Saturday, November 12, 2005

The Case of the Suicide's Bullet

November 12, 1947
Los Angeles

Mrs. R.J. Odman was sleeping peacefully in her bed at 825 N. Wilcox Ave. when Harry Lavine, 41-year-old guest of her upstairs neighbor, actor Matty Fain, shot himself just below the heart. The bullet exited Lavine's back, came through floor and ceiling, and passed through Mrs. Odman's splayed hair before stopping.

She was startled but unharmed; Lavine is in serious condition in the Prison Ward of General Hospital. Not for the threat to Mrs. Odman, though: Lavine, also an actor, was out on $5000 bail on a narcotics charge, but had failed to appear in federal court on Monday. Prior to shooting himself, he left a note absolving Margie Martini, 28, who was arrested with him on the drug charge. Miss Martini awaits her preliminary hearing in the County Jail.

A mini Matty Fain 1947 film festival:
Dead Reckoning, with Humphrey Bogart and Lizbeth Scott (Fain, uncredited, as "Ed")
Down to Earth, with Rita Hayworth (Fain, uncredited, as "Henchman")

2 comments:

notarysojack said...

Stricken Girl, 6, Object
of Prayers, Walks Again


Andrea Brodine, 6, for whose life many have prayed since she was stricken by a deadly paralysis two weeks ago, walked again at the Huntington Memorial Hospital yesterday—supported by a mechanical carrier device but strongly on the road to full recovery.

The little girl’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Brodine, 839 Lincoln Ave., Pasadena, were in despair when she was first taken to the hospital. Their daughter, suffering a type of spinal paralysis, seemed doomed to die.

Then when medical science seemed for the moment helpless, the parents fell back on the faith of simple prayer. They called on friends to join them and devout sympathizers from far places offered spiritual strength.

Yesterday, the age-old power of prayer seemed again to be proven. Andrea, thankful doctors admitted, had been cured.

+ + +

The Times reported Andrea Brodine’s illness in October: She became ill in August when she and her 3-year-old sister Pamela were at Lake Arrowhead. First she lost sight in one eye, and then the other. Then her legs became paralyzed. Although she tested negative for polio, she was given sulfa drugs and 40 million units of penicillin, without apparent effect.

The Times apparently never followed up on this story, so Andrea’s illness remains a mystery.

Quote of the day: “Scared? What was there to be scared of? She was just like a bird.”
Hans Espeland, 85, on becoming the first man (apparently) to fly across the Atlantic and back in his stocking feet.

www.lmharnisch.com

~Lynda* said...

Matty was my great grandfather. I never got to meet him, so this kind of stuff is so cool. Well, the story itself is sad, but the history is there.
thanxx
~Lynda Davis*