 1974. Actor Paul Sand (b.1932), who had the biggest room on the top floor, paid for an outdoor staircase that allowed him to stay. When the motel was converted into an eight-unit apartment building in 1975, several friends moved in, including actors Melinda Dillon (1939-2023), Maria Schneider (1952-2011), and Viola Spolin (1906-1994). One day, everyone went to see Jaws (1975), but Paul didn’t feel like it. Afterwards, no one would join him for a swim, he remembers, or even step onto the beach.

Armand Riza (1928-2022), a real estate agent, bought the building in 1976 and lived in one of the apartments. He turned it back into a private home around 1980. A Malibu Times article (“Married to the Sea,” 2001-09-06) celebrated his surfer lifestyle of getting in the ocean every day, paddling a kayak when he got older. Since his death last year, the historic house at 18904 Pacific Coast Highway has been for sale.

***

Pablo Capra is the Archivist for the Topanga Historical Society and author of Topanga Beach: A History 1820s-1920s (2020).

2023-09-14 KCRW - "Topangry" by Zeke Reed and Steve Chiotakis

GREATER LA

"Topangry"

Article and Photos by Zeke Reed

Podcast by Steve Chiotakis

Why are local surfers sometimes aggro at Topanga Beach?

Topanga Beach has a “locals only” reputation that’s earned it the nickname “Topangry.”

Donnie Wilson has been surfing at Topanga Beach since he was a kid in the 1970s. A former professional surfer, Wilson’s traveled all over the world but still says Topanga is one of his all-time favorite places to surf.

“It's the only spot in LA that gets a south and a north and a west swell, and it's a point break,” he explains. “It's one of the best waves in the world.”

The beach itself is also idyllic: palm trees, a big bay, a lagoon. Other than the cold California water, it almost looks tropical.

But stellar waves and picturesque views mean lots of competition, and many of the locals aren’t keen on sharing.

“I’ve been one of the ones guilty of [yelling] ‘get the fuck out of here kook,’” says Wilson, using a derogatory term for beginners. “I’ve been cracking people since I was a kid. When I was in junior high or something, I fucking broke this dude's nose.”

Wilson isn’t alone in his willingness to enforce local rule. Most folks at Topanga Beach have a story or two about aggressive run-ins that sometimes escalate to violence.

Things were especially gnarly back in the day. A popular zine about Topanga Beach in the 70s refers to it as “the Snake Pit.” Fights were frequent, especially between locals and outsiders.

“The really heavy guys are the ones that had to pay some real dues to surf here,” recalls Chad White, who’s been surfing Topanga for over four decades. “In the 70s, it would be every time they came to surf here. They’d have to fight.

The lifeguard station and bay at Topanga Beach. The bay is considered a more beginner-friendly place to surf.

While most folks agree that the culture is not as intense these days, especially with the rise of smartphones that can capture fights on camera, the Topangry mindset still exists. Yelling, arguments, and tension in the water are common. One surfer described how during a recent session, he was “fully chewed out by a Topangry 12-year-old girl, and fully got bullied into submission as a 34-year-old man who's surfed here most of my life.”

Other spots have a  locals-only reputation too. Just up PCH at First Point in Malibu, a local surfer was recently caught on camera smashing a kid’s board with a rock before ditching it in the ocean. Down at Lunada Bay in Palos Verdes, an infamous group of locals known as the Bay Boys would slash tires, throw rocks and cut leashes of nonlocal surfers. It took a court order to finally end the mayhem.

Most folks I spoke to agreed that as long as there is competition for waves, there will be conflict in the water. “If you have too many people trying to go after one limited resource,” reasons Chad White, “it doesn't matter what that is in human life, we turn into a**holes.”

Competition is made more intense by the tribal nature of the Topanga Beach crew. As surf instructor Kassia Meador puts it, “They all know each other. They all park in the same spots. They love to catch up with each other whether there's waves or not. … It's really like that family at the beach. It's ‘Cheers.’”

