Jane Russell at Taos West

Below is a picture of Jane Russell from January 1972 taken at her apartment complex "Taos West" on Woodman Ave. in Van Nuys California

More Scans

Below is a picture of Kaiser Hospital on Woodman Ave. taken from the roof of Jane Russell's apartment building "Taos West". The year was 1976.

Below is a picture taken from inside the Hi Lo Drugstore at Sepulveda Blvd and Sherman Way in Van Nuys. The picture looks out onto the parking lot on Sepulveda. The year is 1976

1970's Photos

Me inside Hi-Lo Drugstore at Sherman way and Sepulveda circa 1972. I wish I had a clear picture and more pictures of the stuff inside the store.

My 1973 Ford Pinto (1600cc engine) on Lanark St. between Sepulveda Blvd and Langdon Ave. 

Looking at the courtyard of Jane Russel's Taos West Apartments on Woodman Ave., 1975. The building is still there and I believe has the same name but it is now condo's.

With scanners I now wish we had printed the photos on glossy paper. I still have the negatives so I could fix that if I wasn't so lazy.

Cigars & Arnold Schwarzenegger

One of my best friends just sent me a red leather travel humidor with 10 CAO brand cigars in it. All the cigars are rated very high with a couple being among the best of the year cigars. So the other night when my old Landlord Jane Russell passed away I decided to light up a CAO Cameroon in memory of her. I had one last Amstel Light in the refrigerator so I opened that and poured it in my special beer mug from Solvang California.

My Dad took up cigar smoking when the doctor made him give up cigarettes. Of course being a cigarette smoker for so long, he inhaled them. My Mom bought him a beautiful humidor for Christmas. After he died I kept the humidor but he was stolen from an apartment I was moving into. Over the years I had smoked a cigar now and then but never seriously until the mid nineties. Unfortunately I didn't have his humidor so my Mom bought me a nice small one which was more than adequate for my needs. It now sits on the mantle about the fireplace (which  doesn't work).

Back in the late nineties my wife worked at a company called CBO in Hollywood. They were a post production company who designed ads, media artwork and so on. One of the 3 owners was best friends with Arnold Schwarzenegger. CBO did the artwork for his movies, print ads and tapes and DVD's. Many of the guys at CBO smoked cigars and Arnold had bought each of them a high end cigar humidor made by Daniel Marshall. As I recall they were the model above but a lighter colored wood.

So it took me and hour and a half to smoke the CAO Camaroon and it was excellent. The Amstel Light beer wasn't bad either. RIP Jane Russell.

Jane Russell & Bugsy Siegel

Tonight I was going through my Dad's old papers when I came across the bit of a newsletter from the time we lived in the apartment owned by Jane Russell. The newsletter mentions a play Mrs. Russell will be staring in called, "Catch If You Can".

In my Dad's file were some other papers relating to our time at "Taos West". Before we moved Jane Russell sold the apartment complex to a couple who lived in Beverly Hills. When we moved they tried to retain a pet deposit I had put down for my dog. We filed a claim in small claims court to get the deposit back. Eventually the couple settled and returned the deposit and appears to have covered the court costs as well.

While looking through the court papers, the address of this couple in Beverly Hills jumped out at me, and I proceeded to see if my hunch was right. It was. It turns out the couple lived next door to the house where Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, the infamous Los Angeles gangster was killed.

My connection to old time Los Angeles organized crime continues to grow. In an earlier post I mentioned that when my family moved to Van Nuys, and settled near the corner of Sherman Way and Woodman, we were about two streets away from where the other notorious gangster, Mickey Cohen lived before he went to jail.

Jane Russel High School Pictures

Our good friend Bob "Mr. Yearbook" Walance has been at it again. This time he snagged a Van Nuys High School Yearbook from 1938 which includes pictures of the actress Jane Russell in her junior year. Two pages from the yearbook are posted here. One shows Jane Russell with her classmates. She is on row 5, third from the right. The other page has a stand alone picture of her and another picture of two fellow students.

Much thanks to Bob for scanning and sharing these images. Be sure to check out our link to Bob's Photobucket page with other scans of San Fernando Valley High School yearbooks.

Jane Russell,Taos West & Apple Records

Here is an article that appeared in the Los Angeles Herald Examiner about Jane Russell's new apartment building. As you can see my Mom wrote on it to commemorate our first band job. We played in the rec room of the building which was by the pool in the picture.


About 5 years later our family moved into this building. We had a nice apartment not to far from this courtyard. The apartment was a split level. the living room, kitchen and small dining area were on the first floor and on the next level up, which was maybe 6 steps were the two bedrooms and one full bath. For some reason my parents gave me the master bedroom. Could be because of all my music, stereo's and other stuff. The unique thing about the room was it had the bathroom sink in the bedroom. I was told it was a European style. I thought it a bit weird but got used to it. Not many of my friends had a bathroom in their room.

The other great thing about the apartment was its proximity to Van Nuys Blvd. A short twisting drive down Lanark Street brought me to the boulevard. Once you crossed Van Nuys Blvd. you came upon a great little record store called Apple Records. it was more of a warehouse turned into a store. In a few short years I picked up hundreds of LP's, cassettes, 8-tracks and reel to reel's.

Like most people I do download music from time to time but nothing compares with going to a store, rifling through the bins, finding a gem and bringing it home and listening to it. I'm old school, I like to hold the album in my hand and read through the liner notes as it plays.

Name Dropping from Van Nuys

Here is a picture of my parents from 1960 in the driveway of our new apartment at 13760 Sherman Way. Thats the 1959 Plymouth we drove from Detroit to Van Nuys. Our apartment was on the top floor in front, in the building to the left of said parents and Plymouth.

I did not learn until much later in life that we lived in an interesting little piece of the San Fernando Valley. At the time the infamous L.A. gangster Mickey Cohen lived just around the corner from us on Wyandotte, between Ranchito and Woodman Avenue. He was renting a house with his wife just before he went to prison.

Also near our aprtment there used to be a ranch called La Posade which was owned by the family of the actress Jane Russell. The only information I can find on it states it was near the corner of Sherman Way and Woodman. If anyone has any additional information I would love to hear from you. Anyway, on the northwest corner of Sherman Way and Woodman there is now a Ralph's Supermarket. When we moved there in 1960 it was an empty lot. My friend Roberto Alvarez and I used to go over there and play soldiers. The TV show Combat was popular at the time and this empty lot full of stuff was a good place from which to take out German's. Since I found out about Mrs. Russell's childhood ranch I wondered if this empty lot night have been part of her family ranch.

One day progress moved into our neighborhood and a supermarket went up at the site of our boyhood battleground. When the store opened I recall going over there to see Engineer Bill. I think I walked away with an Oscar Meyer whistle, which I wish I still had. I seem to recall that Bill Cullan played Engineer Bill at the time. However I could be mistaken.

Fast forward to 1976 and you will find my parents and me living at an apartment building called the Taos West on Woodman Avenue, just south of Kaiser. Taos West was owned by Jane Russell and for a period of time she lived in the building while we were there. We would see here quite often and occasionally have a conversation. At the time I was also in Van Nuys Demolay with her nephew Gary Russell, though we ran in separate crowds.

The area has obviously changed, but a close look and you can still see an outlet of the old days. Si Gordon's Pharmacy is gone and is now a mini mall. But the lot on the southwest corner looks much the same as it did back when the Yankees ruled and cars still had tail fins.