Elvis at the Arena

November 23, 1956, Elvis played the Arena. One of these days I will document the Moondog Coronation Ball (1952) in some detail ... or at least spread more specious rumors. Regardless, the Arena was an all-purpose venue, the site where boxing legend Sugar Ray Robinson murdered Jimmy Doyle in the sixth (literally, as it turned out) and the Cleveland Barons played hockey.

On Halloween night, 1956, the Cleveland Newspaper Guild went on strike, bringing to an abrupt halt the publication of all three Cleveland papers -- the Press, News and Plain Dealer. At the top of his game, Elvis Presley storms into town. His first movie, Love Me Tender had opened a week earlier, and the theme song was on top of the charts. No. 2 that week was Don't Be Cruel.

There wasn't a single Cleveland paper covering the concert.

Well, there was one paper covering the event. The Black and Gold sent its star photographer, seventeen year-old Lew Allen to cover the concert. Yes, that's right -- the Heights High School newspaper.

The show did not begin punctually at 8 PM that night as advertised. Excited fans were left waiting for fifteen minutes before Elvis took the stage. Legend has it he was receiving a phone call from a very ill and disappointed, ticket-holding girl who was in the hospital, and he just chatted with her for a while to try and make her feel better. Believe it or not, that's the story Lew Allen himself told, and has a picture of Elvis backstage on the phone as proof.

Allen went on to study photography at the Rochester Institute of Art, and went on a rock and roll tour in 1958, take great photographs of Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, Frankie Avalon, Duane Eddy, Bobby Darin, the Hollywood Flames and others.

The Cleveland Arena and Elvis Presley were demolished in 1977.

Hockey stick.

Sources: Elvis Australia
ScottyMoore.net

See also: Elvis Presley at Brooklyn High (1955)

Game Four

Cleveland News
October 2, 1954

Says it all.

Spaeth on "The Crucible"

Also not from The Crucible

SHOW TIME

“Crucible” Looses With (sic) Hunt In Euclid-77th Play House
By Arthur Spaeth
Cleveland News, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 1954

In "The Crucible", being given stirring, disturbing life in the Euclid-77th Play House these nights, Playwright Arthur Miller has turned the pages of American history to strike a parallel with our times in the infamous witch trials of Salem, circa 1692.

It is not new to see Justice dramatized for us as a woman with bandaged eyes, being prodded and pressured into blind confusion by self-seeking men twisting truth and disregarding the rights of free men.

Cleveland’s Karamu theater is now showing us such a world in the sixth century before Christ when a wise Socrates must die because witch-hunting Athenian politicos elect him their expedient victim. There is brutally clear parallel with our hour in Maxwell Anderson’s “Barefoot In Athens.”

Hysterical Salem

And the parallel is implicit and as ominous in Miller’s angry poetic parable. The good and pious people of Salem trade sanity and reason for mass hysteria to accuse and hang helpless citizens as witches because of the tantrums of some silly Puritan girls.

I have said that such pictures of our imperfect world have been dramatized again and again. That is reportorial and not editorial. I meant no implication that there have been too many such plays or that our dramatists have gone overboard in rallying the theater to speak out against social cancer.

Alas, the contrary is too true. There can’t be too many such dramas. On hasty inventory, the writers in our theater today who have the courage to try to more than just entertain us can be counted on the fingers. Come to think of it, the fingers of one hand.

Lies & Gallows

Don’t get me wrong about Mr. Miller’s drama. It is no soapbox oration. The playwright does not cup his hand to your ear and demand you catch a modern echo. There is no ranting insistence that there, but for the Puritan garb, musical speech and 262 years, go you.

No, he trusts audience perceptivity and conscience as he looks into the lives of hard-working farmer John Proctor, Good Wife Elizabeth Proctor and their respected friends that are twisted to horror by the prattle of some silly girls.

At first the lies of the harpies seem too absurd but soon their splattering taint have become truth and the Proctors and others are tried and convicted of witchcraft in the Salem Meeting House. When doubt of its justice disturbs the court, John Proctor is offered the chance to save his neck by confessing to the lie of guilt. His refusal brings the roll of the drums beside the gallows.

No 'Death of a Salesman'

This is for the most part powerful and effective drama. But it is by no means on the lofty level with Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.” There is a vagrant feeling that the author tried to compress too much shrill action and to crowd too many characters into his scenes. He achieves the hysteria of the witch hunt to the detriment of his forte for character insight.