The familiarity amongst locals makes it clear who the outsiders are, and good surfers get frustrated with beginners. “If you don't surf great, you just don't go into the VIP room,” Donny Wilson says. “You gotta show some respect. And you gotta learn the rules.”

The “rules” in question are fundamental surf etiquette, such as whoever is closer to the breaking part of the wave gets to take that wave, and don’t paddle right in front of someone while they are riding. These norms might not be obvious to folks who just bought their first foam board from Costco, and Topanga locals regularly complain about the lack of awareness.

Joshua Alexander has been surfing for two years and hasn’t let unpleasant encounters ruin his love for the sport.

Beyond disrupting the flow of the lineup, breaking etiquette can have real consequences. Kassia Meadow describes: “If somebody puts you in harm's way, it's probably going to cause you to snap because it's dangerous. … I've been put in the hospital by people being totally blatantly unconscious.”

There’s also a sense amongst locals that their outsider culture is under threat as surfing becomes more mainstream. Chad White explains, “[Surfing is] an activity now. It's not a lifestyle. … People that come and surf, they also might bike ride, or they also play club soccer, or they're yogis.”

While concerns about safety and overcrowding are understandable, there are some darker undertones to localism. Though surfing started as an indigenous tradition in Hawaii, SoCal surf culture has been largely dominated by white men. And while the lineup is more diverse these days, including a significant number of first-generation Asian surfers and a growing number of folks from other racial backgrounds, the sport still has its share of racism.

Joshua Alexander is a Black surfer who picked up the sport two years ago and regularly surfs Topanga. He says he’s had multiple racially-charged encounters in the water, including being told to “go back to your hood.” In another instance, he overheard “someone shout across from all the way from the top, ‘Go back to China,’ at six in the morning. Even just repeating it hurts.”

Incidents like this mean surfers of color have to make different calculations. “People are always talking about sharks, like are you afraid of [sharks]?” explains Alexander. “No, I'm afraid of racism. I'm not afraid of sharks. … I love sharks. Sharks belong in the water. Racism does not.”

Female surfers have also been historically excluded. As local pro Frankie Seely explains, “Growing up, there was maybe one woman in the lineup as compared to like 20 guys.” But she says that’s changing. “There's a lot more women surfing. The ratio [of women] almost gets to the same as the men's ratio in the water.”

Frankie Seely is a pro longboarder who grew up surfing Topanga Beach. She’s witnessed the sport progress as more women enter the water.

Folks like Seely and Alexander are not alone in their desire to make surfing more inclusive. Organizations like Color the Water, Ebony Beach Club, Salt Water Divas and Textured Waves help provide a sense of community for women and people of color looking to surf.

As new people enter the sport, the locals-only culture is starting to change. More enlightened long-time surfers are working with newcomers to teach them how to respectfully navigate the lineup. As Kassia Meador puts it, “Whenever I see people that I feel like are struggling in the water that maybe don't know those couple core key etiquette points … rather than yelling at them … I try to invite them. … ‘Hey, are you okay? Are you new here? Do you need some help and guidance? Can I give you a few pointers?’”

Even locals like Chad White, who admits to being aggro at times, says that his outlook softened when he started teaching his wife and her friends to surf. “If you're a local somewhere, [it] doesn't mean that your job is to be an asshole. Maybe if you're a local, your job is to be really helpful.”

However, White is quick to point out that respect in the water is a two-way street. “It's not just like we, as the people that have been surfing here need to just be all of a sudden be nice to everybody…It’s etiquette. It’s understanding how this thing operates. It's an ecosystem.”

For all his earnest talk of inclusivity, Joshua Alexander also recognizes the tension between wanting to welcome more people while still claiming the best waves. After our conversation, he and I paddled out together. We watched a novice surfer miss a few waves, and so when the next set came, Joshua cut in front of him. After the guy complained, Joshua turned to me and smiled. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m also part of the problem.”

