Avery Brundage

In 1936 the President of the United States Olympic Committee was Avery Brundage, former Olympic athlete, successful building magnate, and complete dick.

The best thing that can be said of him is that without his tireless effort to lick Hitler's butt-crack, Jesse Owens would not have had the opportunity to be an Olympic legend. This is ironic, because Brundage was also a tireless racist.

"The fact that no Jews have been named so far as to compete for Germany doesn't necessarily mean That they have been descriminated against on that score. In forty years of Olympic history, I doubt if the number of Jewish athletes competing from all nations totaled one percent of those in the games. In fact, I believe one-half of one percent would be a high percentage." - Avery Brundage, July 26, 1935

Among other accomplishments, Brundage struggled to keep Jim Thorpe from having his Olympic medals posthumously returned. While this may have had nothing at all to do with the fact that Thorpe kicked Brundage's ass in the decathalon and the pentathalon in the 1912 games, though it is a documented fact that Brundage was the one who reported Thorpe's paid exhibition baseball games to the Olympic committee.

Brundage had a soft spot for totalitarian regimes - Fascist and Communist - arguing against boycotting the 1936 Winter and Summer Games in Germany, or later as IOC President opposing the Eastern Bloc tradition of paying their athletes (because as he said, it was their way of life) while stringently opposing professional athletes in the West.

And women. He believed women should not be Olympic athletes. Avery Brundage was all kinds of asshole.

My Day

"Eleanor Roosevelt's "My Day" was a syndicated newspaper column published from 1935 to 1962. During those years, Eleanor wrote the column consistently six days a week, the only interruption being when her husband died, and even then she missed only four days. The column allowed Eleanor to reach millions of Americans with her views on social and political issues, current and historical events, and her private and public life. Dealing with subjects far out of the range of the conventional first lady's concerns, "My Day" is an outstanding example of the breadth of issues and activities which occupied Eleanor Roosevelt's life." - The American Experience, PBS

March 12, 1936

If one thing more than another on a trip of this kind reminds you that you are not just an ordinary lecturer and that you can not separate yourself from being the wife of the President of the United States, it is the beautiful flowers that greet you wherever you go. You can not wear more than a certain number and you can not take them with you, so you tentatively suggest that the hotel be kind enough to send them to a hospital and pray that some one else will continue to enjoy them as much as you do during the time that you have them with you.

The other thing which is quite amusing is the tremendous anxiety to take proper care of me—policemen and plain clothes men spring out of the ground at every turn. In Washington or New York City an occasional policeman will say "hello" or salute with a smile but that is the extent of the excitement which I arouse. In short away from one's usual haunts one is much more conscious of being the wife of the President than one ever does at home!

The train trip to Cleveland this morning was uneventful. I read a plan for helping us out of the depression, submitted by some one in Iowa. I also read the whole of the National Student Federation's magazine and the morning papers. A few people waved to me from the station platforms on the way and when we pulled into Cleveland there was quite a crowd at the station. The committee met us and as usual the photographers and the press were our first visitors after we reached the very comfortable Cleveland Hotel. Then we lunched with the committee and from two-forty-five to four-thirty I visited WPA projects. Miss Nell Moley and Mrs. Samuel Halle came to call for a few minutes and I enjoyed very much talking to Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Burke at luncheon. Mrs. Clark was particularly interesting in describing a new form of community agency which she hopes will render civic work much more efficiently. There was quite a little mail here which we have been hurriedly going through and in a little while we will dine and after my speech tonight, we take a train for Dayton.

- E.R.

Not dead.

It has been my intention to log on every day with at least a small piece of info about my subject. Life has intervened, and at least I can say it is writing related. Next Tuesday, my new play On the Dark Side of Twilight opens at the Alcazar in Cleveland Heights. As the 2010 Great Lakes Theater Festival Outreach Tour, it will visit 22 locations in Cuyahoga, Summit and Lorain Counties. I wrote it, I am acting in it. I am very tired and have little time for study. I will revisit this page often, however, once the tour is underway.

