The Secret Life of Hugh Tolford

The Burning and Destruction of the World’s Largest Aircraft Hanger, The Death Valley 49ers, Soupy Sales, The Commander of the Blimp Squadron Against the Imperial Japanese Navy and a Leader of the Antiquarian Bookmen in California

by Paul Hunt

Arson or Bad Maintenance? The Hangar Burns for weeks.

Hugh Tolford ran the Antiquarian Book Association Fairs in California for some time in the 1980s. He always put up a great show, and we all respected his dedication and hard work. When I joined up with Keith Burns, Sol Grossman and Jack Garvin to put on a “low cost” book fair for non-ABAA members (all ABAA members were of course invited to participate), we met often with Tolford who was very helpful to getting us organized and very generous of his time.

Hugh Tolford

Tolford also was a frequent visitor to the Book Castle when we were just getting it off the ground. I had many conversations with him about Western Americana and helped him get some of the old Touring Topics magazines for his collection. Touring Topics was the name of Westways magazine in the early 20th century, and it is still published today by the Auto Club. Tolford had a great collection, and the early issues are important source material for those researching California and Western Americana. Tolford was a wealth of information.

Just recently on November 8th, 2023, a massive fire destroyed one of the world’s largest aircraft hangars, which was located in Tustin, California. The fire was still burning a week later as this is written.

The Huge Hangar during WW2

 

I was doing some casual reading about it, I stumbled across the name Hugh Tolford, my old friend of bookselling days, and of his secret life that he never spoke of in all the many conversations I had with him.

The Blimps had a home in Tustin

The big fire at the aircraft hangar was a disaster. The hangar was so big because in World War 2 it housed the U.S. Navy Blimp fleet. The lighter-than Air Craft were gigantic, much larger than today’s Goodyear blimps that also operate out of that area. The hangar was so large that it could house 7 of the huge monsters inside. A great video by the famous Huell Howser is available on line. It was there that I found out that during WW2, Hugh Tolford was Commander of the Blimp fleet patrolling the West Coast looking for submarines and ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

About 7 of the giants would fit into the Hangar

It was a serious and tough job, and the U.S. was on alert after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the famous “Battle of Los Angeles”. Tolford and his Blimp Fleet kept us safe.

Hubert “Hugh” C. Tolford was 24 years old when he enlisted for training in service with lighter-than-air craft in the Naval Air Corps.
He was the first man from Cincinnati, Ohio to train to fly both Blimps and Baloons at Lakehurst, N.J. A graduate of Michigan State University, he entered the service as an aviation cadet. He enlisted soon after Pearl Harbor, in January, 1942, during those early dark days of the war.

By December 1942 Tolford was an Ensign and stationed at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fl. During that month he participated in the wedding of a fellow Ensign, and gave away the bride. He was later transferred to California. The 2 huge Blimp hangars were finished in 1943. Tolford became a Lt. Commander.

Tolford being interviewed by Huell Howser.

After being discharged, in 1945 he formed Tolford-Good Aviation to take over and operate surplus military airfields. He also served as aviation advisor to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. Tolford sold this company in 1950 and helped organize the Rubbertone Corp.

Hugh Tolford Meets Soupy Sales

In 1952 Tolford joined California Transit Advertising, handling sales promotion and research. By 1956, he was a Vice-President of the Beverly Hills Company. The company placed all those lobby-card size ads along the insides of buses. Anyone who ever rode a bus would remember staring at the ads out of boredom.

During the fall of 1962 Tolford connected to Soupy Sales, who at that time had hugely popular television show in Los Angeles on a local station, I think it was KABC. It was great fun, he had two dogs (all you could see were their arms and paws) White Fang and Black Tooth. They interacted with Soupy throughout the show. At some point Soupy was suspended for a time because he asked his audience – kids – to go into mommy’s purse and get those green bills and mail them to me. Needless to say, this caused a big uproar.

Soupy Sales puts up a sign in a Bus

However, before that incident, Soupy took on a serious campaign to keep kids from dropping out of high school. Tolford had the transit bus cards designed, and Soupy showed a short film on why kids should finish high school. I’m sure it had an impact.

In the early 1980’s Fred Dorsett and I went on a book buying trip to Central California to meet and trade with some collectors. On the way back to Los Angeles we stopped at a restaurant to get a bite and when we sat down at the booth Fred looked over at an older couple sitting a few booths away and said loudly “hey that guy looks like Soupy Sales.” It turned out to be Soupy and his wife, and they invited us to sit with them. We had a great time talking about his television show twenty years past and other shows. Fred & I were both fans and Soupy said he was amazed that so many folks remembered his show. Youtube has examples of his various shows, free to watch and have a lot of belly laughs at Soupy’s antics.  He did the famous pie fight with Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack.

