Arbin Mathieu's Next Chapter

If you're reading this blog, you know who Philippe Mathieu was.

I've mentioned that prior to founding his namesake restaurant (and oh, yeah, inventing the French Dip sandwich), Philippe and his brother Arbin opened the cheekily-named New Poodle Dog restaurant, followed by another white-tablecloth eatery.

I've always wondered what Arbin did after the brothers closed both of their restaurants and Philippe focused on Philippe's. A 1920 picture of the Lanfranco Building provided a clue.

Look closely...

Lanfranco Building (photo from Water and Power)

The third shop front on the ground level - street address number 216 - reads "A. Mathieu French Delicacies".

A. Mathieu? ARBIN Mathieu?

The 1923 city directory confirmed my hunch, listing Arbin Mathieu at 216 N. Main Street - under "Delicacies".

I'm not surprised Arbin stayed in the same line of work. By the early twentieth century, there was certainly more than enough demand for well-prepared food in Los Angeles to keep both brothers in business.

Damien Marchesseault's Death Was Much Weirder Than I Thought

My seventh-grade history teacher made a point of teaching all of his students that "there is no such thing as a 'final history'". As time marches on, new information surfaces, new artifacts are discovered, and improvements in technology allow for more accurate analysis of the facts. (Case in point: many forgeries are only detected centuries later.) This entry's for you, Mr. Lehrer.

If you're reading this blog, you already know Mayor Damien Marchesseault committed suicide - not by shooting himself in the head as is usually reported, but by shooting himself in the face.

It's also commonly reported that he shot himself in an empty City Council chamber.

As it turns out, there are more details. And they're weird enough that I'm scratching my head.

The Los Angeles correspondent for the Daily Alta California went into more detail than the Los Angeles Semi-Weekly News (apart from the fact that the correspondent eliminated the text of Marchesseault's suicide note). I'll break it down:

D. Marchesseault, who has been Mayor of this city for a number of terms, went into the City Marshal's office

The City Marshal's office? Why is "empty City Council chamber" reported elsewhere?

which adjoins the Mayor's office

Why did Marchesseault choose the office next to his?

Also, the City Marshal was a combination of law enforcement officer, tax/license fee collector, and dogcatcher. I'm unaware of any bad blood between Marchesseault and the City Marshal at the time of his death...although Marchesseault's debts might very well have resulted in an inability to pay his taxes or the license on his saloon.

yesterday morning, about seven o'clock, and locking the street door, carefully laid himself upon a table, placing his head upon a cushion, and his feet upon a chair, discharged a pistol, the ball of which entered his head.

I definitely understand why Marchesseault would lock the door. And this detail explains why a different newspaper account refers to Marchesseault's suicide note being on a table next to him. But still, this is just plain weird. Why lie down on a table, feet on a chair?

 The report of the pistol was heard, but caused no alarm, as it was supposed to have been fired in the rear of the building. 

As bizarre as this sounds to modern-day Angelenos, gunfire was a common sound in 1860s Los Angeles. It was a Wild West town with the highest murder rate in the United States, and even peaceful people carried guns for protection (Harris Newmark, who had never owned a gun before emigrating to Los Angeles, recalled using an abandoned adobe for target practice).

 Between eight and nine o'clock in the morning, when he was discovered, he was lying on his back with one arm folded on his breast and the pistol in the hand of the other: there was no appearance that a single muscle had moved after the firing of the fatal shot.

Maybe I watch too many police procedurals, but this doesn't seem quite right. Normally, when someone shoots themselves, they drop the gun.

The rest of the Daily Alta California article contains no new information, so I won't reiterate it here.

I'm a firm believer in logic and reason. And I know I'm prone to overanalyzing everything. BUT...

The suicide location differs from most reports.

The Mayor positioning himself on a table, feet on a chair, doesn't make any sense.

And he somehow managed to not drop the gun after killing himself.

Couple that with the fact that Marchesseault isn't on the official list of former mayors (in spite of SIX terms) and the circumstances of the Mayor's death are weirder than I ever would have guessed.

Gaston Méliès Comes to Hollywood...Err, Santa Paula

(Huge thanks to Santa Paula historian Mitch Stone for his help in researching this entry. Merci, Mitch!)

Any serious film buff knows who Georges Méliès was.

Most aren't aware that Georges' brother Gaston also made films - more than 200 in total.

Very few know that Gaston made films in the Ventura County town of Santa Paula.

Poster for "Wanted - A Wife"; staged in front of the Santa Paula train depot (which looks much the same way now as it did then). Published in Motion Picture World. Picture courtesy of Mitch Stone.

Content infringement has always been a problem for creative people, and the silent-film era was no exception. After the family shoe factory shut down, Georges Méliès sent his brother Gaston to America to help protect his films from copyright violation.

