2020-05-01 Lower Topanga Archive - “Topanga Beach: 1940s and ‘50s” by Sam Franklin

“Topanga Beach: 1940s & ‘50s”

by Sam Franklin
(b.1936)

Edited by Pablo Capra with interviews of Larry, Sam, and Beth Franklin

18630 West Topanga Beach Road. Photo c/o Sam Franklin.

My family bought the “cabin,” as we called it, in 1941, just before the beginning of World War II. My dad Louis Franklin worked in a wrecking yard in downtown LA. He heard about the cabin when he went to buy a wrecked car from Bob Weber, who had a truck yard on a fenced-in dirt area just up the Canyon from Potter's and the LA Athletic Club office.

We called Potter's "the store," not "the trading post," even though that’s what was on the sign. You’d tell Charlie Potter what you wanted, and he'd get it for you. Grocery stores weren't self-serve until the early '60s.

On the north side of the Sunset Blvd. intersection was a shack called Bill’s Bait Shop. You had to climb stairs up a hill to get to it. It later moved to Topanga Beach and became Wiley’s Bait Shop.

Mrs. Raymond, the owner of our cabin, was moving to Pearl Harbor, where her son was stationed. I recall my dad talking to her a couple of days after December 7, 1941 and offering to cancel the sale, but she decided to go through with it, despite being unable to go to Hawaii. Her decision worked out wonderfully for our family. We spent every summer and most weekends at the cabin for about 13 years. People called our house Mrs. Raymond’s Yacht Club because it had a mast on the upstairs porch for flags.

Topanga Beach was different from the way it’s described in the Surfwriter article. The ‘40s and ‘50s very mellow compared to the ‘60s, and they were very good to us. Yes, we were at war but its effect on our everyday lives was minimal. Even at the beach, where a Japanese invasion was expected by some, life was pretty normal. However, one night, a tank and a searchlight did come down from PCH, thinking an invasion was underway. The threat turned out to be a fishing boat. The fisherman had illegally put his net down too close to the beach, because the fishing was better by the rocks. He’d come back at midnight to secretly get it, and his keel got stuck on the rocks.

The people who lived at Topanga Beach were mostly Hollywood types, both performers and creative people. Most of us knew each other at least a little. Maybe the best way to describe that time is to review the neighborhood and the people who lived there.

On the other side of the highway, there were the people who lived in the canyon. They used to come to the beach through the “open space,” which was the area open to the public, just about where Topanga Canyon road met PCH.

Dave and Roger Sweet and Mike Roberts used to come to surf. They lived in The Rodeo Grounds. Dave later started making surfboards commercially and was the first person that I knew of to use fiberglass. His younger brother Roger was a better surfer and worked at the gas station, which he eventually took over. Mike had a hollow paddle board with a flat nose.

Dolly Cottle, a cousin of actress Gale Storm, lived in the Rodeo Grounds. She was my brother Larry's age. Everybody used to gather at night at her house to play volleyball.

Sonia Van Ostrum lived across the street near the Auto Court. She was an attractive girl with sun-bleached blond hair and a beautiful tan. She was about my age, and had a close friend who lived there too.

Herb Spurgin lived on Old Malibu Road, and later became the mayor of Santa Monica. He was a great swimmer, even though one of his legs was stunted from polio. His father owned the RockGas business a quarter mile up the Canyon. Doc Earhart (the brother of Amelia) also lived on that street with his family.

On the south end of the beach was The Point restaurant.

The first house north belonged to the Kaufmann family. The husband, Irv, was in the auto repair business. The daughter Shiela did ballet.

The second house was a home for kids with Down-Syndrome. I befriended one of them, but my mom was scared, and told me not to play with him.

Near there lived Mary Wright, a red-haired girl who was a year or so older than my sister. She had a brother whose name I can’t remember.

There were a few houses between that and the open space.