The Death Valley 49ers

For years Hugh Tolford was Production Chairman of the Death Valley 49ers. He was in charge of the annual encampment that takes place in November of every year. The group was founded in 1949 on the 100th anniversary of the so-called Jayhawker Expedition, much of which ended in disaster in Death Valley. The very first encampment brought out around 50,000 folks camping and enjoying the festival.

When Tolford took over promoting the annual encampment, the attendance had dropped to a few thousand. He boosted attendance to 10,000 then15,000 and eventually at times about 27,000. He was a great publicist and a dedicated “desert rat” prowling the back roads of Death Valley with his wife and daughter. The Tolford family were into silversmithing, writing, photography and exploring Death Valley. In the mid-1960s the membership was $2. Today it is $50, another example of the loss of value of the old dollar.

Tolford was President of the Death Valley 49ers

One of the amusing things Tolford did was to get the Stetson hat company to issue a replica of the “Boss of the Plains” hat made of beaver that became famous in the covered wagon days. These hats were not sold, but Tolson and some of the 49ers were gifted hats by the President of the Stetson company.

Badwater Bill in 1960 ready to enter the Flapjack contest

Real Estate

Tolford was also involved in real estate. One ad I found offered an unfurnished house on 35 acres. “Stables for horses, beautiful site, $20 per month. You pay utilities.” That sounds like a great deal, even in 1964. So how do you like the value of your dollar now? What would that cost to rent today? I would think somewhere between $5,000 – $10,000 depending on location.

Hugh Tolford Charity Work and Leadership

Hugh Tolford was a bundle of energy all his life. We wonder when he ever had time to read, or even sleep. Aside from his job at the California Transit Advertising he was active in quite a lot of organizations:

–Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Board

–Zamorano Club (President in 1984)

–E. Clampus Vitus (President and Noble Grand Humbug)

–The Big Ten Club (President – he attended University of Michigan)

–Sheriff of the Westerners Los Angeles Corral

–President of the Death Valley 49ers in 1965

–Ran book fairs for the ABAA for about 15 years.

–An author of books, limited edition keepsakes, and pamphlets.

Some Books by Hugh Tolford

–The Death Valley Chuck-Walla

–The Place Called Death Valley. 35th Annual Death Valley 49ers Encampment.

–Fifty Years Ago at Furnace Creek Inn

–Zabriskie Point and Christian Brevoort.

–Take the Train to Death Valley: Death Valley Railroad LTD.

–Automobiling Desert Trails

–The Ties That Bind – A Biographical Sketch of Horace M. Albright

Hugh Tolford passed away on June 7, 2011. I was honored to know him and a retrospective of his life reveals what a giant of a man he was.

 

 

 

Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Show Returns to Glendale

Sunday March 19, 2023 at Glendale Civic Auditorium

Tom Lesser’s Show –
43rd Year!

Known across the country as the best show for collectors of paperback books, it is the only show that has a raft of great authors signing books for free!  Thousands of rare and collectible paperbacks are on sale by vendors and collectors.  Admission is only $10, show starts at 9am until 4pm. 

Location: Glendale Civic Auditorium, 1401 Verdugo Rd., Glendale, CA.

Guests and Scheduled Times – List – Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Collectors Show

Charles Bukowski – Was His Fictional Bookstore in “Pulp” Real?

Bukowski’s Last Novel Pulp and “Skid Row Hollywood”

by Paul Hunt

Bill Nelson from Oddball Books gave me his worn copy  of Pulp to read while I was recuperating from a recent medical incident.  He knew I was at the old Los Angeles Free Press during the days when Bukowski was writing his column “Notes of a Dirty Old Man.”

A lot of the young writers at the time loved Bukowski.  He was a fresh voice and we couldn’t wait to see his latest outrage.  Although he was loved by a lot of the writers of that era, none of us  thought that the public at large was ready for him.  We were wrong, and a few years later, a big chunk of  the literary community had latched on to his rising reputation..

Pulp is a fun read, but it is not just another private eye book and  Nicky Belane is not just another gumshoe, he is “Hollywood’s greatest private dick.”  He is also a world class drunk.  He is drinking on every page, everywhere he goes, which includes every dimly lit bar within shouting distance.  Bukowski was having fun with this, mocking every private eye mystery in every way possible.  Private dick Belane drank so much that about half way through the book I briefly thought about heading out to an AA meeting just to keep my sanity.  Luckily, my old friend Sol Grossman was on my mind.

