by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Part one of this post largely examined the career of George R. Bentel, who came to Los Angeles at the dawn of the 20th century and, after several years in real estate in the Santa Monica and Venice areas rapidly rose to some renown as an auto body, car and tire salesman and business owner in the Angel City. From at least 1908, he became involved in the nascent auto racing scene, as well, leading to his becoming a key figure in the operation of car races at Ascot Park, opened as a horse-racing track in 1903 in South Los Angeles, during much of the Teens.
When that ended (Ascot Park became the site of a Goodyear tire manufacturing plant), Bentel joined an entertainment enterprise headed by Oliver Morosco (1875-1945), a widely known theatrical impresario who wrote and produced a bevy of popular plays, owned theaters such as one in downtown Los Angeles, and had other interests. As noted in part one, Oliver Morosco Productions, Inc. in mid-July 1920, with capitalization at $2.5 million and the intention of taking many of his stage works and adapting them to film.
Morosco was born Oliver Mitchell in Utah and, after his parents divorced, his mother moved the boy and a brother Leslie to San Francisco. The boys developed an early skill in acrobatics and were hired for a troupe led by Walter M. Morosco, who ended up adopting the Mitchell brothers and bestowing his surname on them. Oliver rose to be the manager of two of Morosco’s theaters in San Francisco and San Jose and, from a young age, developed a sharp management acumen.
In 1900, after a rupture with his adopted father over his pay and role in Walter’s enterprises and with a wife, baby and mother-in-law, Morosco came south and, that August, took over the lease of the struggling Burbank Theatre, opened a half-dozen years earlier by Dr. David Burbank, namesake of the town of that name north of Los Angeles. An obituary stated that, within just a few months, Morosco brought in several thousand dollars and, with good stock companies and popular productions, the Burbank came to be a highly successful venue under his management.
This included the production of plays in Los Angeles and on Broadway in New York City, including “Peg ‘o My Heart,” which the obituary said brought Morosco some $5 million, and was said to have discovered Charlotte Greenwood, the long-legged and limber comedian who became a major star. In the Angel City, he took the lease in 1908 on the newly finished Majestic Theatre and, three years later, took over the Orpheum Theatre, which opened in 1888 as the Los Angeles before becoming part of the famed Orpheum circuit in 1903 and he recast as the Lyceum.
The Lyceum association ended rather soon and, at the beginning of 1913, the Morosco Theatre (originally intended to be called the Belasco) opened on Broadway south of 7th Street, with its namesake having merged his growing empire about a year-and-a-half prior with theater operator John Blackwood, though that partnership quickly eroded. In 1915, Morosco lost the lease on this theater and the Majestic, though he regained the former within a couple of years. In New York, the Shubert family, recognizing his work in helping them break a theatre monopoly (though they were much later determined to be monopolists), completed the Morosco Theatre where Broadway crosses 7th Avenue at West 45th Street, though that venue closed in the early 1980s.
The formation of Morosco’s film company, included local acting school owner Frank C. Egan as treasurer and Bentel as vice-president and general manager. The Los Angeles Times of 23 October 1920 noted that Morosco, head of the firm was also slated to direct his film adaptations, the first of which was the Western-themed, The Half Breed. Morosco told the paper he’d direct that picture over some three months and turn to another movie and added his company would make up to a half-dozen pictures in the first year of the 19 ready for adaptation. Bentel, who would dispose of his auto business at the dawn of 1921, was recorded as having “obtained elaborate studio facilities” and indicated that shooting on The Half-Breed would begin by the first of November.
By early 1921, the Greenwich Village-type subdivision dubbed Moroscotown, situated on 20 acres at the northwest corner of the intersection of Western and Melrose avenues on the fringes of Hollywood, was to have begun active work according to a report in the Times of 27 February. Said to be a project of the impresario and “a syndicate of Los Angeles capitalists and merchants,” the concept was to be managed by the real estate firm of J. Harvey McCarthy and Company, best known for the later construction of the Carthay Circle Theatre and surrounding Carthay Center community.