2023-03-23 The Malibu Times - “Michael deNicola's Long Ride” by Pablo Capra

“Michael deNicola's Long Ride”

 

by Pablo Capra

 

Stars aligned for Michael deNicola's long ride on January 5, 2023. Photo by Casey O'Neill.

Every surf spot has its champion of the long ride. There’s Laird Hamilton trimming from Little Dume to Paradise Cove, Allen Sarlo starting from Third Point and shooting the Malibu Pier… and, in the last swell, Michael deNicola connecting Boomers to Charthouse.

 

DeNicola grew up watching swells wrap around the coast from his grandparents’ hillside home in Castellammare, Pacific Palisades. He’d already imagined his future ride after noticing that the biggest waves would sometimes wrap around two points before expiring. He joined the USA Surf Team at 19, turned pro, then created an international surf contest called “5X.” In the late 1990s, he began building an art career around his colorful, graffiti-like paintings. In 2010, he produced a film about Santa Cruz surfers called The Westsiders.

 

Stars aligned for his long ride on January 5, 2023. The Harvest Buoy off Point Conception measured a wave height of 26.9’, the biggest winter swell in decades. The rain cleared up in the morning, and the tide receded to a low -0.8' at 3:08 p.m., which was necessary for success. “On the way to the beach, I told my buddy Jesse Faen [also a former pro] that this could be the day I’d make it to Charthouse,” deNicola says.

 

Conditions were so hairy that a fire truck waited on the bluff for an accident to happen. Most surfers couldn’t paddle out through the windswept giants. DeNicola got a push by jumping into the muddy creek as it rushed into the ocean. “It wasn't a beautiful day to surf, but I was excited by the energy in the water,” he says. “I rode a 7'7" board, shaped by Bruce Fowler, with a quad setup that had a fifth fin the size of a guitar pick to help with turns. We'd been playing with that design for about six years.”

 

The only others who made it into the lineup were Faen and Quinn Williamson. (An earlier session had been surfed by Edwin Martin, Richard “Evy” Evans, and Mo Magee.)

 

Michael deNicola. Photo from The Brush Off (2020), a book of artists' portraits by Jeffrey Sklain.

DeNicola caught a number of waves while searching for his outlier. Around 4:00 p.m., with sunset approaching, he took off on one that allowed him through every section. He surfed past the lifeguard tower, the stairs, the Malibu Feed Bin, until, suddenly, the next point loomed up ahead. “I knew I definitely didn't want to get stuck in those rocks, so I did everything I could to keep moving, even as the wave began to flatten out,” he says.

 

The first to realize that something remarkable was happening, Martin narrates, while filming, “He’s going to make it to Charthouse.”

 

Tristan “Red Dog” Welch filmed the ride’s end from the parking lot of Mastro’s Ocean Club. He and his friends were shocked when deNicola appeared. They ask, “Where is he going?” and “Does he have a motor on that thing?” Then Welch declares, “That’s the wave of his life,” and they begin to cheer, “Make it!” until the half-mile ride ends just past the restaurant.

 

“I was high on adrenaline from the victory, but my legs were so tired that I practically had to crawl out of the water,” deNicola says. “I started surfing at 12. I've surfed big waves all over the world. I've had injuries that I thought would prevent me from ever surfing again. Yet, at 55, I’d experienced a breakthrough at a beach I’ve been surfing my whole life. It feels even more special to find a great wave to yourself in a city as populous as Los Angeles.”

The only other time that someone is known to have accomplished this feat was in the winter of 1998-99 (Surfline wrongly says 1982-83), when ex-pro Donny Wilson surfed a full mile, to just past the Sunset Mesa intersection. He remembers, “I airdropped into the biggest wave of my life and didn't cutback once, just raced straight ahead on a 7'6" gun, shaped by Steve Wilson and given to me by Local Motion in Hawaii. Except for Allen Sarlo and Matt Wessen, nobody else was in the water.”