The first house south of the open space had an apartment that was rented by Randall  Edward “Ted” Berkeley (who was a pretty good surfer), his wife Sylvia (who was the sister of child actress Virginia Weidler), and two daughters, Bonnie and Wendy. Ted taught the older kids to surf, including my brother Larry, Howard Terrill (who lived above the Step Inn Cafe), Dave and Roger Sweet, and Fred and Ted Harrison. I remember that Larry made his own surfboard, and I think Ted helped him. Ted was great at getting along with people, and probably the handsomest guy I had seen. He was macho. He would go the icehouse behind Potter's and carry a block of ice back to his apartment on his bare shoulder.

The first house north of the open space (really west) belonged to the Hunt family. I don’t remember anything about the parents, but the son Dick was ill and they’d brought him to the beach to die. Instead, he thrived, and became the best surfer on the beach. He was a few years older than me, and I didn’t know him well, but I admired his abilities and his harmony with the ocean. He moved away from the beach in 1944 or 1945, before Ted taught the kids to surf.

In the next house, a woman lived upstairs who was a writer at the studios and owned horses. One of them won the Kentucky Derby in 1946 or ’47. My mother remembered that Edith Head, the Hollywood costume designer, had lived in this house or the next one. My sister said it was actually Edith Head’s daughter.

The next house was a two-story white house. Upstairs lived a man whose name I can’t remember. Downstairs lived actor Turhan Bay. His friend, actor Sabu(Dastagir), used to visit.

The next house (one of the beach’s only stucco houses) was moved there in 1948-49 by an old vaudeville star named Tommy Mack, who wrote the song “When Veronica Played the Harmonica Down on the Pier at Santa Monica.” The house movers snapped a wire on a nearby telephone pole, which fell on the roof next door and resulted in a fire that burned that house to the ground. But the moved house remained. Mack added a bottom floor, and rented it to several Hollywood people. Actor Alan Jenkins was the first. Next was Columbia Studios writer Bobby Cohen, the nephew of Columbia head Barry Cohen. I remember he gave me a couple dozen roman candles one 4^th of July, which I kept for years. The next tenant was actor Jackie Coogan, who played Uncle Festor in The Addams Family.

The house next door that burned had been owned by Ray Miller. It was visited by several Hollywood people because Ray was the music arranger for one of the studios. Ray Miller’s wife Thelma divorced him and built a house just south of The Point using a double decker bus. These buses were used on Wilshire Blvd. Upstairs from Ray had lived Joseph Lilley and his wife Dorothy. Joe was the music arranger for Bing Crosby and others, and I remember Bing visiting one time.

Our house was next. My dad Louis Franklin (b.1904) bought it on a whim, and I’ll be forever grateful to him for that (and for many other things as well). My mother’s name was Evelyn (b.1906). They’d known each other since they were two and four, and stayed together until they died, around age 75. Our main house, from 1933 on, was in the Pico-Robertson area. We were the only Jews on the beach (non-practicing), but we felt welcome. We had nothing to do with Hollywood, but Topanga and the cabin became an important part of our family’s life. Our kitchen burned in the fire. My dad put up a volleyball net in the vacant lot and people from all over the beach used to come by and play. Playing horseshoes was also popular. My dad brought heavy steel axles from his wrecking yard to use as stakes, and the (real) horseshoes clanked loudly when they were thrown at them. Even after all these years, my siblings Larry (b.1930) and Beth(b.1940) and I talk fondly about the cabin.

My family never lived downstairs. We rented it first to Charles Pritchard. He was the CEO of the American Paper Company. They made 6-foot high rolls of newsprint, and he'd give me the wood that held them together to play with. He used our place as a beach cabin. His main residence was at the Jonathan Club, where he was on the board of directors. He liked to take his kayak out on the ocean. It was made of canvas, and folded up when stored. He was estranged from his upper-class Protestant family, and liked us very much. He built me a gymnastics bar under the house where boats were kept. He was a perfectionist and taped it up really well. He once told my parents that he’d written us into his will, so we’d never have to worry about money. When he died in 1947, his will couldn’t be found. We suspected that his family destroyed it when they came to get his things. They didn’t approve of us. 

