Hollywood "Fixer" & Studio Executive Eddie Mannix 1963 Holy Cross Cemetery

Joseph Edgar Allen John "Eddie" Mannix (February 25, 1891 – August 30, 1963) was an American film studio executive and producer. He is remembered for his work protecting Hollywood stars as a "fixer," a person paid to disguise details of the stars' often colorful private lives to maintain their public image.[1] Among his most lasting contributions to Hollywood was a ledger he maintained that lists the costs and revenues of every MGM film produced between 1924 and 1962, an important reference for film historians.

Clark Gable, Robert Taylor, and Eddie Mannix

Career

Mannix was born in Fort Lee, New Jersey, the son of John and Lizzie (née Striker) Mannix. Christened Joseph Edgar Allen John Mannix, he used Edgar Joseph Mannix as his official name, but was known to most associates as Eddie. After working as a bouncer and then treasurer of the Palisades Amusement Park, he became involved in motion picture exhibition, eventually working his way up to general manager and vice-president of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), becoming known as a "fixer," going on to help Spencer Tracy avoid a jailbait morals rap, getting a drunken Clark Gable out of a hit-and-run driving rap, etc.[2][3]

Toni Mannix and George Reeves

Mannix was tangentially associated with the death of actor George Reeves, the star of the Adventures of Superman television series.[4] Reeves had begun having an affair with Mannix's wife Toni in 1951.[5] Mannix reportedly approved of the affair, which was considered an open secret in Hollywood, as he was involved in a long-time affair with a Japanese woman.[6] As all three were Catholics and did not believe in divorce, the arrangement continued for the next several years.[5] Reeves ended the affair in early 1959 and soon became engaged to socialite Leonore Lemmon, which devastated Toni. Reeves died of a gunshot wound to the head at his home on June 16, 1959. His death was ruled a suicide, but controversy surrounding that ruling and the circumstances of his death began. Rumors arose that Mannix, who was also rumored to have had mafia connections, had Reeves killed for hurting his wife.[7]

Toni and Eddie Mannix

Personal life

Mannix was married twice and had no children. He married Bernice Fitzmaurice in 1916. Mannix had numerous affairs during the marriage but the couple remained married due to their Catholicism.[8] However, in late 1937, Bernice petitioned for divorce claiming that Mannix physically abused her and also cited the affairs. Before the divorce was officially filed, Bernice died in a car accident outside Palm Springs, California on November 18, 1937.[9]

Bernice Fitzmaurice Mannix

Toni Lanier Mannix

After Bernice's death, Mannix began living with actress and Ziegfeld Follies dancer Toni Lanier with whom he had been having an affair. They married in May 1951 and remained married until Mannix's death in 1963.[10] After her marriage to Mannix, Lanier met and began an affair with George Reeves, with the acquiescence of her husband, according to Reeves' co-stars Noel Neill and Jack Larson.[11] The affair was ended by Reeves in 1959. His death by gunshot wound to the head five months later was officially ruled a suicide, although questions have been raised about the circumstances under which he died. Kashner and Schoenberger's partially fictionalized biography Hollywood Kryptonite states as unsourced fact that Lanier, via her husband's criminal connections, ordered Reeves murdered.[12] This theory was endorsed by publicist Edward Lozzi, who stated in 1999 that he had witnessed Toni's deathbed confession.[12]

Eddie and Toni Mannix

Later years and death

Mannix suffered from poor health due to a weak heart for a number of years. By 1959, he had survived several heart attacks and was confined to a wheelchair.[6] On August 30, 1963, he died of a heart attack at his Beverly Hills home at the age of 72.[13] He is buried at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, Los Angeles County.[10]

In popular culture

Bob Hoskins portrayed Mannix in the 2006 biographical film Hollywoodland, based on the life and death of Adventures of Superman actor George Reeves, played in the film by Ben Affleck.[14]

Bob Hoskins as Eddie Mannix

In June 2014, Universal Pictures announced they had acquired the rights to distribute Hail, Caesar!, a heavily fictionalized comedic film very loosely based on Mannix's career. Hail, Caesar! was released on February 5, 2016.[14][15] Joel and Ethan Coen wrote and directed the film, and Josh Brolin portrayed Mannix.[16] The film contains several references to real-life Hollywood history, but the Mannix character depicted is patriarch of a quiet family with two children and a doting housemaker wife (portrayed by Alison Pill). Although the film character is depicted as Eddie like the real Mannix, at least one shot of his office door reveals his first name to be Edward.

Josh Brolin as Eddie Mannix

Eddie Mannix is a minor character in the Gore Vidal novel Myron.