Sol Grossman

Sol was a partner in the California Book Fairs that I was involved in.  He had also operated a mail order business dealing in private eye novels called “Mainly Mysteries”.  In his personal life, he was heavily involved in the AA movement.  He wasn’t just a friend of Bill’s, he was Bill’s long-lost twin brother.  Sol was on my mind as I read Pulp, because he had just died the week before at the young age of 92.  I started laughing out loud just thinking about what a gigantic rant he would have gone on if he had read Pulp.  He was passionate beyond belief against drunkenness, and would wave his big cane around in a profane-laced rant at anyone perceived by him to be a drunk, even a fictional character. Sol was the main sponsor of AA meetings in Ventura, where he lived.

Even while drunk out of his mind, private dick Belane takes on an odd assortment of clients.  One hires him to find Celine, the long-dead French writer, who was seen frequenting a Hollywood bookstore.  Belane knows deep down that this is crazy, Celine had been dead for years, but off he goes to Red Koldowsky’s bookstore to check it out.

“You know Red.  He likes to run people out of his  bookstore.  A person can spend a thousand bucks in there, then maybe linger a minute or two and Red will say ‘Why don’t you get the hell out of here?’.  Red’s a good guy, he’s just freaky.  Anyway, he keeps forcing Celine out and Celine goes over to Musso’s and hangs around the bar looking sad.  A day or so later he’ll be back and it will happen all over again.”

Anyone not familiar with Old Hollywood might think that Red’s bookstore is just another fictional creation of Bukowski.  Red was, however, very real, and Bukowski knew him well.  His real name was Sholom “Red” Stodolsky and his bookstore was Baroque Book Store on Las Palmas Avenue, just a half block south of Hollywood Blvd. An article I wrote back in the 1970s and expanded and printed here on Bookstore Memories, called “Hollywood Blvd. Bookstore Follies” lists most of the bookstores in Hollywood at the time Bukowski was prowling around the area.  Here’s the listing:

Baroque Book Store. Photo by Wayne Braby

Lastly, we come to BAROQUE BOOK STORE, which almost adjoins Universal News.  Owner Sholom “Red” Stodolsky specializes in modern literature, literary criticism, music theater, film, poetry and first editions.  You can get an added thrill to that exciting out-of-print tome you find by reading it while strapped into the electric chair that sits in the middle of the store.  Don’t worry about the volts, it’s only a make-believe mock-up from a movie set. (Who said that book dealers are eccentric?)

As I remember Red in those days, he was about 5 ft. 10 in. had thinning red hair, a small red mustache, and a small belly paunch, the kind older men frequently acquire for free later in life.

Some of Red’s remarks from Pulp:

“Can you believe some of them come in here eating ice cream cones.?”

“Hey you” he yelled “get the hell out of here.”

“I can tell when they’re not going to buy.”

Red in his doorway. Note the Bukowski sign.

Was Red really that way, yelling at potential customers to “Get Out” or was this just a Bukowski exaggeration?.  By the late 1970s and into the 1980s Hollywood was declining.  This was mostly due to the greed of developers, banksters, and their handy tool, Mayor Bradley.  A Redevelopment area was created and plans laid for a billion dollar boondoggle of building, which is still going on to this day.  But in order to drive property values down to the low level that they could then be acquired by huge developers, services were cut, the police cut back, and the area of Hollywood got worse every year.  Bukowski called it “skid row Hollywood.”  By the 1990s the only three places that he thought were still viable were Red’s bookstore, Musso’s (Musso and Franks) and Fredericks of Hollywood.  The rest of Hollywood was repulsive even to Bukowski.

As the years wore on and crime increased, the booksellers had an increasingly hard time coping with an onslaught of thieves, the unwashed, the rude and the crude. Some of the book dealers could cope, others like Red were deeply offended at the incivility of it all.

Curmudgeon:  a crusty, ill-tempered person, usually an old man.

Bukowski, writing Pulp, certainly was aware of this and described Red that way, maybe actually understating it.  L.A.Times writer John McCormick described being booted out of Baroque around the 1980s.

“Are you going to buy anything?”  asked Red

“I don’t know” said McCormick.

“Then get out.”

Retired Bookseller Fred Dorsett

 

Now retired bookseller Fred Dorsett remembers Red as “curmudgeonly a human as I have ever met.  In fact, he is the benchmark against which all curmudgeons are measured.”

Fred tells of a book scout who occasionally would bring in some lit to sell to Red.  They had a cordial relationship, until a strange incident occurred.  The book scout picked up some signed sports books, totally out of Red’s area of expertise.  The scout sold them to Gene at Cherokee Books on Hollywood Blvd.  Somehow, during some gossip, Red heard about it, and the next time the poor Book Scout stopped into Baroque Book Store Red yelled at him, accusing him of the grandest and most foul type of betrayal, and told him to get out and never come back..  The book scout was still trying to figure that one out years later.