After Charles, the Berkeleys moved there. Ted had a (‘46?) Ford convertible that he used to park on the road by our cabin. He was great on the 55-key piano, and had survived the Depression by playing honky-tonk in a bar. I would hear him make up crazy songs to popular tunes. He also played the trumpet, which used to sit on top of his old upright piano. I liked it and he told me to buy a mouthpiece and practice to strengthen my lip and he would teach me how to play. I did, my folks bought me a trumpet, and I played (poorly) throughout junior high and high school, in bands and orchestra. After Ted, my mother's brother George Berger moved in with his wife Rose and their family. George was in his 50s, and had a men's clothing store in Pasadena. He was a surf fisherman.

The house to the west of us belonged to a couple of families, and I can’t remember the order of their ownership. One owner was John Doyle, a wrestling promoter. John had famous wrestlers over like Gorgeous George, Baron Michele Leone, Primo Carnera, and George Temple (Shirley Temple's brother). His son Mike Doyle started a surfboard company. There was also the Simon family. The father ran the barge in Santa Monica, and later started selling real estate. The mother had a dress shop in Santa Monica that I think was called Sheri’s. My sister Beth was good friends with their daughter Sheri. After the Simons left, a doctor named Platt moved in, who had celebrity girlfriends like Barbara Lawrence.

The next house was the Jensens’. Beth and I played with their kids, Tony and Susan. I can’t remember them very well, but others lived there too, like The Sportsmen, the four singers of the Jack Benny show. I recall when their car, a convertible, had its top slit open and all their tuxedos were stolen.

The next house was owned by the Jacksons: John (Jono to us), Lil, and daughter Prudy. They had a black lab named Jack who swam every day with Lil. Jono used to have his glider plane towed over Topanga and then fly in circles over our houses.

Next came the house of actor Richard Hayden. I remember his ugly dog and his English accent. He sold quite early to Joe and Dorothy Lilley, after they lost their house in the fire.

Next was the old bathhouse, by then converted into apartments. You could still see the painted "Bathhouse" sign on the side of the building. There was a mysterious tunnel, 10 or 15 feet long, behind it. The Scotts lived there with three children: older sister Mimi, younger sister Kitty, and brother Bill Lacey (from another marriage). Child actor Butch Jenkins lived downstairs for a while, followed by Western actor Tim Holt. The next family who lived there after the Scotts were the Harrisons (who had previously lived further up the beach). The father (Gramps?) had two sons, Ted and Freddie, who surfed. Gramps gave me a Waikiki redwood and balsa surfboard when I was about 12 which I loved and learned to surf on. 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.

Next to the old bathhouse was the Downs house. I hardly knew them but recall them as a middle-aged and quite refined couple.

Then, after a couple houses, was the Roach family. Their house was a large two-story stucco house, white with yellow trim. I used to play with Tony and his younger brother Timmy, and I have a fleeting memory of their mother who I thought was very pretty.

Next were married opera singers Lucille Norman and Bruce Kellogg.

The next house (or two houses over) belonged to actress Fanny Brice. She was quite famous as Baby Snooks on the radio and also made a movie or two. I’m not sure I ever saw her but she was well known on the beach. Actress Ann Dvorak lived there after Fanny.

Two or three houses past that lived actress Dolores Johnson, actor John Derek’s mother.

The Sykes family lived near there: Sherman, Gladys, and their children Dave, Beverly, and Jack.

Going further west, the houses are too vague and unclear in my memory. I do recall a younger kid named Lawrence Costa who I used to play with from time to time. His father was a painter.

The last house before the lagoon belonged to the Maier family, who owned a large brewery in downtown LA. Their house was surrounded by ice plant instead of sand and was the last house on West Topanga Beach Road.

When the Los Angeles Athletic Club suddenly raised our rent from $20 to $100, my dad sold our cabin. He also didn't like that I was going there at night with my friends. We left in 1954. A woman bought the cabin and rented it to actor Bobby Driscoll.