Gaston arrived in New York in 1903, setting up an American subsidiary of Georges' Star Film Company. But by 1908, Gaston was trying his hand at making his own films.

French audiences of the time were very interested in the American West (I'm not sure if this had anything to do with the sheer number of French expats and their descendants in California). Gaston was the first filmmaker on record to shoot on location in Texas, mostly filming Westerns. But after a year or so, he followed other filmmakers' migration to California.

Gaston moved Star Film Company's American studio to 7th and Main Streets in Santa Paula in 1911, also residing on the site. (Currently at 7th and Main: the Santa Paula Theatre Center.) Again, he mostly produced Western films. Of the 50 or so short films Gaston produced in Santa Paula, only two are known to survive.

In 1913, Gaston decamped to Tahiti to make the first of many silent short films shot in exotic locations. Besides Tahiti, he produced films in New Zealand, Australia, Java, Singapore, Cambodia, and Japan.

Unfortunately, much of the film was damaged before it could be processed in the United States. Of the 238 films produced by Gaston, only about 60 came from his filmmaking expedition to the South Pacific and Far East.

After the location-shooting expedition ruined his health and nearly bankrupted him, Gaston returned to Santa Paula for long enough to sell his studio/residence. He then returned to France. Supposedly, Georges (who was ruined financially by Gaston's travels) never spoke to him again.

Just two years later, the Santa Paula Chronicle reported on Gaston's death from typhoid fever in Corsica.

In 2015, French documentarian Raphael Millet directed Gaston Méliès and His Wandering Star Film Company. The documentary focuses primarily on Gaston's filmmaking excursion to the South Pacific and Far East. (Does anyone have a copy I could borrow? My usual sources for obscure film don't have it.)

Gaston Méliès is nearly forgotten today. Perhaps it's time for a well-publicized screening of Millet's documentary?

The Frenchwoman Who Built the Italian Hall

Frenchtown had a longstanding friendship with Los Angeles' Little Italy. In fact, the Italian Hall was built by a Frenchwoman.

Miss Marie Madeline Ruellan, a Parisian by birth, sailed for California on the Guiding Star in the summer of 1868 at the age of 22. In 1869 or 1870 (sources disagree), she married Henry Hammel, a German immigrant who owned the United States Hotel (he also had a large vineyard). The couple's only child, Mathilde, was born in 1875.

Henry Hammel passed away in 1890, leaving his $400,000 estate to Marie and 15-year-old Mathilde.

Marie was active in charitable work and known for her kindness to orphans, but she shunned attention. When Mathilde married and had a family of her own, Marie lived with them and spent much of her time with her three grandchildren.

Marie's sizable inheritance included a parcel of land on the Plaza. Frank Arconti, who had owned the land before Henry Hammel and Isaias Hellman bought it, encouraged her to build on the site. Marie commissioned a two-story brick building (from Italian-owned Pozzo Construction), intended to serve the growing Italian community.

Like the nearby Garnier Building, the new Italian Hall served multiple community needs. Italian-owned businesses filled the ground floor. The second floor hosted musical and theatrical performances and provided a home for the Garibaldina Mutual Benefit Society (a health-and-welfare safety net for members) as well as social organizations like the Italian Workers' Club. Today, the restored Italian Hall houses the Italian American Museum of Los Angeles. (Read more here and scroll down a bit for a picture of Marie.)

Marie Madeline Ruellan Hammel died of heart failure in 1913 at age 71. She is buried at Calvary Cemetery with her mother.

The French Roadhouse That Became Hollywood's First Film Studio

The film and television industry owes an immeasurable debt to French innovators.

The very first motion-picture camera was invented by a Frenchman - Louis Le Prince.

Although Thomas Edison gets much of the credit for early moving pictures, it was the Lumière brothers who invented the cinematograph. The cinematograph, a combination camera and projector, was the first device to make screenings for more than one viewer possible. (Gaston and Auguste Lumière both have stars on the Walk of Fame, although Auguste's is spelled incorrectly. An earlier and very different cinematograph was invented by another Frenchman, Léon Bouly, who sold the name and patent to the brothers.)

Cinema as a whole owes a great many things to Georges Méliès. Not only did Méliès build the first film studio on record anywhere, he pioneered the stop trick, time-lapse, dissolves, multiple exposures, and hand-tinting. Disney* gets most of the credit for storyboards, but Méliès is known to have used them to plan visual effects. His best-known films A Trip to the Moon and The Impossible Voyage are among the earliest science fiction and fantasy films on record. (Méliès never came to California, but his brother Gaston did. More on him soon. Also, why does Méliès not have a star on the Walk of Fame?!)