Trolling through the internet blogs relating to Bukowski and to Baroque sheds some more light.  A few remember Red fondly, and said they were always treated with respect, and that Red would  often give them something extra with a purchase.  Some other comments weren’t quite as kind:

“A cranky old fucker.”

“He was a type of eccentric character that seems to be dying off, along with the rest of his generation.”

“I was treated like shit.”

“A Jerk”

“Cranky”

etc.

Bukowski, however, got along just fine with the real Red.  He was impressed that Red was a huge fan, and had gone out of his way to stock a ton of both new and used Bukowski material.  In 1989 Bukowski wrote a poem about Red, and it was published in a limited edition of 50 copies

Red, a poem, limited edition

Good luck trying to find a copy to purchase, the last one I saw was around $1700.  If you are diligent, you can find the actual poem on the  internet, but you will have to look hard for it, maybe even hire Nicky Belane, Hollywood’s greatest private dick to give you a hand. Hey, don’t laugh, he found Celine, didn’t he?

Red Skodolsky died in 1998 at the age of  82.  The bookstore was closed and the stock liquidated.

Charles Bukowski died in 1994 not long after he finished Pulp.  The one case that he had taken early on in the book was to find “The Red Sparrow.”  Through thick and thin, he could never solve that until the end of the book.  It’s an interesting ending, which you will enjoy, especially when you figure out who or what the Red Sparrow is.

Time for a glass of wine. Cheers to the old Hollywood.

A plaque at the site of Red’s old bookstore on Las Palmas.

 

 

 

 

 

ABAA Bookfair Coming To Pasadena

FEBRUARY 9TH, 2018 – FEBRUARY 11TH, 2018

Pasadena Convention Center

The 51st California International Antiquarian Book Fair will be held on February 9-11, 2018.

Featuring the collections and rare treasures of over 200 booksellers from over 30 different countries the California International Antiquarian Book Fair is recognized as one of the world’s largest and most prestigious exhibitions of antiquarian books. The California International Antiquarian Book Fair gives visitors the opportunity to see, learn about, and purchase the finest in rare and valuable books, manuscripts, autographs, graphics, photographs, print ephemera, and much more.

Vintage Paperback Show To Be Held in March

This is the big show of the year for paperback collectors.

This is the big show of the year for paperback collectors.

It’s hard to believe that this is the 38th annual show.  I remember when I first learned of it, just like it was yesterday.  Tom Lesser rented a small Pavilion next to the big Burbank Book Castle store in the old Golden Mall in downtown Burbank. The Pavilion was a round small building and it didn’t hold a lot of tables, but the books for sale were great.  Tom rapidly outgrew the little Pavilion and moved to the Mission Hills Inn, where it was located for years. Now it is a big show and takes place at the Glendale Civic Auditorium.  The show always attracts a great crowd, including a lot of authors who are happy to sign your books.  If you collect paperbacks, science fiction or mystery genre books, this is the show that you must attend.

Uncle Paulie

Paperback Show Memories

The Paperback Collector’s Show has been around for a long time. This year will be the 34th Annual event, on April 7, 2013 in Mission Hills (see link below). We dug into the memory box and pulled up a few pix of some of the characters seen at this great Los Angeles show, as far as known the first such show in the world to feature the paperback book.

The Founder of the show is Tom Lesser, a great book collector and showman, who always puts on a first class event.  He somehow manages to get all the great authors to attend and sign books and mingle with fans.  I would love for someone to write up a history of the show itself, from its humble beginnings in a little kiosk on the now gone grassy mall in Burbank to the Mission Hills site it now occupies.  What great authors have been there to meet their fans!  Many of them now gone to the big publisher in the sky.  The avid collectors and vendors rounded out an intense experience for anyone. Here’s a link to the show site, Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Collectors Show. Click on the menu bar “Memories of Bookshops and Booksellers” for more on Tom.

Here’s our first photo, Tom and Sheri Lesser:

 

 

Coming Soon – PDF of old “Book Finder”

Southern California Book Finder

Coming soon – I will upload pdf files of the old issues of “The Southern California Book Finder”.  These old pocket guides of book shops in the Southern California area are an historical record of the shops operating at the times the booklet was published.  It is sad to compare these old Book Finders with the lists of shops open today.  The number of shops is down by at least 50%.  Almost all of the big book shops are gone:  Acres of Books in Long Beach, Book Baron in Anaheim, Book City in Hollywood, Valley Book City in NOHO, Wahrenbrock’s in San Diego, Book Castle (the big store) in Burbank, Berkelouw in Hollywood, and many others.

I hope that looking through the old Book Finder will trigger memories of the shops and bookmen of yesteryear.

Paulie