Eddie Mannix is Louis B. Mayer’s right hand man in "When Garbo Talks!" a 2010 world premiere musical at Long Beach Performing Arts Center where LB and Eddie trick Swedish director Mauritz Stiller into bringing Greta Garbo to Hollywood as a contract player for MGM. [17][18]

References

1. "Mickey Rooney's amazing sex life". The Telegraph. 
2. Eyman, Scott (23 June 2008). Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer. Simon and Schuster. p. 130. ISBN 978-1-4391-0791-1. 
3. Slate Magazine article "The Fixer: MGM’s Eddie Mannix and the lives he ruined" by Karina Longworth, Nov. 2015 
4. Signature Entertainment Memorabilia Auction. Heritage Capital Corporation. 2006. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-59967-036-2. 
5. Tye, Larry (2013). Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero. Random House Trade Paperbacks. p. 153. ISBN 0-812-98077-8. 
6. Wood, Gaby (January 11, 2015). "Was the original Superman typecast to death?". telegraph.co.uk. 
7. "Who killed Superman?". theguardian.com. November 17, 2006.
8. Fleming, E. J. (2004). The Fixers: Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling and the MGM Publicity Machine. McFarland. pp. 24–25. ISBN 0-786-45495-4. 
9. (Fleming 2004, pp. 173–174) 
10. "Edgar Mannix is Dead' Retired MGM Veteran". Motion Picture Herald. Associated Publications. September 9, 1963. 
11. Ward, Larry Thomas. Truth, Justice, and The American Way: The Life and Times of Noel Neill, The Original Lois Lane, Nicholas Lawrence Books, 2003. ISBN 0-9729466-0-8. p. 83 
12. Who killed Superman?, John Patterson, The Guardian, November 18, 2006 
13. "End Of An Era". The Evening Independent. August 31, 1963. pp. 3–A. 
14. Childs, Ben (June 10, 2014). "Josh Brolin joins George Clooney for Coen brothers' Hail Caesar". theguardian.com. 
15. Blake, Emily (October 29, 2014). "George Clooney's Coen brothers comedy 'Hail, Caesar!' gets February 2016 release". ew.com. 
16. Bahr, Lindsey (June 9, 2014). "Josh Brolin to star with George Clooney in Coen brothers' 'Hail, Caesar!'". ew.com. 
17. http://whengarbotalks.com/index.html 
18. http://whengarbotalks.com/index.html

Silver Dollar Cafe - Ruben Salazar Death Location Today

On August 29, 1970, Rubén Salazar (March 3, 1928 – August 29, 1970) was covering the National Chicano Moratorium March, organized to protest the disproportionate number of Chicanos killed in the Vietnam War. The peaceful march ended with a rally that was broken up by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department using tear gas. Panic and rioting ensued, during which Salazar was shot in the head at short range with a tear gas projectile while seated in The Silver Dollar Cafe.[5] A coroner's inquest ruled the shooting a homicide, but the sheriff's deputy involved, Tom Wilson, was never prosecuted. At the time many believed the homicide was a premeditated assassination of a prominent, vocal member of the Los Angeles Chicano community.

The riot started when the owners of the Green Mill liquor store, located around the corner from the Silver Dollar Bar on Whittier Boulevard called in a complaint about people stealing from them. Deputies responded and a fight broke out. Later on that day cadets from the nearby Sheriff's Academy were bussed to then marched into the park. A fight ensued with the untrained cadets being beaten up. This led to more rioting. The Green Mill liquor store is still located at the same place on Whittier Boulevard. The owners later denied contacting the Sheriff's Department.

The L.A. Times columnist was resting in the Silver Dollar Bar after the Vietnam War protest became violent. According to a witness "Ruben Salazar had just sat down to sip a quiet beer at the bar, away from the madness in the street, when a deputy --ignoring the pleas of a woman outside who begged him not to shoot-- fired a tear gas projectile" at a crowd which went into the interior dimness of the bar, hitting Salazar in the head and killing him instantly. The sheriff’s deputy fired a 10-inch wall-piercing type of tear gas round (for use in barricaded situations) from a tear gas gun, rather than the type of tear gas round designed to be fired directly at people (which produces a plume of tear gas smoke). The Sheriff's deputy was found to have mistakenly loaded the wrong type of tear gas round. The 10-inch tear gas rounds of both types were identical in size and shape and a tear gas gun is extremely inaccurate beyond about twenty yards.

The story of Salazar's killing gained nationwide notoriety with the release of "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," an article written for Rolling Stone magazine by gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson and released on April 29, 1971 in Rolling Stone #81. In February 2011 the Office of Independent Review released a report of its examination of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department records on the death of Salazar. After reviewing thousands of documents, the civilian watchdog agency concluded there is no evidence that sheriff's deputies intentionally targeted Salazar or had him under surveillance.