 

Wilson also lays claim to being the only surfer to ride around the Malibu Pier, in the summer of 1998.

 

On the biggest day of the 1970s, September 27, 1975, Paul Lovas rode a 9’10” gun, shaped by Robbie Dick, to the Charthouse restaurant, but didn’t make it around, according to his memoir Topanga Beach Experience (2011).

 

DeNicola hopes his long ride will inspire young surfers to achieve their goals. That's also the idea behind his cartoon character, Torquato, “born of water and stoke, the action hero inside each of us who says, ‘Yes You Can!!!’” He currently has an art show at Paliskates, 1021 N. Swarthmore Ave., and invites surfers and skaters to bring their boards for a free spray-painted stencil of Torquato on March 25^th, between 2-4 p.m. More at www.iamtorquato.com.

 

***

Pablo Capra is the Archivist for the Topanga Historical Society and author of Topanga Beach: A History 1820s-1920s (2020).

2023-02-02 The Malibu Times - “The Surfer's Palm Tree” by Pablo Capra

“The Surfer's Palm Tree”

by Pablo Capra

Part of a series on overlooked Malibu history

Ted’s palm tree marks where the Berkeley family lived in the 1940s. Photo by Rainer Hosch, 2019-09-19.

The palm tree at the Topanga intersection links us to the surfers of the 1940s, particularly Randall Edward “Ted” Berkeley (1912-1997), a greensman who rescued it from a film set, and wrote the tale in The Malibu Times (1977-12-02). 

"…as I rounded the corner of the stage, I almost stepped on a thirsty little palm in a one gallon can… [that] had served its photographic purpose to the industry…. I picked it up and… drove to my shack on the coast highway…. [M]y wife held a flashlight while I planted the little palm."

Ted, his wife Sylvia (1919-2000), and their daughters Bonnie (1938-2011) and Wendy (b.1943) rented their green shack in the summer of 1943. A Pasadena High School swimmer, he got into surfing with his best friend Steve Balker, whose VW van ferried them up and down the coast. He surfed in red trunks like another buddy, Santa Monica lifeguard Pete Peterson, and made his own wooden surfboards using a butcher knife and sand paper. He was lucky enough to meet, probably at San Onofre, early Hawaiian surfer Duke Kahanamoku. 

He wore laced pants and tennis shoes without socks like a sailor, and had all the typical tattoos: a ship, a sparrow, a star, a spider. He greased his hair back and lifted weights. His daughters only saw him cry once, when their dog Moose, an Irish Setter, was killed on PCH.

“Ted was macho,” says neighbor Larry Franklin (b.1930). “He would go the icehouse behind Potter’s Topanga Trading Post [now the Malibu Feed Bin] and carry a block of ice home on his bare shoulder. He was great at getting along with people, and probably the handsomest guy I’d seen.”

Sylvia and Ted Berkeley, with daughters Wendy and Bonnie. Photo c/o Berkeley family, circa 1946.

Born in Winnipeg, Canada, Ted and his siblings moved to Hollywood in 1918 for his mother’s respiratory problem. Separated from her husband, she started working as a film extra.

Ted grew into a teenage daredevil, racing cars and motorcycles when he was barely old enough to drive, and making deliveries for bootleggers. He moved to San Francisco in the 1930s to work on the Golden Gate Bridge, but got a job at a bar instead, where he taught himself to play piano and trumpet.

His mother became the live-in housekeeper to a German family of child actors, notably Virginia Weidler (1927-1968). When Ted returned, around 1936, he formed a jazz band called The Pep Brothers with Virginia’s three brothers, and married her sister Sylvia. Later, the band achieved success without him as The Weidler Brothers Orchestra.

Ted and Sylvia held hands wherever they went. He didn’t want her to act, so she became a dance teacher from home, and later a Hollywood seamstress. She was a devout Christian Scientist, but creativity was also essential in their lives. He’d play piano and sing while she cooked dinner, and they’d tap dance in the kitchen to the 1927 song “Side by Side.”