You do not understand John Proctor and Goodie Proctor as you did Willy Loman and the wife who ate her heart out for her man. The other characters are largely the author’s chorus stepping out of the ensemble only long enough for each to contribute his single phrase to the collective insanity of the witch hunt. But for all this, “The Crucible” demands and gets your will to believe and be moved.

In this the author has zealous and artful collaboration in Frederic McConnell's staging and the excellent company with which he has peopled the Euclid-77th Salem.

Kirk Willis and Eve Roberts as John and Elizabeth Proctor ring wonder into those quiet scenes when they are alone on the stage. Rolf Englehardt’s with-hunting cleric who discovers too late the monster he has helped loose is pretty special, too. And that goes for William Paterson’s righteous deputy governor-inquisitor. Helen Watkins and Robert Allman as victims of the inquisition inject high spirit into their roles and Max Ellis’ malicious parson and Frank Stevens’ evil parishioner do the author and play no harm. And there’s Jane Squibb’s impure Puritan whose lies loose hell in Salem town. There is competence everywhere in the large cast.

And speaking of acting, that impressionistic setting by William McCreary, a framework of stained beams, is artfully primitive early American in pretending to be four varied locales in Salem of 1692.

So much for witch hunting in the Euclid-77th Play House, save an urgent, SEE IT!

Satchel Paige

Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige (July 7, 1906 – June 8, 1982) may have been born anywhere between 1900 and 1908. He may have gotten his nickname as a young baggage-handler from jerry rigging a pole to carry four bags at once — or because he was once caught swiping a suitcase. Depends on who you ask.

Satchel was born in Mobile, Alabama. Entering reform school for shoplifting at the age of 12, he was mentored by Edward Byrd who taught him his loping pitching style. Released early from a five year gig, Satchel went semi-pro. As was common in those days, especially for Black players, he played wherever and whenever he could, not only for the team he had a contract with, but off-season games (in Cuba, for example) and “barnstorming” where you might often get to watch a mixed-race game. In 1931 he played for the Cleveland Cubs as part of the Negro League. 

Playing in a city that also had a white, professional team, had an effect on Paige.

"I'd look over at the Cleveland Indians' stadium, called League Park. All season long it burned me, playing there in the shadow of that stadium. It didn't hurt my pitching, but it sure didn't do me any good."

In 1936 Paige was playing for the Pittsburgh Crawfords.

The Cleveland News - Friday, July 3
Colored Aces to Play Here Sunday

Negro National League baseball will return to Cleveland Sunday with a double-header at League Park between the Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords, for years two of the strongest clubs in the loop.

Satchel Paige of the Crawfords rated the biggest crowd pleaser among the colored ball players is expected to pitch one of the two games here. He humiliated the Homestead team two years ago before 12,000 fans, turning them back without a hit.

As a member of the Negro League All-Stars he also barnstormed in Cleveland that summer, facing off against 17 year-old Bob Feller. Each pitched three innings, giving up one hit. Feller struck out eight, Paige seven.

In 1948 at the age of 42, Satchel Paige joined the Cleveland Indians. He is the oldest rookie in the history of the Major Leagues.

Sources:
Wikipedia
The Cleveland News

The Harvard Club Raid

Federal Bureau of Investigation
John Edgar Hoover, Director
May 12, 1936

MEMORANDUM FOR THE DIRECTOR

Re: Police Corruption in CLEVELAND, OHIO.
On January 10, 1936, the Prosecutor's Office of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, raided the Harvard Club. The Bueau has made no independent investigation concerning this raid, but slippings from the January 11, 1936 issue of the Cleveland Press discloses that John Sulzman, Sheriff of Cuyahoga County, took no part in the raid; that the County Prosecutor enlisted the cooperation and aid of twenty-five private detectives and armed with search warrants endeavored to serve such warrants at the Harvard Club.

They were met with formidable resistance, however, by Jimmy Patton, who threatened to "mow down" the raiding party with machine guns and held the raiding party at bay for six hours, during which time all the gambling equipment at the Harvard Club was moved away by trucks. It was finally necessary for the Safety Director of Cleveland to proceed to the Harvard Club, located just outside city limits, with a party of policemen to gain entrance to the Club.

This action was necessary because the Sheriff, when called by the Prosecutor's raiding party for aid, refused to send assistance, even though his office was notified that the Prosecutor's raiding party had been threatened with machine guns. It is evident, therefore, that the proprietors of the Harvard Club were closely connected with politicians and those in power in Cleveland.