The world's first film company, Gaumont, still exists today and is still headquartered in France.

The Pathé brothers created the world's largest film equipment and production company and invented the newsreel. My Baby Boomer readers might recall seeing "Color by Pathé" in the credits of some of their favorite TV shows.

You get the idea. In order for Hollywood as we know it to exist, French inventors had to exist first.

But in the earlier days of Hollywood, back when it was a very different sort of artists' colony, there was a roadhouse owned by a Frenchman. That roadhouse played a role in changing everything.

René Blondeau was from Normandy, a region of France known more for hard apple cider than for wine. Blondeau's Tavern, built in 1892, stood on Sunset Boulevard near Gower Street.

René Blondeau passed away in 1902. The town of Hollywood, which had not yet been absorbed by Los Angeles, went dry in 1904. The roadhouse was no longer a viable business, and Blondeau's Tavern sat empty for years.

In 1911, filmmakers David Horsley and Al Christie came to town in search of a home for their Nestor Motion Picture Company. Cinema was still in its infancy, and Hollywood residents thought filmmakers were crazy. There were other filmmakers in the LA area, but none in sleepy little Hollywood.

Two stories are told about how Nestor Motion Picture Company found its new home. Either a local photographer introduced Horsley to Marie Blondeau, or a real estate agent knew about the property. In either case, René Blondeau's widow Marie did indeed rent the long-vacant roadhouse to Christie and Horsley.

Blondeau's Tavern, with some alterations, was well suited to an early studio. The roadhouse's large bar area became the carpentry shop, the private dining rooms became offices and stars' dressing rooms, and the less fortunate performers had makeshift dressing rooms in the barn's horse stalls (the barn also doubled as the prop cage). The orange grove and tropical plants in the roadhouse's back garden made a lovely backdrop for outdoor scenes (unfortunately oranges tended to appear pitch-black on early film), and a stage was constructed behind the roadhouse.

The day after renting the tavern, Horsley and Christie began shooting The Law of the Range, starring Harold Lockwood. (Although Lockwood died in New York, last year's Halloween and Mourning tour of Heritage Square featured a tableau of Lockwood's 1918 funeral. He is, to my knowledge, the only movie actor to have died in the Spanish flu pandemic.)

If you're wondering why you haven't heard of Nestor, don't feel too bad for them. Nestor was acquired by Universal in 1912.

The tavern is a very distant memory today. The Gower Gulch shopping center, which is themed like a Western town, now stands across the street. (Bringing the whole story full circle, the French love classic American Westerns.)

René Blondeau, fittingly, is buried among later Hollywood legends at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

*Yes, Walt Disney had French ancestry. I'll get to him.

Fasten Your Seatbelts, It's Going to be a Bumpy Entry

(This entry refers, several times, to the 1950 Bette Davis film All About Eve. I felt the comparison was apt.)

As it happens, there are particular aspects of my life to which I would like to maintain sole and exclusive rights and privileges. For instance: all my hard work!

I will establish the facts with the following timeline.

Spring 2013: Began researching LA's lost French community.
Summer 2013: Began mapping French-linked locations in Southern California for personal reference (to date, I have mapped nearly 450).

May 15, 2016: After three years of researching dead French Angelenos, I officially launched this blog and posted my first entry.

Before the launch of "Frenchtown Confidential", the French and French-speaking section of Los Angeles wasn't written as a single word ANYWHERE (I did a LOT of Googling before coming up with the name). Where it had a specific name at all, it was normally called "the French Colony", or, in rare cases, "French Town" (two words). I changed it to one word because I thought it flowed better.

June, July, August, and September 2016: Contacted multiple media outlets in Los Angeles (and one in Paris) pitching an article on LA's lost French community. None of them responded.

I later realized that all but two of the media outlets in question have employed a writer I will refer to only as "Eve Harrington". (I would rather not have anyone Googling her real name, and you'll understand why soon enough. But if you look at the clues, you'll know who it is.)

August 3, 2016: Posted an entry calling out three local writers for making rather egregious omissions at the expense of some very important dead French Angelenos.

One of them - the worst offender, in fact - was Eve Harrington.

September 30, 2016: Posted this entry on Victor Ponet.

October 2016: One of the media outlets that I'd contacted over the summer ran an error-filled, sloppily-researched piece on the lost French community...written by Eve Harrington. (Please don't Google it. It's an inexcusable mess and it doesn't deserve whatever page views it got.)

I complained to said media outlet's editor and received no response.

November 16, 2016: Having received zero response, and having little other recourse, I posted this entry detailing the numerous factual errors Eve Harrington saw fit to put in print and calling her out for her actions.

Once again, no response of any kind.