Oh, we ain’t got a barrel of money

Maybe we’re ragged and funny

But we’ll travel along, singin’ a song

Side by side

The Pep Brothers band. Ted Berkeley and the Weidler family: Walter, Renee, Sylvia, Warner, George, and Virginia. Photo c/o Paramount Pictures, 1936.

Ted worked at the gas station near the Malibu Pier, among other jobs, while pursuing film work with his brother Mowbray “Bunny” Berkeley Jr. (1911-2004). He started as a studio security guard, rising to the position of greensman, and ultimately property master. Bunny became a set decorator.

On payday, Ted would buy his daughters candy bars at Potter’s, where the owner let him play with a fancy gun that became the subject of another The Malibu Times story (1977-11-11).

"Every night when I came home from work I would stop at Charlie’s and buy my cigarettes and some beer. When I entered the store I would first reach under the counter by the cash register and take out, of a holster, a nickel-plated Spanish .38 revolver…."

The local kids fished or raced to Castle Rock on their paddleboards, but Ted noticed that they couldn’t surf. So one day, in 1945, he gave the first lesson to Larry Franklin and brothers Edward “Ted” (1928-1951) and Fred Harrison (b.1931), from the beach; brothers Dave (1928-2015) and Roger Sweet (b.1930), from the Rodeo Grounds; and Howard Terrill (b.1929), from the Step Inn Cafe at the intersection. Dave Sweet would go on to change the surfing world by building the first commercial foam boards.

In 1946, the Berkeleys rented the downstairs of the Franklins’ house. Larry had made his own redwood board, but Ted showed him how to lighten it with balsa wood. Younger brother Sam (b.1936) received encouragement from the Harrisons.

“The stepfather [Evan Harrison (1905-1988)], who I knew only as Gramps, gave me a Waikiki redwood and balsa surfboard when I was about 12, which I loved and learned to surf on,” Sam explains. “We used to meet on the beach frequently, and he had a distinctive greeting each time. He’d raise both arms to about head height and wiggle his hands back and forth. I still do that from time to time without thinking.”

The Harrisons lived in the 1920s bathhouse that still had a painted sign on the side, and a defunct highway underpass in back. They rented the downstairs to Western actor Tim Holt (1919-1973), who tried to rescue a deer from the ocean with his paddleboard in 1948, according to the Topanga Journal (1948-04-09).

"He finally maneuvered the deer onto a rocky reef where he tried to lasso the buck. But the rope became so heavy with salt water that lassoing was impossible…. Holt was badly cut by barnacles and his paddleboard drifted out to sea."

Other surfers included James Richard “Dick” Hunt (1926-1967), who lived at the intersection, and his best friend James J. “Mike” Roberts (1925-2014), from the Rodeo Grounds. 

“One of Dick’s legs was shorter from polio,” Larry remembers. “His parents brought him to the beach to recover, and he ended up becoming the best surfer there. I admired his abilities and harmony with the ocean. Mike rode a paddleboard with a pin tail and a flat nose. It was a hell of a good board. You could stand right on the nose, and it wouldn’t perl. I bought it from him when Ted taught the kids how to surf.”

Surfing’s first dedicated photographer, Don James (1921-1996), documented the moment the US entered World War II, standing in front of his beach rental with Ed Fearon (b.1921) and Jack Quigg (b.1922). The photo was published in Surfing San Onofre to Point Dume: 1936-1942 with the caption: “It was a balmy Sunday and the news about the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor was coming in over the radio. We were paying sixty dollars a month for rent, which was split three ways, and life was good. Suddenly, everything had changed. We all knew we were going off to war.”

Brothers James (1922-2007) and Bob Talmadge (1924-2009), of Las Tunas Beach, were the sons of actor Buster Keaton. Half-brothers Jerry Hanes (b.1924) and Bobby Jacks (1927-1987) lived a couple turns up Topanga, at Brookside. In 1949, Jacks married another surfer, Darrylin Zanuck (1931-2015), whose women’s board sparked a trend to build smaller.