It is desired to point out particularly the "hard boiled" attitude assumed by James "Shimmy" Patton, who threatened to "mow down" the raiding party. The newspapers setting forth this information are probably correct in the attitutde which was assumed by Patton as well be shown herein below:

[[TWO PAGES ARE REDACTED]]
On February 24, 1936, Mr. W.G. Harper, Operative in Charge of the United States Secret Service, Treasury Department, Cleveland, Ohio, was interview by Special Agent [[redacted]] Mr. Harper stated that when the Harvard Club was closed by the local authorities information is to the effect that the raid was so planned as to give Elliot (sic) Ness, recently appointed Safety Director of Cleveland, a political buildup.

The Cleveland newspapers have given a great deal of publicity to the raid and to the fact that Sheriff John M. Sulzmann refused to come to the aid of County Prosecutor Frank T. Cullitan, when Cullitan found it impossible to gain entrance into the Harvard Club. A news item appearing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, dated January 11, 1936 is quoted as follows:

"For nearly six hours last night operators of the Harvard Club held County Prosecutor Frank T. Cullitan, his staff and twenty special constables at bay after they appeared at the expensive gambling resort in Newburg heights to raid it simultaneously with a surprise attack on the Thomas Club in Maple heights, which yielded without resistance.

From sunset until nearly 11 last night the prosecutor and his force of men were repulsed by threats from the operators of the Harvard Club to 'mow down' the constables with machine guns if they tried to batter in the doors.

The Harvard Club was stormed only after Safety Director Eliot Ness, acting, he said, 'as a private citizen,' took several police squads to the prosecutor's aid.

Cullitan pleaded in vain for help from the city police department and from Sulzmann, the country's chief law enforcement officer."

Entrance having been finally gained after a six hour seige, the prosecutor and his deputies found that all of the gambling equipment had been removed by the aid of trucks. The paper goes on to state that after entrance had been gained "Hebebrand and his aids walked into the money-counting room of the club on the pretext of getting their hats and coats, and escaped by climbing through a small window near the roof of the resort, and dropping ten feet to the ground outside."

The paper continues -

"A few minutes later Sheriff Sulzmann, ill in bed at his home, sent word to Cullitan, the prosecutor said, that he would not send aid or protection unless it was requested by Mayor Jerry Sticha of Newburh Heights, 'in accordance with my home rule policy.' Cullitan had previously tried time after time to reach Sticha at his home, but was told he was not there.

The paper gives the following details concerning the raid:

"Patton (James "Shimmy" Patton who is well known to this Bureau) cursing profusely, rushed toward Cullitan. Cullitan tried to accomplish his task peacefully.

'Anyone that goes in there,' Patton cried, 'gets their _______ head knocked off. You've got your _______ home at stake and we got our _______ property at stake.'

'I've tried every decent way I could --' Cullitan began.

'No, you haven't,' Patton broke in.

'This is my job to close this place,' Cullitan said.

'Why don't you quit your job?' Patton shot back.

The Cleveland News, dated January 11, 1936 stated as follows:

"Mr Cullitan also had 'nothing to say' when asked if he would take any action against village officials who allowed gambling joints to operate so openly in violation of law."

The Cleveland Plain Dealer, dated January 14, 1936 quotes Eliot Ness, Safety Director, as follows:

"'I did not know Sheriff Sulzmann excepting through the newspapers,' Ness said. 'I haven't met him yet, but I consider I know him thoroughly since his refusal to send deputies to the aid of County Prosecutor Cullitan.'

'When John Flynn, my assistant director, went to County Jail he found six deputies just sitting -- perhaps waiting for the millennium. He got no satisfaction from Jailer Murphy. Neither did I. We both pointed out Mr. Cullitan's plight, and we both got the answer: 'The sheriff stands by his home rule policy -- he must request from the mayor of Newburg Heights.'

'It Can't Happen Here', the title of one of our best sellers, would be true locally if applied to the sheriff rescuing the prosecuting attorney. Hence the recent raids became news here, although they would not have been news in many cities.

'I want to say seriously to you and to all of the better element, that we must have the public with us. That means good citizens must not neglect their full duty.'"

The above quotation was taken from a speech given by Eliot Ness at the Cleveland Athletic Club before the Odovene Club, composed of Ohio Wesleyan University Alumni.