May 27, 2017: Gave my first talk on Frenchtown. Mentioned early Hollywood's two most important French figures - René Blondeau and Paul de Longpré.

September 12, 2017: Appeared on episode 121 of You Can't Eat the Sunshine, discussing my research, blog, and upcoming LAVA Sunday Salon.

September 23, 2017: Presented my LAVA Sunday Salon (I gave the short version of my Frenchtown lecture) and walking tour of French-associated sites in the Plaza.

October 2017: Eve Harrington runs a piece on Paul de Longpré. (Please don't Google it. Also, I'm interviewing de Longpré's biographer in the future.)

February 17, 2018: Gave my second lecture on Frenchtown.

October 22, 2018: I posted the first in a series of entries on early LA's French restauranteurs.

November 26, 2018: I submitted a job application to the parent company of one of the previously mentioned media outlets. (I hadn't seen Eve's name on the site in months and hoped she wasn't working there anymore. Anything she can do, I can do honestly and without another writer's help.)

Last Week: My LAVA Sunday Salon debuted on YouTube.

Two Days Ago: Eve published a piece on the early history of Sunset Boulevard...including Victor Ponet.

This is especially creepy for three reasons: 1. My mother worked at a private school that was on the St. Victor's church property (donated by Ponet). I've mentioned this in lectures and in an Instagram post. 2. I'm a huge music fan and have spent many, MANY hours at Sunset Strip music clubs. I won't be surprised if she uses this a lead-in for a more recent history of the Strip...and I won't be the least bit surprised if she name-drops most of the bands in my vinyl collection ('60s rock up through '80s glam metal and beyond).* 3. This piece appeared just 12 days after I unveiled a working miniature Rainbow Bar & Grill sign I made.

There is no way she didn't do this on purpose. It hits too close to home, on three counts.

Also Two Days Ago: I received an email (hi Richard) informing me that Eve Harrington struck again, in a different publication.

Not only did Eve hijack my ongoing theme of French dining in early LA, she managed to use part of my blog title without asking me first OR properly crediting my blog (and I think it's pretty obvious she's reading it, since I'm the one who coined "Frenchtown"). She also persists in making the ridiculous claim that Frenchtown is now Chinatown. As I already explained the last time I detailed her various factual errors, that is inaccurate and a gross oversimplification of Frenchtown's geography. Hiistoric Frenchtown is NOT in modern-day Chinatown.  (Trust me on that, I'm the one who's spent 5 1/2 years on The Great Big Map of French Los Angeles!)

The fact that she's using my work for financial gain, when I LOSE money on this blog (rare old books and research trips aren't cheap), makes the whole thing even worse. I started this blog to share French Angelenos' stories, NOT so someone else could profit from it.

I'm well aware of the fact that I'm "just" a shy nerd with a blog. But these are MY people. I care very deeply about telling their stories properly and I don't want them tainted by association with someone who doesn't respect them enough to get the facts straight.

I was merely irritated by Eve's bratty antics at first. But she has now crossed the line and I am VERY creeped out by her latest stunts.

If you like this blog...if you like LA history...if you are as fed up with the Eve Harringtons of the world as I am...if you are a creative who has had their ideas stolen...please help a girl out and send this entry to Eve Harrington's editors.

They've ignored me, but they might listen to someone else. I don't need to talk to them; I just want them to know what kind of person she is. Everybody has a heart - except some people.

Lost LA: viewerservices@kcet.org
LAist: Contact page
LA Weekly: Contact page
Curbed LA: Contact page
Atlas Obscura: Contact page

Eve Harrington, if you are reading this (and I know you will), you shouldn't be a writer if you can't come up with your own material. I suggest moving to Kansas and getting a secretarial job in a brewery.

Look closely, Eve. It's time you did. I am Charlotte de Vere. I am nobody's fool, least of all yours.

Goodnight from Frenchtown (which is NOT CHINATOWN),

C.C.

P.S. I would like to politely, but firmly, remind anyone else who needs to be reminded that original blog content is protected by copyright law. There is a copyright notice in the footer (and even if there wasn't one, it's incredibly unprofessional to do this stuff).

P.P.S. *Update: she did that too. She has since "written" about the Wiltern Theatre (seriously?) which I first did in 2016. QUIT CREEPING ON ME, "EVE". I MEAN IT.

Watch My LAVA Sunday Salon!

If you couldn't make it to my September 2017 LAVA Sunday Salon, it's now available on Youtube. As always, much love to Kim and Richard for letting me ramble and for posting the video...to the sold-out audience for coming to hear me ramble...to my family for patiently listening to me practice...to Nathan "Cranky Preservationist" Marsak for his wit and expertise...and to Jean Bruce Poole for everything she has done to preserve Los Angeles' history.