After the building of a commercial structure at Western and Marathon Street, it was intended to construct “the first of a series of units for artists’ studio apartments,” two-story edifices reminiscent of the Latin Quarter in Paris, with living space downstairs and work spaces above, and architectural features drawn from buildings in New York’s Greenwich Village. In April, it was reported that Morosco sold $500,000 in art and furnishings “toward the fulfillment of the dream of his life” for what he called “the wonder city of the world” and which was to be “the world’s greatest resort and shopping center.”
The Washington [D.C.] Evening Star of 3 April added that “every street will be a duplicate of a world center,” with names including Venice, Berlin, London, Vienna, Rome, Tokyo, Hawaii, Peking and New York. Varying somewhat from what was stated above, this account observed that these cosmopolitan thoroughfares would be lined with buildings with ground-floor stores and upper stories for artists’ apartments, while “the streets will be used for the production of motion pictures,” foregoing the need for sets with “flimsy structures.” It was asserted that $50 million would eventually be expended on the highly ambitious project, with more than $1 million coming from Morosco. Beyond the housing for artists of all types (architects, designers, sculptors, writers, etc.), there were to be small units for tourists and a 3,000-seat theatre.
By summer, the Oliver Morosco Holding Company was incorporated in New York with the new entity’s assets including Moroscotown; the theaters in the Angel City and Big Apple; all of Morosco’s plays, rights to films, royalties and contracts; and other real estate. An advertisement for 15,000 shares of preferred and 45,000 of common stock, noted that Morosco’s holdings brought in well north of a half million dollars in 1920-1921 “and to that can be added an estimated earning of over $2,500,000 when the enterprise has been fully developed.”
As 1922 dawned, however, trouble was already experienced with the concept, as a pair of stockbrokers, C.I. Toppin and George L. Miller, sued Morosco for a little north of a quarter million dollars in damages for breach of contract. The two claimed that they signed an an agreement in February 1921 giving them $50,000 in common stock in the holding company and 20% of all stock sales. Having formed a partnership and expended $10,000 “on the work of projecting the town,” Miller and Toppin alleged that “Morosco has failed to carry out his part of the contract” including the creation of a $3 million firm called Moroscotown, Inc.
While the grandiose dream of that “model town” turned into an evolving nightmare, meanwhile, Bentel turned to his own ambition of reviving Ascot. By early December 1923, plans were announced, with the Los Angeles Express of the 5th proclaiming that “Los Angeles, the automobile racing capital of the universe, was today assured of two new modern speedways,” including the shuttering of the Los Angeles Speedway at Beverly Hills and the move to a site in Culver City.
The second was the new race course of the New Ascot Speedway Association, with Bentel as president and his old partner at the prior Ascot, Edgar Brown helping him to bankroll the operation, and it was added,
The New Ascot Speedway Association has closed for a long-term lease on 110 acres of level ground on the other [east] side of Lincoln park. This land affords a 900-foot frontage on Alhambra [Valley] boulevard and is reached by three different yellow [street]car lines and the main Pasadena line.
The account went on to observe that “following his return from New York, where motion-picture interests have kept him for two years,” including the only realized production of the Morosco film company, this being The Half-Breed, released in June 1922 with a minor role played by Bentel’s son-in-law, Albert S. Lloyd, Bentel “has been quietly working for the last two weeks . . . for the re-creation of old Ascot, where so much racing history was written.”
The Express added that $100,000 was to be expended on the new course and “the track will be made of oiled macadam, with banked concrete turns” and readied for action by the first of 1924. Bentel was lionized as “the man who first introduced automobile racing here when he rescued the abandoned horse racing track at Ascot park from the clutches of the ‘blood and sand’ promoters,” whose races were too frequently marked by crashes with numerous injuries and death.” Having paved the Ascot course with concrete, the paper went on, more of the finest racers in the nation came to compete for bigger cash prizes “that brought out speed and daring to the nth degree.”