That the raid conducted by Frank T. Cullitan is alleged to have its political aspects is shown in a news item appearing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer dated January 29, 1936, which is quoted as follows:

"County Prosecutor Frank T. Cullitan's recent raid on the Harvard and Thomas Clubs was described last night as a plot 'cooked up' by an assistant county prosecutor to embarrass Sheriff John M. Sulzmann's campaign for Congress in the Twentieth District and to benefit Congressman Martin L. Sweeney."

The news item goes on to state:

"The ward leaders voted to endorse Sulzmann for Congress and to call a meeting next week of the 277 precinct committeement in the district to submit Sulzmann's candidacy to them."

For your information Sulzmann was defeated in the primaries.

News items appearing in the Cleveland newspapers are very laudatory of the appointment and conduct of Eliot Ness as Public Safety Director of Cleveland. He was particularly praised for his action in assisting County Prosecutor Cullitan, "as a private citizen" during the raid on the Harvard Club. News items have also stated that numerous raids are being conducted by police squads in an effort to clean up gambling conditions in Cleveland.

The Cleveland News dated January 11, 1936, refers to Ness as follows:

It was Mr. Ness who, when Sheriff Sulzmann, from his sickbed, refused to send aid to Cullitan, took the bull by the horns and led 33 Cleveland police officers and men to the Harvard Club to protect Cullitan from possible violence."

Referring to Cullitan the same paper states:

"The prosecutor, his job of closing the two notorious gaming resorts done, offered no criticism either of Sheriff Sulzmann's refusal to help, or f the lethargy of Newburg Heights and Maple heights officials in failing to close the clubs."

Referring to Eliot Ness' move to clean up conditions in Cleveland, the Cleveland News dated January 9, 1936 is quoted as follows:

"On orders from Safety Director Ness a meeting of policy operators was called by Deputy Inspector Frank W. Story at the E. 35th St. - Longwood Ct. police station Tuesday night.

'Fold up of your own accord or we will fold you up,' Inspector Story told them.

Along lower Scovill Ave., once the most open vice district in the city, officers are visiting houses and ordering all transient girls to move out of the city. Only those who can provie their legitimate homes are in the houses are being permitted to remain.

Bookmakers still exist, doing a curb or telephone business, but the gambling resorts have disappeared. Gamblers who prospered in Cleveland last year are reported to have either left town or to be making plans to heads for other cities where the law enforcement is more casual.

The order has gone out for the cleanup.

The police department knows Director Ness means business."

In praise of the work of Safety Director Ness the Cleveland News of January 11, 1936 carries and editorial containing the following:

"While we're cherring, let's fill the air with three long hurrahs and nine sharps rahs for Eliot Ness."

Respectfully,
K.R. McIntire.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FOIA)

"Just as we like it."

They built a little Globe Theatre for Shakespeare plays. The Great Lakes Exposition was about progress, about the future, about the world - it also had fan dancers and other kinks for daddy - and someone felt that Shakespeare had to be involved. That makes me happy.

About Some Players Who Give Us Shakespeare Just As We Like It
By Arthur Spaeth
The Cleveland News - July 2, 1936

We chose to imagine the Great Shakespeare’s spook being a bit puzzled and then downright worried through the centuries since his demise as the literati has carried on a campaign of refined ballyhoo, that has stuck the Bard up on a pedestal far from the common people.

But this brave little Globe theater company is doing its darndest to bring him back down to you and me - and doing it darned well.

Here’s comedy with true burlesque flavor. It’s lusty, ribald, pants-kicking comedy. And it’s played as Shakespeare wrote and directed it.

***
Visiting the Old Globe ...
By W. Ward Marsh
The Plain Dealer - July 3, 1936

“Julius Caesar” seems to lend itself better to the abbreviated production of the Globe than the other plays I have seen. The whole kernel of the play is present, and it moves swiftly and logically with no appearent loss in power trough the reduction of characters, words and scenes. The three phases of Caesar’s story life, death, burial, make for stirring melodrama in the Globe, and the great speeches, the spurring by Cassius, the apologies of Brutus, and the oration of Antony, are here and are delivered with power and fire.

I felt that Director Stevens had done remarkable work with the mob scenes. Although the “mobs” were not large, they were expertly coached and gave this production a good deal of its power and stirring qualities.

More than ever now do I urge a visit to the Old Globe.