Journalist Ruben Salazar ACCIDENTAL DEATH(?) 1970 Pacific View Cemetery

Ruben Salazar (March 3, 1928 – August 29, 1970)[1] was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, the first Mexican-American journalist from mainstream media to cover the Chicano community.[2]

Salazar died during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War on August 29, 1970, in East Los Angeles, California. An investigation determined that his death was accidental, after Salazar was struck by a tear-gas projectile fired by a Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy. No criminal charge was filed, but Salazar's family reached an out-of- court financial settlement with the county.[2]

Early life

Born in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Salazar was brought to the United States with his family in 1929. Salazar began his U.S. naturalization process on October 15, 1947, when he submitted his application for a certificate of arrival and preliminary form for a declaration of intention of citizenship.

Career

After high school, he served in the U.S. Army for two years. Salazar attended the Texas Western College, graduating in 1954 with a degree in journalism. He obtained a job as an investigative journalist at the now-defunct El Paso Herald-Post; at one point he posed as a vagrant to get arrested while he investigated the poor treatment of prisoners in the El Paso jail. After his tenure at the Herald-Post, Salazar worked at several California newspapers, including the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.[2][3]

Salazar was a news reporter and columnist for the Los Angeles Times from 1959 to 1970.[4] During his career, Salazar became one of the most prominent figures within the Chicano movement. He served as a foreign correspondent in his early years at the Times, covering the 1965 United States occupation of the Dominican Republic, the Vietnam War, and the Tlatelolco massacre (the latter while serving as the Times' bureau chief in Mexico City).

When Salazar returned to the US in 1968, he focused on the Mexican-American community and the Chicano movement, writing about East Los Angeles, an area largely ignored by the media except for coverage of crimes. He became the first Chicano journalist to cover the ethnic group while working in a large general circulation publication. Many of his pieces were critical of the Los Angeles government's treatment of Chicanos, particularly after he came into conflict with police during the East L.A. walkouts.[2]

In January 1970, Salazar left the Times to serve as the news director for the Spanish language television station KMEX in Los Angeles. At KMEX, he investigated allegations of police officers' planting evidence to implicate Chicanos and the July 1970 police shooting of two unarmed Mexican nationals. According to Salazar, he was visited by undercover LAPD detectives who warned him that his investigations were "dangerous in the minds of barrio people."[2]

Support for Chicano movement

Salazar's strong support for the Chicano movement as a Mexican-American distinguished him early on from other journalists in mainstream media. With a strong disparity of racial minorities in news organizations nationwide, Salazar felt it was his personal and professional responsibility to give necessary attention to the actions led by his fellow Chicanos in East Los Angeles. In February 1970, just six months prior to his death, Salazar made his support for the Chicano movement particularly clear when he authored an article in the Los Angeles Times, titled, "Who Is A Chicano? And What Is It the Chicanos Want?" In this piece, Salazar not only describes the evolving identity of Chicanos and the historic importance of the movement, but he details his frustration with the lack of Mexican-American representation among the elected representatives in the Los Angeles city council. Salazar writes, "Mexican-Americans, though large in numbers, are so politically impotent that in Los Angeles, where the country's largest single concentration of Spanish-speaking live, they have no one of their own on the City Council. This in a city politically sophisticated enough to have three Negro council-men."[5]

Death

On August 29, 1970, he was covering the National Chicano Moratorium March, organized to protest the Vietnam War, in which some believed that a disproportionate number of Latinos served and were killed. The march ended with a rally that was broken up by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department using tear gas. Panic and rioting ensued.[6] A coroner's inquest ruled the shooting of the tear gas canister a homicide, but Tom Wilson, the sheriff's deputy involved, was never prosecuted. At the time, many believed the homicide was a premeditated assassination of a prominent, vocal member of the Los Angeles Chicano community.

The riot started when the owners of the Green Mill liquor store, located around the corner from the Silver Dollar Bar on Whittier Boulevard, called in a complaint about people stealing from them. Deputies responded and a fight broke out. Later on that day, cadets from the nearby Sheriff's Academy were bused to the area and marched into the park. A fight ensued, with the untrained cadets being beaten up. This led to more rioting. The Green Mill liquor store is still located at the same place on Whittier Boulevard. The owners later denied contacting the Sheriff's Department.

Salazar was resting in the Silver Dollar Bar after protest became violent. According to a witness, "Ruben Salazar had just sat down to sip a quiet beer at the bar, away from the madness in the street, when a deputy fired a tear gas projectile" at a crowd which went into the interior of the bar, hitting Salazar in the head and killing him instantly. The sheriff's deputy fired a 10-inch wall-piercing type of tear gas round from a tear gas guns of the type intended for barricade situation, rather than the type of tear gas round designed to be fired directly at people (which produces a plume of tear gas smoke). The deputy was found to have mistakenly loaded the wrong type of tear gas round, as the two types of cylinders were nearly identical.