With the expected signing of the lease that evening, engineers were to be at the site the next morning with a lumber order already placed. The track was to be a mile because, Bentel insisted, the spectator prefers that races were held “in his or her lap,” while he believed fans would enjoy cars going 90 mph on the macadam and concrete track rather than the faster 115 mph reached on the few board tracks available (four in the country, including at Los Angeles.) He concluded,
Automobile racing along the lines of the old Ascot speedway programs is the rage in the East and Middle West. In Chicago three tracks are running every Sunday and on the holidays. We will offer weekly programs of racing, or, rather, we’ll put on bills as often as the public demands, and these will include motorcycle speed contests as well as events for the four-wheel boys.
While it was stated that there would be no issue with having two speedways operating locally, a problem arose with the Automobile Association of America decided not to sanction races at Ascot, leading Bentel and promoter Bill Pickens to enlist drivers like Ralph De Palma, one of Bentel’s early drivers, for the new venue’s races.
When the Los Angeles Times issued its own report on the 6th, however, it noted that “a five-eighths of a mile speedway, a track for horseracing, a rodeo, and a general all-around amusement center with big stands seating 10,000 spectators” were in the plans. It quoted Bentel as saying that “the time for motor racing to take its place alongside baseball and kindred sports has arrived,” while he went on to claim that “I know many Los Angeles speed fans long for another glimpse of the old Ascot thrills.” He suggested that “the new Ascot Motor Speedway will be dedicated to clean sport as was the old plant” and assured that “there will never be less than sixty thrills a second” provided by what the paper described as “hard-boiled throttle shovers.”
As to that amusement park, it was announced two weeks later, with the Express of the 20th stating its cost to be a cool half-million dollars and that it would be the biggest such venue west of Chicago, modeled after the Windy City’s Riverview and White City parks. Sam C. Haller, recently head of the Pacific Coast Showmen’s Association, was hired by Bentel to manage the facility, which was to cover 60 acres of what was said to be the 126 leased by the race car track operator.
The Times went into far more detail about the proposed amusement center, to be called the Ascot Speedway Park and slated for a grand opening on Decoration Day, which we now know as Memorial Day, on 30 May 1924. Haller made it a point to tell the paper that “special attention is going to be given to the problem to providing proper amusement for children,” adding that there would be playgrounds, a nursery, hospital and that he and Bentel would “welcome inspection any time from a moral standpoint,” while “even the pure-food laws are going to be enforced.”
Moreover, it was explained that Los Angeles Railway streetcars ending at Lincoln Park, just to the west, were to be extended and “enter the park through a tunnel under the Pacific Electric tracks.” Recognizing the growing reliance of the automobile, which was increasingly cutting into public transit use, the promoters added that there was to be parking for 15,000 cars. Admission was to be free (attractions, of course, had fees), Bentel noted, and “it is planned to have as many free acts and special features every day to attract the crowds.”
In addition to thrill rides and other typical elements, a dance area, swimming pool with “a cascade down an artificial mountain” and “artificial waves made brilliant by colored lights,” the possibility of a future garden and other components were discussed. Bentel went on to state that as “Los Angeles is without a good circus ground and an athletic field” open to a variety of organizations, like police and fire department teams, these would also be included. He concluded,
Los Angeles is absolutely without and in great need of such a park as we plan. At present the crowds are forced to make the long trip to the beach resorts for the amusement they will be able to get at our park after an eight-minute ride on a street car.
In some ways, the new Ascot project sounded like a variation on the Moroscotown project and it would hardly be surprising if Bentel conceived of the race track and amusement park based on what he’d been involved with with the failed effort across town. We will return tomorrow with part three of this post, taking us to the opening and early operation of the speedway under Bentel’s management, but soon followed by some very serious legal problems emanating from the Morosco fiasco. Check back then!