No Bones About It: This Fictional News Character Was Worth Resurrecting

Novelist Michael Connelly is a former L.A.Times reporter, and his new mystery, “City of Bones,” contains an inside joke that would have amused the late Jack Smith and other L.A. newspaper types of the 1950s.

One of the minor characters in Connelly’s book is a sneaky journalist named Victor Frizbe. Connelly is paying homage to the memory of Victor Frisbie, a fictional person created by bored staffers on the old L.A. Examiner in those free-wheeling days.

Frisbie appeared in Rose Parade stories and other “crowd” articles in which spectators would be quoted. He was identified variously as a former Australian general (“good show,” he said of one parade), as a retired admiral and once as a drunken tourist who was thrown in jail on New Year’s Eve and thus missed the parade.

When top-level editors learned of Frisbie’s nonexistence, he disappeared from the paper. Disappeared, that is, until the day in 1962 that the Examiner announced it was merging with the L.A. Herald Express. Staffers then sneaked in a one-paragraph story on the death of the Bakersfield sportsman (see accompanying).

It’s good to see Frisbie/Frizbe resurrected, as mischievous and as fictional as ever.

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Marquee madness (cont.): After a slight intermission, more letters have arrived about unusual movie combinations, including one from Bill Burns of Manhattan Beach.

In the 1930s, he recalled, the old Hollyway Theater at Sunset Boulevard and Echo Park Avenue featured: BOTTOMS UP AS THE EARTH TURNS.

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Market research, the old-fashioned way: Burns added that he was a newsboy back then, selling the old Herald-Express in pre-Victor Frisbie days.

“The owner of the Hollyway used to pay my way to go to the rival Ramona theater, near Sunset and Alvarado, to count heads,” Burns said. “I would sit on one side of the theater, do the counting, then move to the other side and finish.”

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Weighing whether to have a drink: Moving along to alcohol, a natural transition from an item about newspaper folk, Patricia Dunn of Downey was intrigued by one seller’s pricing system (see accompanying).

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Dig this: I mentioned that Pat Wright, the Libertarian nominee for lieutenant governor, is running on a platform to legalize ferrets in this state (if you don’t believe me, and I don’t blame you, check out www.ferretsanon.com).

Anyway, a reader who signs himself “Bill of Carpenteria” sent me an ad for Ferrets magazine and commented facetiously that the articles it listed “make you want to run right out and get one of these little guys.” Cover stories were headlined: “Stop Devilish Digging,” “6 Great Methods for Saving Your Carpet,” and “50+ Emergency First Aid Tips.”

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miscelLAny: The recent appearance here of a not-so-ancient pictograph of kayak carriers in Monterey prompted Jens Peermann to send along a snapshot of a figure on a rock that he calls “Homo Surfa Dudeum” (see photo).

Peermann added: “Although it would be right at home in Southern California, this one can be found north of Cave Rock on the Nevada side of surfless Lake Tahoe.” The surfer does seem a bit lost.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012 and by e-mail at [email protected].