A top surfer of the 1960s, Mike Doyle (1941-2019), lived to the west of the Franklins’ house until he was seven with his parents, wrestling promoter John and Kitty Doyle. Their guests included Gorgeous George, Baron Michele Leone, George Temple (Shirley’s brother), Primo Carnera, and Ed “Strangler” Lewis.

TOP: Ted and Sylvia Berkeley, unknown. BOTTOM: Primo Carnera, Bob and Kay McLaughlin, unknown, Bunny and Dorothy Berkeley. Photo c/o Berkeley family, circa 1946.

Around 1948, the Berkeleys moved to Las Flores Beach, where Ted became a body surfer. They had three more children: Debbie (b.1951), Bambi (b.1954), and Randy (b.1956). 

In 1962, they moved to Malibu Park, to a house that Ted decorated with film props, like Western antiques, cow skulls, and candy-glass bottles. His daughters competed in horse shows with the Trancas Riders and Ropers. His son followed Ted’s passion for motorcycle racing, and still lives in Malibu, in Decker Canyon.

Ted wrote over a dozen stories about his early life for The Malibu Times, as well as a couple unpublished novels, and many songs. He was pleased to see that his palm tree continued to grow after his old neighborhood had been demolished for a public beach.

***

Pablo Capra is the Archivist for the Topanga Historical Society and author of Topanga Beach: A History 1820s-1920s (2020).

2023-01-05 The Malibu Times - "Beach Houses Have More Fun" by Pablo Capra

“Beach Houses Have More Fun”

by Pablo Capra

Part of a series on overlooked Malibu history

The Franklin family’s house (center), and Tommy Mack’s house (right), where Allen Jenkins lived upstairs, 1960s. Photo c/o Liza Ann Saenz-Bernard.

Just past the Malibu Feed Bin, on Topanga Cyn. Blvd., was Weber’s Tow Yard. In 1941, Louis Franklin (1904-1979) went there to buy a junk car for The Globe Auto Wrecking Co. in downtown LA.

Bob Weber (1888-1957), who lived in an adjoining house with his wife Katherine (1886-1972) and nephew Frank Weaver (b.1910), mentioned a beach house that was for sale. Louis jumped at the opportunity, and made this his family’s vacation home for the next 13 years.

Weber’s Tow Yard resembles a fictional place in the detective-book series The Three Investigators, first published in 1964 by Robert Arthur Jr. (1909-1969), about three boys who solve crimes in Rocky Beach, a town based on Topanga Beach and Pacific Palisades. Many of the stories start in Titus Jones’s junkyard, where his nephew Jupiter has turned a travel trailer into the boys’ secret headquarters. The series remains popular in Germany, where it’s called Die Drei ???, and new writers continue to produce stories.

In real life, Weber’s Tow Yard wasn’t kid friendly, according to neighbor girl Thais Sykes (1925-2021), who remembered, “Everybody was really nice, except for Bob Weber, the tow-truck driver. He was just okay.”

In 1943, Weber leased Weber’s Malibu Service Station at Malibu Colony. He gave it up in 1946 after a string of problems, including two robberies and an explosion that killed employee Harvey Whelan, 16, of Pacific Palisades. Weber was found partially responsible for the unsafe conditions, and fined for failing to provide insurance. Around 1950, he leased the gas station at Las Flores Canyon; and in 1952, he leased one where Boardriders Malibu is today.

The beach house that Weber tipped Louis to happened to be the former Topanga Yacht Clubhouse of the 1930s, one of the only houses that survived the swell of 1926. Louis and his wife Eva “Evelyn” (1906-1982) had known each other since they were two and four, and remained together until they died. They lived in Pico-Robertson, and spent weekends at the beach with their children Lawrence “Larry” (b.1930), Samuel “Sam” (b.1936), and Elizabeth “Beth” (b.1940), nicknamed Booky because she used to say, “Mommy, read me a booky.” At mealtimes, Evelyn amused herself by ringing a little bell to call the children to the glassed-in deck on the second floor.