***
Shakespeare In Quick Time Wins At Expo
By Jospehine Robertson
The Plain Dealer - July 17, 1936

Nearly 1,000 of the 25,975 persons attending the Great Lakes Exposition stopped in the Old Globe Theatre for a dose of synthetic culture.

There was plenty of slapstick and not a dull split second. You just started to laugh at Nick Bottom “roaring like any sucking dove” when he was squinting through Wall’s two fingers saying “I can hear my Thisbe’s face,” and Wall and the lovers fell in a heap and the lion had lost its tail.

***
Shakespeare Streamlined (editorial)
The Plain Dealer - July 18, 1936

The Shakespeare output in its formidable entirety has become forbiddingly synonymous with the obscure, the labored, the stilted, the rhetorical, the ponderous. All that, it nows appears, is out so far as interpretations given at the exposition are concerned. One result is that a considerable number of adults seem to enjoy taking their Shakespeare for its own sake rather than spend their time and money throwing baseballs at dolls.

***
Streamlined Shakespeare (feature article)
The Plain Dealer - September 13, 1936

College dramatics teacher and Chicago business man speed famous plays for the entertainment of masses.

The piper strikes up “Oranges and Lemons” on her recorder. Lads and lassies move to and fro in rustic weaving. Trumpeters sound a fanfare as Queen Elizabeth descends from her dias, escorted by her beefeaters, disappears into the theater. Once again the Town Crier waves a bell and hat in a flourish of red and green. And the play begins.

Despite rival attractions, peep shows and scantily clad dancing girls, Shakespeare is proving popular with the masses.

Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was born in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and raised largely by her grandparents. Her family, with roots African, European and Native American, was part of the "Black Bourgeoisie" a stratum of well-to-do people of color. Horne's own parents were looked down upon by the extended family, her father a numbers runner and her mother a traveling actress.

She spent time in the South with her mother, and later with her uncle Frank who became an advisor to FDR. Returning to New York she attended a public high school before leaving school without a diploma. At age 16 she joined the chorus of the Cotton Club, yes she did, and by 1934 had a featured role in the Cotton Club Parade. The next year she began touring with Noble Sissle and his orchestra.

According to BlackClassicMovies.com she headlined with Sissle under the name Helena Horne because he thought Helena sounded "classier" than Lena. However, when they played The Palace in early October, she was billed as Leona Horne.

Clevelanders on Palace Stage
The Cleveland News, October 1, 1936

Noble Sissle, who left Central High back in 1912 for the war and later success down the dance lanes, isn’t the only local-boy-makes-good at the Palace tomorrow.

The habitues of the Cedar and Central Avenue hot spots will remember Billy Banks. They swore by this lad a few years back as he danced and sang his way up and down the town’s Harlem.

Included in Sissle’s “Savoy Stompers” revue are the dancing stars of the Harlem Cotton club, “Pops and Louie”, Leona Horne, songstress, and Buddy Doyle, who comes out of the band to clown, figure prominently in the show.

Sources:
Wikipedia
BlackClassicMovies.com
The Cleveland News

Shorts

Ness Stamps Women’s Shorts O.K. For Street
Cleveland News: July 10, 1936

New York’s police crusade against women wearing shorts on the street is just water off a duck’s back in Cleveland. “They may wear all the shorts they want to on the street,” said Safety Director Ness.

Dare Wright

Dare Wright
(December 3, 1914 – January 25, 2001)
... and speaking of children's books featuring black and white photographs of stuffed bears in real-world settings ...

Born in Canada in 1914, Dare Wright spent most of her formative years in Cleveland. Her parents were separated when she was a child. Her older brother Blaine lived with their alcoholic, theater critic father, while she lived with her mother, professional portrait painter Edith Stevenson Wright.

Settling in Cleveland in 1919, and after a few living arrangements based upon the kindness of strangers, the independent painter and her young daughter found their own apartment in Cleveland Heights in 1921. She was commissioned to paint lawyers, judges, politicians - and finally received the favor of the Hanna family. She painted a posthumous portrait of Marcus Bales Hanna, and later his son, Daniel Sr. owner of the Cleveland Leader, and later the News. They lavished her with connections and attention, granting her studio space in the Hanna Building.

I work in the Hanna Building. Crazy.

