Located in Anaheim, California, Spradrom Estates was a $7.5 million development of 486 homes that broke ground in 1956. It’s still there. Hundreds of housing developments were built across the Southern California landscape in the post-World War II housing boom of the 1950s and 1960s. Like most housing developments of that period, Spadrom’s original name… Continue reading Cheap and Easy Dreams: Spadrom Estates and Herbert Heftler
Category: Things You’ve Never Heard Of
No Down Payment (1957)
No Down Payment begins peppy and optimistic as the two central characters, a couple, move to Sunrise Hills, a Southern California suburb. Things turn dark quickly. This is pure John Cheever and Raymond Carver and Mad Men all tossed together. No Down Payment is not a perfect movie, and the ending has a bit of… Continue reading No Down Payment (1957)
Nutri-Bio: Forgotten MLM Supplements Scheme
Long-forgotten supplements company that grossed $30 million per year.
When TV D.A. William Talman Got Busted For Narcotics and Lewd Vagrancy
1960 scandal involving TV actor William Talman and seven others at a West Hollywood apartment.
Charles McGraw’s Freakishly Sad and Incongruous Death
Charles McGraw (1914-1980) was the squarest jawed of all square-jawed Hollywood actors of the golden period, always playing a tough guy of some sort: police lieutenants and sergeants, rear admirals, sheriffs, captains, gladiators. If you were a casting director and you needed a certain granite-like face with oversized features, plus a steely demeanor to match,… Continue reading Charles McGraw’s Freakishly Sad and Incongruous Death