Evelyn and Louis Franklin at son Larry’s wedding, 1952-09-07. Photo c/o the Franklin family.

Beth and Sam Franklin with Aunt Rose Berger, 1949. Photo c/o the Franklin family.

The first floor was rented to Charles Pritchard (1887-1947), Director of Sales for the Pioneer Paper Company. Pritchard’s main residence was at the Jonathan Club, where he was on the Board. Under the house, he kept a folding kayak, and built a gymnastics bar for the kids. He was estranged from his upper-class family, and told the Franklins that he’d written them into his will, so they’d never have to worry about money. When he died after a brief illness in 1947, his will couldn’t be found. The Franklins suspected that his family destroyed it when they came to get his things.

Next, the Berkeley family moved in. Randall Edward “Ted” Berkeley (1912-1997) worked as a greensman, providing plants to film sets. His wife Sylvia (1919-2000) was a seamstress and taught dancing. They had two daughters, Bonnie (b.1938) and Wendy (b.1943). Ted was a great improviser on his upright piano, and could be heard making up crazy songs to popular tunes. He also played the trumpet, and taught it to Sam. In the 1970s, Ted shared many memories in The Malibu Times.

After the Berkeleys left, around 1948, Evelyn’s brother George Berger (1899-1962) and his wife Rose (1901-1967) rented the first floor for vacations. George had a men’s clothing store in Pasadena called Berger’s. At the beach, he enjoyed surf fishing with Sam, who sold sand crabs to Wylie’s Bait Shop across the street. Wylie’s was built in 1949, according to a permit published in The Malibu Times. However, Larry remembers it being at Sunset Blvd. before that, and Sam says it was up a flight of steps on a hillside. An offshoot of Wylie’s Sporting Goods in Redondo Beach, the shop was run by Bill and his wife Ruth Wylie, with help from Bob Varnum (1928-2000), who later took over.

To the east of the Franklins lived two musical families. On the second floor were Joseph Lilley (1913-1971), a music director at Paramount Studios, and his wife Dorothy (1915-2004). From their deck, the Franklins could see Joseph composing at the dinner table at night, using only a pencil and paper… no piano. On the first floor were Ray Miller, manager of musicians Gordon Jenkins and Dick Haymes, and his wife Thelma, the owners of the house. It burned in 1946 when Ziegfeld Follies star Tommy Mack (1898-1982) and his wife Emily moved their house to the beach and knocked a telephone-pole wire loose.

Part of the Franklins’ kitchen also burned in the fire. Afterwards, the lot remained empty, and Louis turned it into a horseshoe court, which became a popular gathering place. He used heavy axles from his wrecking yard as stakes so the horseshoes would really clank.

The Lilleys moved to a nearby house, where they had a daughter named Mary Susan (b.1948).

The Millers divorced. Thelma moved to Ratner Beach, and built a house around a double-decker bus from a discontinued line on Wilshire Blvd. Ray moved across PCH to Old Malibu Road, and married Esther, who started a “Malibu Beautification Club” that envisioned tree-bordered streets and flower-covered hills. This house burned too from faulty wiring in 1948.

The Macks’ house, maybe the only stucco house on the beach, survived the fire it had caused. In 1948, Mack released a comedy song he cowrote with “Mr and Mrs. Harmonica” Jimmy and Mildred Mulcay called “When Veronica Plays the Harmonica (Down on the Pier at Santa Monica).” Performers Johnny Mercer, Gloria Wood, and Kay Kyser’s Campus Cowboys helped make it a hit, with the The Malibu Times writing, “You are hearing it every time you turn the radio on, the kids are singing it on the buses. The supply of records in the record shops is bought up as soon as they are obtained….”