Billboard Hit Parade

On January 4, 1936, Billboard magazine published its first music hit parade.

This is not that list, but they were surely on it.

All My Life - Fats Waller
Alone - Tommy Dorsey
A Beautiful Lady In Blue - Jan Garber
Did I Remember? - Shep Fields
A Fine Romance - Fred Astaire
The Glory Of Love - Benny Goodman
Goody Goody - Benny Goodman
I'll Sing You A Thousand Love Songs - Eddy Duchin
I'm Putting All My Eggs In One Basket - Fred Astaire
In the Chapel In the Moonlight - Shep Fields
Is It True What They Say About Dixie? - Jimmy Dorsey
It's A Sin To Tell A Lie - Fats Waller
It's Been So Long - Benny Goodman
Lights Out - Eddy Duchin
A Melody From the Sky - Jan Garber
Moon Over Miami - Eddy Duchin
The Music Goes Round and Round - Tommy Dorsey
The Music Goes Round and Round - Riley-Farley Orchestra
Pennies From Heaven - Bing Crosby
Take My Heart - Eddy Duchin
There's A Small Hotel - Hal Kemp
These Foolish Things - Benny Goodman
Until the Real Thing Comes Along - Andy Kirk
The Way You Look Tonight - Fred Astaire
When Did You Leave Heaven? - Guy Lombardo
When I'm With You - Hal Kemp
You - Tommy Dorsey
You Turned the Tables On Me - Benny Goodman

In The Heights

Laminated black-and-white photograph of the Heights Theatre in Coventry commercial district. Marquee says "Movietone" and "I Married a Doctor" and "Show Boat; Irene Dunne, Allan Jones." Another sign advertises a dry cleaner and "surgeon." Streetcar tracks are shown in foreground. Back of photo is labeled "2781 Euclid Heights Boulevard" and "Heights Theatre, Euclid Hts. Blvd. and Coventry." Scanned image has been lightened, as original photo is dark. (Cleveland Heights, Ohio) - Cleveland Memory

Black-and-white photograph of Cedar Lee Theatre taken in 1936. Includes signs on marquee for "Sylvia Scarlet" "The Garden" and "Murder Case." Also it reads "Shirley: Captain January!" Additional signs for Burrows, The Nut Shell, and Bowling. - Cleveland Memory

Scrapbook sheet of photos of Heights High band at their home football field and at Lakewood, dated 1936. In some photos they are in lines and other formations, including the "H" for Heights High. East Derbyshire Road in background. - Cleveland Memory

All Roads Lead to Cleveland

Click on image to enlarge.

Teaching and Learning Cleveland: Walter Hagemann, "All Roads Lead to Cleveland Cartoon, Cleveland Plain Dealer June 21, 1936."

There will be more on this ...

The Red Salute

"True! Timely! Terrific! See the effect RED teachings have on the youth of today!"

The Circle Theater was located at Doan's Corners, the area at Euclid Avenue and 105th & 107th Streets. Originally the Hoffman Theatre, Loew's assumed management of this 2,000 space and converted it from a live theater to a movie house. Bought by Max Marmostein in 1935, he made it a space for live performances and film.

In 1936 there was a showing of The Red Salute, which attracted the kind of protests this movie also found in other large cities. Starring Barbara Stanwyck, this anti-Communist "screwball comedy" really pissed off left-leaning college students at Western Reserve University. An army brat (Stanwyck) is in love with a Commie agitator, so her father, a General, arranges to have her kidnapped (by an aunt) to Mexico where she falls in with an AWOL soldier (Robert Young) but after returning to the States she reunites with the Communist boyfriend. However, in the end the dopey dogface convinces her that a) Democracy rules in spite of b) comparing Democracy to Communism is like comparing Christianity to Vegetarianism.

This area that was Doan's Corners has, of course, been swallowed by the Cleveland Clinic. Interestingly, I once performed I Hate This at the W.O. Walker Rehabilitation Center, which stands in virtually the same location.

Sources:
Red Scare Filmography
Encyclopedia of Cleveland History