You know how you sit down to check Facebook for just a moment, but then you find the sun has set, or it's hours later and the cat hasn't been fed? It's so hard sometimes to stay focused, especially when the things we're browsing are interesting.
I might like interesting things more than the average bear, and I certainly like things that aren't interesting to most. For my history research, family research, and general amusement I have a subscription to Newspapers.com -- it allows me to search and read so many old (and newish) newspapers, but it can be just as distracting as a quiz on Facebook telling you which Berenstain Bear you are.
So I caught myself heading down the rabbit hole the other day, and thought I should just kinda keep track of what I was jumping from to and fro. So welcome to my wanderings:
I started in a Facebook group called "Historic Minneapolis," which for one reason or another linked me to another Facebook history group called
Sharing Minnesota History and Experiences
... which had an article and link to
History of the Police and Fire Departments of the Twin Cities, 1899
... which in chapter IV had a story about
WONIGKEIT AND IRMISCH ARE CONVICTED OF MURDER AND ARE HUNG (1892)
... so searching for the address to the saloon
Found Otto Wonigkeit in newspapers.com
... which had an article that clarified the victim's name was
Lindhoff
... which led me to a search result with an unrelated Linkhoff
Joseph Lindhoff, a young lad, was shot at today by some person unknown, and was slightly injured
... which was in a small article on deaths including
Chas H Kirkwood, of Ishpeming MI died between Ishpeming and Nauganee with the following details:"At 11pm, Charles fell from the front platform of a crowded electric car.He caught the handle at the side of the step and was swung in front of the car, where he fell.The car passed over his legs, cutting both off at the knee.His face rested on the return circuit wire between the rails and he received a shock that caused instant death.The car was stopped 100 feet further on and the body was picked up and carried back to Negaunee, where life was pronounced extinct.Mr. Kirkwood was 45 years of age and a successful business man, owning multiple drug stores.He leaves a widow and two children, aged 10 and 12. His son, aged 10, and his father's pet, has not slept or eaten since the accident and refuse to be comforted.Mr. Kirkwood leaves a large estate free of incumbrance and a heavy life insurance."
... where I found ads referring to
Kirkwood pharmacy in Ishpeming
... and on the same page had an movie ad for
The Wise Guy, starring James Kirkwood (Born in Grand Rapids MI in 1876, no idea if related)
... which introduced me to
James Kirkwood Sr., an Actor and Director
... whose career fizzled with the end of the silent film era. He died at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital
... which was created in 1940 after the untimely deaths of several former Hollywood stars (including Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, a wholly different rabbit hole), now destitute, shook the community.
Scores of movie notables spent their last years here, as have far less famous people from behind the scenes of the industry. Those with money paid their own way, while those who had no money paid nothing. Fees are based solely on the "ability to pay."
... where, in 2020, actor Allen Garfield died of COVID-19 at age 80. You remember him as Chief Lutz in Beverly Hills Cop 2
... anyway..
... one of James Kirkwood's 3 different marriages was to
Lila "Cuddles" Lee, an actress whose story includes a number of different cliches
... such as:
"being plucked from obscurity, discovered by songwriter Gus Edwards (fascinating wiki page) while playing on the street with other children."
As a very young boy, Edwards worked as a song plugger at Koster and Bial's, at Tony Pastor's theatre, and at the Bowery Theatre. In those old vaudeville days, song publishers would often hire a very young boy to sit in the theatre, and immediately after a vaudeville star had sung one of the publisher's songs, the youngster would stand up in the audience, and pretending to be completely overcome by the song, break out in an "extemporaneous" solo of the same tune.
He also wrote "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" (Oh holy crap that version is creepy!) among other songs.
... Back to Cuddles -- her turbulent marriage to matinee idol James Kirkwood in the 1920s came very close to an "A Star Is Born" scenario. [Just found this researching links - the writer of the latest version of A Star Is Born was helped by the MPTF - who run the hospital/home listed waay up there.] Her acting career was shooting up while his was plummeting. They divorced in 1931.
She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Her erratic screen career decline was triggered by severe bouts with what was euphemistically referred to as tuberculosis, but whispered to be the results of acute alcoholism.
For her tuberculosis in the 1930s, began an extended stay at the Will Rogers Memorial Hospital in Saranac Lake, New York until her death in 1973.
She made a few dismal comebacks on stage and in TV soaps in the 1950s but to little fanfare. Her last picture was as a hayseed mom in the deservedly obscure Cottonpickin' Chickenpickers (1967).
She had a son with James Kirkwood Sr, named..
James Kirkwood Jr, who:
Much mystery surrounded this incident, at first listed by the police as a suicide, later investigated as a possible homicide. More about that in James' semi-autobiographical "There must be a Pony" - book or film.
... he wrote "Some Kind of Hero" and the play PS Your Cat Is Dead, made into a movie by Steve Guttenberg in 2002. It's only partally semi-autobiographical.
... more importantly, James Jr. wrote A Chorus Line
In 1976 he received the Tony Award, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the Broadway hit A Chorus Line.
I checked out the trailer for PS Your Cat Is Dead and now I want to see it.
It stars Guttenberg and Lombardo Boyar, who played Raul in Happy Feet. It's about an actor holds a burglar hostage on New Year's Eve, after his girlfriend leaves him and his cat dies.
... it also stars Cynthia Watros,
... and has a (web) series called Cynthia Watros gets Lost which you can watch here.
... which looks good and bad and only has a few episodes, including one in which she works at a donut shop.
So what started as a comment on a Minneapolis history facebook page has caused me to end up wanting Donuts. Hope you enjoyed the journey as much as I did. :)