The Macks lived on the ground floor, and rented their second floor to actor Allen Jenkins (1900-1974), who also made people laugh in 1948. After being arrested with his Malibu drinking buddy James Davis, 30, for nearly hitting a police car on PCH near Sunset Blvd. at 4 a.m., he joked that his calico cat Smiley had been driving. At the police station, he continued the silliness, asking the booking officer to take Smiley’s paw prints, and insisting that his “inseparable companion” join him in jail. Upon his release, he complained, “This is a fine jail. Everything for the lousy drunks and nothing for the cat. We want some milk.”

Allen Jenkins with his cat Smiley, 1948. Photo c/o The Dispatch (Moline, Illinois).

He pleaded not guilty at his DUI trial, and requested a jury, whom he entertained with more funny lines like, “I’m going to take the rap for Smiley.” He also won over the press, getting them to “take the part of the undercat” who was “catnipped to the whiskers,” and to “hope he don’t take it to heart, having a police record.” The joke overshadowed the trial, as journalists posed questions like, “When the cops saw it was a cat driving, why didn’t they look out?”

Allen even made his bad reviews turn funny, e.g., “His lawyer can wrangle a quick acquittal by bringing into the court the actor’s latest movie, The Case of the Baby Sitter, which is enough to drive anyone to drink.”

His inevitable acquittal hardly reflected his innocence. “It was a tight squeeze, but my personality finally prevailed,” Smiley “wrote” in an open letter. Soon after, Allen included Smiley in a vaudeville act called Musical Comedy Hilarities that he tested out at The Seacomber restaurant (across from Nobu Malibu today), then toured around the country.

The Malibu Times would continue publishing stories about Smiley until 1950, when the cat died crossing PCH. “Smiley became a legendary figure up and down the Malibu,” his obituary read.

Allen later did voice acting for the Hanna-Barbera TV cartoon Top Cat (1961-62), playing Officer Charlie Dibble, who tries to police a gang of alley cats.

In 1989, 15 years after Allen’s death, Saturday Night Live introduced a recurring character, “Toonces, the Cat Who Could Drive a Car”… just not very well. Although two SNL writers were Topanga Beach alumni, Tom Schiller (b.1949) and Gary Weis (b.1943), and the skits recalled Allen’s joke, the writer, Jack Handey, couldn’t say how he’d come up with the premise.

After Allen, the Macks rented to two other Hollywood friends: producer Robert Cohn, son of Columbia Pictures cofounder Jack Cohn; and actor Jackie Coogan, star of Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid (1921), and Uncle Fester in The Addams Family TV show (1964-1966).

At the Topanga intersection, a space between the beach houses allowed public access to a small strip of sand, but residents resented when the crowd spread out onto their “yards.” In 1943, fences, gates, and “No Trespassing” signs went up. One Topangan complained, “A person, posing as a watchman and displaying some kind of badge, forbade entrance to the water.… Is there a state law, or do they simply take the law in their own hands?”

Whether or not the beach could remain private became a major issue. Property owners the LA Athletic Club (LAAC) wanted to develop it further, and State Parks wanted to bulldoze the houses, which they finally did in the 1970s.

In 1953, the LAAC tried to clear out the homeowners, who were living on five-year ground leases, by tripling their renewals. The Franklins decided they’d had enough, and sold their beach house in 1954, while others sued and won the right to stay on the beach for 15 more years as monthly renters.

Larry went on to serve in the Navy in Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines. He built a company called Franklin Truck Parts with his dad, which today has nine stores. Sam got a PhD in Psychology and became a professor at Fresno State. He wrote a book called The Psychology of Happiness (2009). Beth studied yoga at the Self-Realization Fellowship and became a teacher and healer. She still practices twice a day. They all say the beach left a joy that has lasted a lifetime.

***

Pablo Capra is the Archivist for the Topanga Historical Society and author of Topanga Beach: A History 1820s-1920s (2020).