Category Archives: Snapshots & Fragments

Randome photos

Who is the twirler?

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The following is an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry for the film A Face in the Crowd, a 1957 film starring Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal and Walter Matthau, directed by Elia Kazan.

“Most of the film’s interiors were shot in New York at the Biograph Studios in the Bronx. The most involved location shoot was in Piggott, Arkansas (the fair and baton-twirling competition scenes). Five thousand extras were sought, to be fed and paid $1 hourly for a mid-August day’s work. Sixty baton twirlers were rounded up from NE Arkansas and SE Missouri, and musicians from six different high school bands were assembled. Remick reported spending two weeks in Piggott living with teen twirler Amanda Robinson and her family, working on her twirling and local accent. Some of her baton twirling scenes used a double. At the Piggott location shoot some 380 dogs were assembled from Missouri and Arkansas for the scene following Rhodes’ first mass-action call on his audience: to take their dogs to the home of a local sheriff who was running for higher office – Rhodes opining that people should first find out if a candidate is worthy of the office of ‘dog catcher’.”

I was nine years old in 1957 and not much interested the movies. But it sounds like the location shooting in Piggott was a pretty big deal. I struggled to identify the twirler and finally concluded it was Sandra Wirth, even though she isn’t listed in the cast on iMDB. Now I’m wondering if it might be Amanda Robinson.

UPDATE January 17, 2021: Thanks to John Carpenter for some much needed research on this photo.

“That photo, taken mid-August 1956 in Piggott, is indeed “Miss Florida 1955” and actress Sandra “Sandy” Wirth.

“Hollywood Reporter news items add the following actors to the cast: Sandra Wirth, Lloyd Bergen, Jay Sidney, Eva Vaughn, John McGovern, Kitty Dolan, Sandee Preston, Gus Thorner, Beverly Boatwright, Jane Baier and Gloria Mosolino.”

“I also looked up Amanda Robinson. There’s a brief article (New York Daily News – Thursday, September 20, 1956) on her and the two other local girls who made it into the film, and were even flown to New York to film a few scenes. All of them (despite the fuzzy photo) are brunettes:”

Here for a Twirl in the Movies. Three baton-carrying, 16-year-old Southern belles arriving at LaGuardia Field yesterday are (I. to r.), Suzanne Ballard, Amanda Robinson and Bunny McCollum. The gals, all from Piggott, Ark., will be in town for two weeks during the filming of new movie. They will play the parts of drum majorettes in the picture.

Jefferson City: 1920’s

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The two photos below are hanging (with 8 or 10 others) on the wall of a little cafe in Jefferson City, MO. I’ve noticed them before and recall thinking I’d like to scan them but they’re framed and (probably) bolted to the wall. This morning I remembered the PhotoScan app I recently added decided to give it a try. No bad. No glare from the glass. I’ll get some more when the place is less busy.

High Street is where the Coffee Zone is located (not on the block shown). The interior shot is the cafe.

John Mays

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This photo was in an album my mother put together so I can assume this is a member of the family. Based on stamp on reverse, the photo was processed (and shot?) in Brookfield, Missouri, where my father grew up. He was born January 21, 1926 (in Elmira, New York) so he appears to be two or three years old in this photo. Let’s go with three.

The Great Depression started in 1929 (and lasted until 1939) and I recall my mother mentioning that my father’s family had a very tough time during those years. Like lots of folks. I don’t recall my father ever talking about growing up during the Depression. Nor my mom, except to say her family had it a bit easier because they lived on a farm and could grow most of their own food.

Their generation lived through The Great Depression and World War II. Chapters in a history book for me but day-to-day life for them. Seeing photos from that time makes it a bit more real.

Junior High basketball team

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My buddy John and I were two of five seventh graders that ‘made’ the junior high basketball team. (Sorry, can’t remember the other three) I remember this as a Very Big Deal at the time. I also remember that I wasn’t a very good basketball player. I didn’t handle the ball well and I wasn’t much of a shot. I was selected solely on the basis of “hustle.”

Coaches love hustle. They believe they can teach you how to be a better ball handler and improve your shooting skills… but they can’t give you that special mojo known as hustle. You have it or you don’t.

What Coach Proctor mistook for hustle in that skinny white boy was a near-pathological need to please this new male authority figure in my life. Throw myself headlong onto the hardwood floor? No problemo. Run “potato races” (sometimes known as “behind the lines”) until my lungs burst? I can do that.

None of which contributed very much to the final score but coaches know they need some of this second-string fire to keep the good players pushed (nudged?).

As I got older I discovered I could have much more fun in a pickup game at the park. Which is where I met Freddie B who lived in near-by public housing and played wearing rubber flip-flops. Freddie didn’t hustle. And he didn’t miss. From anywhere on the court. Swish.

These days, as I allow myself to move with the Tao, I sometimes flow, but I don’t hustle.

My first steps?

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Another never-before-seen photo from the recently discovered Mystery Photo Album. My mother had written “first steps” on the border of the photo. I was born in March and it looks like I’m about one year old here so, spring of 1949? Tried to remove the crease but it looked worse so I left it. This is as close to time travel as I’ll get.

John and Evelyn (March, 1946)

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I’ve read that memories are not retrieved or recalled but recreated. Sort of recompiled, changing slightly each time. Is a photo a memory? Only if I took the photo, was there to experience the moment captured. Is a photo history? Arguably more accurate than the one my brain creates.

I’m not headed anywhere with this, just rambling. These two photos are of my mother and father (and an unidentified friend). Probably taken sometime in 1946. My father was discharged from the Navy on March 9, 1946. He married my mother on March 23, 1946. So, as mom often claimed, they knew each other for two weeks before taking the plunge. This suggests the photos below were taken in March of 1946.

I can never know the people in these photos. What that time was like for them. This is as close as I will ever come. One instant in time (two in this case). Where were they? How long had they known each other. When/where/how did they meet? Who took the photos and why? Then again, maybe it’s better not to know. We can create our own histories, which we do in any event.

For me There is powerful magic in old photos. Even if I don’t know the people.

RKO Pictures

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rko-tower

Wikipedia: “RKO has long been celebrated for its series of musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the mid-to-late 1930s. Actors Katharine Hepburn and, later, Robert Mitchum had their first major successes at the studio. Cary Grant was a mainstay for years. The work of producer Val Lewton’s low-budget horror unit and RKO’s many ventures into the field now known as film noir have been acclaimed, largely after the fact, by film critics and historians. The studio produced two of the most famous films in motion picture history: King Kong and Citizen Kane. RKO Pictures is also a member of Motion Picture Association of America.”

This image brings back lots of great memories from my childhood.