Dare went to Coventry Elementary School, and by fourth grade a boarder at Laurel School. Biographer Jean Nathan in her book The Secret Life of The Lonely Doll suggests that her life of impermanence coupled with her mother's focus on the superficial (because, you know, she was a painter) was a major factor in shaping Dare's deep-seated sorrow regarding connection with actual people, and her tendency to render inanimate objects with personality and as a repository for her fantasies of love and acceptance.

If Dare were raised by her successful, aloof, artist father and had an ne'er-do-well mother who drank a lot, it would still be called the mother's fault for Dare's becoming a glamorous, disaffected freak, because that is how we look at things.

Edith's success grew. She painted Calvin Coolidge's portrait in 1928 and it was hung in Public Hall, where he had received his party's nomination in 1924. In 1935 a cigarette caused a fire in Public Hall and the portrait was destroyed.

Graduating from Laurel in 1933 (top five in her class) Dare moved to New York and discovered the brother she had never known. Her journeys took her from there to Hollywood (where she failed to become an actress) back to Cleveland and to New York, eventually establishing herself as a stunning, stylish model for fashion magazines.

She became a photographer, and was equally accomplished in front of and behind the camera. In 1957 she created her legendary children's book, The Lonely Doll featuring Edie, a felt Lenci Doll from her own childhood, named after her mother. In the story this most lonely of dolls is visited by Mr. Bear and Little Bear (stand-ins, of course, for her absent father and brother) and after a tentative period of discovery and tests of trust, the trio is bonded forever and will never be apart again.

The Lonely Doll disappeared in obscurity - but remained a strong, psychic presence in the mind of many baby boomer aged children, and eventually returned to print in 1998. We have a copy. My daughter's middle name is Dare.

Dare Wright died in 2001.

Sources:
Wikipedia
The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll
This American Life

The Negro Theatre Unit presents "Macbeth" (1936)

The Negro Theatre Unit of the Federal Theatre Project featured a “Contemporary” branch and a “Classical” branch. Inarguably the greatest success of the Classical branch was its production of Macbeth, commonly referred to as “Voodoo” Macbeth.

This production, featuring an all-African-American cast, was directed by Orson Welles, and set his national career as a stage director. Citizen Kane still five years away. Welles was already a known star as a voice for radio, having established himself as the original Shadow. When Macbeth debuted on April 14, Welles was 20 years-old.

In 1937 Welles would direct what should be referred to as “Fascist” Julius Caesar, creating a Mussolini-type Caesar in a modern-dress production that starred himself as Brutus. For this work, his thinking went that as long as the task at hand were to create a large-scale Shakespearean drama featuring an all-black cast, it would be more acceptable to a modern audience to see this supernatural, blood-soaked tragedy set in a place like Haiti rather than Scotland. The actual setting is undefined, but the design strongly suggests the Caribbean.

There was controversy during the rehearsal process, and picketing. Many in the African-American community feared this would be a burlesque of some kind. When the production opened, and all could see that it was by all modern measure a legitimate presentation of Shakespeare’s work, and grand and exceptional, such criticism disappeared.

Hecate’s role, often cut from modern productions, was expanded. He was a cast as a large man with a whip, and delivers the final line of the production - The charm’s wound up. (In Shakespeare’s text, from Act I.) Professional African drummers were employed, but only five of the cast of over 100 were professionally experienced actors. However, this was often the case for Federal Theater Project productions.

Following a highly successful run in New York, the play went on tour. Referred to in an advance piece in the Plain Dealer as “bizarre” the show came to Cleveland in Fall, 1936.

Federal Theatre E. 9 & Prospect
NOW! New York’s Triumph now Cleveland’s Sensational Hit!
William Shakespeare’s MACBETH
(Original All-Colored Cast of 150)
Directed by Orson Welles
“Here is something bizarre, breath-takingly colorful and startling”
- Arthur Spaeth, Cleveland News
Eve 8:30 - Sat. Mat. 2:30
$1.00 - 75¢ - 50¢ - 25¢ Plus Tax
WPA Federal Theatre Project
(Oct. 1, 1936 - Cleveland News advertisement)

Review by William McDermott in the Plain Dealer

Source: Wikipedia, Cleveland News, The Plain Dealer

On Feller: Verbatim

Cleveland News - July 7, 1936
‘A Natural’ Dizzy’s Tribute to Feller

Dizzy Dean: "The kid’s a natural, he can’t miss."
Emmet Ormsby: "The best pitcher I have ever seen come into the American League in all my experience."