The story of Salazar's killing was the subject of "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," a 1971 article by gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson for Rolling Stone magazine.[7] In February 2011 the Office of Independent Review released a report of its examination of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department records on the death of Salazar. After reviewing thousands of documents, the civilian watchdog agency concluded there is no evidence that sheriff's deputies intentionally targeted Salazar or had him under surveillance.[8]

Although sheriff's deputy Thomas Wilson was identified as responsible for Salazar’s death, he said that “he did not know, and under the circumstances was not concerned about, what kind of tear gas projectile he fired” at the time.[9] After several days of testimony, a coroner's jury returned with a split verdict, and no charges were filed by the District Attorney. Nevertheless, three years after Salazar’s death, Los Angeles County reached a settlement of $700,000 with Salazar’s family as a result of the sheriff’s department not using “proper and lawful guidelines for the use of deadly force” during the march. At the time, this was the highest settlement recorded in Los Angeles county history.

Ruben Salazar is interred at Pacific View Memorial Park in Corona del Mar.

Legacy and honors

Salazar was a two-time winner of the Greater Los Angeles Press Club Award and in 1965 was presented with an award from the Equal Opportunity Foundation.[10][11] 

In 1971, Salazar was posthumously awarded a special Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.[12] 

After the controversy related to his death had subsided, Laguna Park, site of the 1970 rally and subsequent police action, was renamed Salazar Park in his honor.[13] 

His death was commemorated in a corrido by Lalo Guerrero entitled "El 29 de Agosto."[14] 

A classroom building at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA) is named for him. On October 12, 2006, the hall was rededicated with the unveiling of his portrait by John Martin. 

At Sonoma State University, the former library, now an administration and classroom building, is named for Ruben Salazar, in memory of his work in Sonoma County as a reporter for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

On October 5, 2007, the United States Postal Service announced that it would honor five journalists of the 20th century with first-class rate postage stamps, to be issued on Tuesday, April 22, 2008: Martha Gellhorn, John Hersey, George Polk, Ruben Salazar, and Eric Sevareid.[15] 

A documentary about Salazar by Phillip Rodriguez entitled Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle was broadcast on PBS television on 29 April 2014.[16][17]

References

1. "NNDB". NNDB.com.
2. Juan Gonzalez (August 31, 2010). "Slain Latino Journalist Rubén Salazar, Killed 40 Years Ago in Police Attack". DemocracyNow.org. 
3. Gustavo Reveles Acosta (August 29, 2010). "Ruben Salazar killing left impact on Hispanics, journalism". El Paso Times. 
4. Pilar Marrero, "Homenaje al periodista angelino Rubén Salazar," La Opinión Newspaper, 22 April 2008. 
5. "Who Is A Chicano? And What Is It The Chicanos Want?". Los Angeles Times. February 6, 1970. p. B7. 
6. Chavez, Ernesto (2002). Mi Raza Primero! (My People First!): Nationalism, Identity, and Insurgency in the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978. University of California Press. p. 70. 
7. Perry, Paul (2004). Fear and Loathing: The Strange and Terrible Saga of Hunter S. Thompson. Thunder's Mouth Press. pp. 153–54. ISBN 1-56025-605-2. 
8. Robert J. Lopez (February 19, 2011). "No evidence Ruben Salazar was targeted in killing, report says". Los Angeles Times. 
9. Dave Smith and Paul Houston, "Deputy Says He Did Not Know Kind of Missile," Los Angeles Times, October 6, 1970. 
10. "Three Times Reporters Win Awards". Los Angeles Times. June 25, 1965. p. A8. 
11. "Times Assigns Second Reporter to Vietnam". Los Angeles Times. August 8, 1965. p. A1. 
12. Notable Latino Americans: a biographical dictionary by Matt S. Meier, Conchita Franco Serri, Richard A. Garcia. Greenwood Press, 1997 ISBN 0-313-29105-5 
13. Laura Pulido; Laura Barraclough; Wendy Cheng (2012). A People's Guide to Los Angeles. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 4. ISBN 9780520270817. 
14. Radio station KPCC 
15. Sheryl Kornman (September 28, 2007). "UA educator succeeds in getting stamp for Hispanic journalist". Tucson Citizen. 
16. Documentary on Life, Not Death, of Ruben Salazar ABC News, 2014-04-29. 
17. Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle PBS, 2014-04-29.

"The Spruce Goose" Designer Richard Barzen Murrow 2002 Westwood Village Cemetery

Richard Barzen Murrow (December 18, 1912 - August 29, 2002) led the design team to make the Howard Hughes HK-1 Flying Boat, popularly called "The Spruce Goose." He was born in Independence, Montgomery County, Kansas. 

Richard Barzen Murrow died in Los Angeles and is buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California.