* * *
Cleveland Press - July 20, 1936
Indians Home as Heroes After Winning 10 Games
by Franklin Lewis

Maligned and generally regarded by Cleveland fans as apt material for baseball’s ash heap only two weeks ago, the Indians returned to their home orchard today the toast of the town and the latest scourge of the American League.

(Includes brief mention of “Bob Feller, high school right-hander who made his big league debut by striking out one Senator, hitting another and walking one.”)

* * *
The Plain Dealer - August 24, 1936
Schoolboy Feller Whiffs 15 (St. Louis) Browns In First Start

“I knew Dizzy Dean had the record, but I didn’t know the American League mark was sixteen. It wouldn’t have made any difference because I gave all I had. I was afraid that my arm would tire along about the sixth or seventh inning but it held up fine.”

* * *
Cleveland Press - August 24, 1936
Feller Happy, But Hat Fits After Those 15 Strikeouts
by William Miller

Bob Feller wasn't surprised when he struck out 15 St. Louis Browns because he knew he could do it, “if my stuff was working.”

He didn’t even save the ball he won with. “I’ve got a lot of balls from here and there and I didn’t need anymore.”

“I didn’t know I would strike so many men, but I knew I could win. I knew I would win if my stuff was working, and it was.”

What’s he going to do now?

“Just go over to the park like I’ve been doing and throw the balls around with the other rookies till they want me to go in again.”

He was one strikeout short of the American League strikeout record set in 1908 by Rube Waddell, and two short of the all-time record - 17 - set by Dizzy Dean in 1933.

Bob sold peanuts at League Park between practice with other rookies.

* * *

“Oh, I was sort of tired.”
Cleveland Press - August 25, 1936
HE’S SOME FELLER
by Stuart Bell

He learned to walk like that in Iowa. His fizz is stamped with the trademarks of adolescence and you don’t realize he is a man until you see him pitch. That swagger he has when he walks makes him look like a policeman who is going to raid a bookie joint, but it doesn’t mean anything.

The Real Dick Tracy

Cleveland News April 4, 1936
Thousand Young Dick Tracys Thhrill and Cheer as Ness Tells How G-Men Got Capone Gang

Guns, criminals, hidden rooms, underground tunnels, G-men, deserted haunted houses --

Such things were woven by Safety Director Eliot Ness today into thrilling stories for nearly 1,000 of the latest recruits to the Dick Tracy Detective squad.

The howling, yelling, whistling crowd of youngsters filled every available inch of space in The News auditorium to listen to the former G-man and sign up for a Dick Tracy badge.

A BADGE LIKE HIS!

It was 15 minutes before Director Ness could quiet them down to the point where his voice could be heard. Then he took out his big gold police badge.

“You have a badge just like mine,” he said. More cheers. More shouting.

“Only maybe yours is a little bit smaller…. When you grow up to be a man with long pants perhaps your badge will grow up with you … And when that time comes I’d like to have you all working for me as real detective.”

The enthusiasm was uncontrollable.

TELLS OF CAPONE CHASE

Then the director held the boys and girls spellbound with stories of how he and other G-men ran down one-time lieutenants of Al Capone, Chicago gangster.

He told them also about an experience uncovering a large still in an underground passage beneath a deserted house when he was in charge of the government’s alcohol tax unit here.

Dick Tracy, the swashbucking detective who started all this, appears daily in a News adventure strip.

FYI - Shortly after Ness' departure from Chicago, the Tribune was the first paper to pick up Chester Gould's new strip Dick Tracy, which many have speculated was based on Eliot Ness' crime-busting legacy.

Cleveland Centennial Day

Cleveland News - Tuesday, July 21, 1936

One hundred years ago tomorrow, a group of intent men met and signed a charter signifying to the world that Cleveland, the town on the Great Lakes, was a city and was to be recognized as such.

And tomorrow, Cleveland, grown into size and importance far beyond the fondest hope of its incorporators, will officially celebrate its birthday and the 140th anniversary of its founding with exercises and speeches, with factory whistles screaming, auto horns tooting and a general half holiday for all the town.

Mayor Harold H. Burton declares:

“Wednesday, July 22, 1936 is designated as Cleveland Centennial day at the Great Lakes Exposition.

“That we may better understand and develop this opportunity, the afternoon of July 22 is hereby designated as a municipal half holiday when we all are urged and invted to attend and promote the exposition of the lake front and also the international exhibit of the Museum of Art, with the realization that they open new and important doors to Cleveland’s future.”