1950s Decade

I'm sitting in a hotel room in Columbus, Ohio, waiting for a call from a man who doesn't trust me, hoping he'll have answers about a man I don't trust, which may clear the name of a man no one gives a damn about. To distract myself from this uneasy vigil--and from the phone that never rings, and from the icy rain that never stops pelting the window--I light a cigar and open a 40-year-old newspaper.

The sunny, eternally optimistic images of the 1950s depicted in such TV comedies as "Leave It to Beaver" and "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" could leave one to believe that the decade was carefree and fun. Fatherly Dwight Eisenhower was the president; the country was enjoying post-World War II prosperity. All was calm and copacetic in the suburbs. In reality, the '50s were also marked by turmoil and fear. The Cold War was raging between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

Cars, clothes and conversation change over the decades, but one fact remains the same: Teen-agers have always found the time to hang out together outside of school. Here's a brief list of popular local hangouts, and--if they're still standing--what they have become. Happy Days in the 1950s Hi-Way 39 Drive-In Theater: A place to show off your car or your date, it's still operating in Westminster.

"It didn't matter what guys collected--comic books, pinup photos, stamps, Zippo lighters. They all had that same look, as if they couldn't fit into the real world, so they had to find some acceptable subculture where they could fit in." Stephen Randall, "The Other Side of Mulholland" You could spot the cars from blocks away, and the people, too. The cars were loud, low-slung and lean. The drivers had big bellies and big beards.

In 1957, Jackie Robinson retired from baseball, Humphrey Bogart died of cancer, Ford launched the Edsel and the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, black students were barred from Little Rock's Central High by the Arkansas National Guard, and the Wichstand coffee shop opened on Slauson Avenue in Windsor Hills. The Wichstand's sweeping roof design reflected the essential buoyancy of the 1950s, despite the era's mixed signals about the future.

The Times' review of a new 1950s nostalgia movie speaks of the director's "longing for the past, for the moment in time when everything seemed full of luminous certainty and romantic potential, when youth and idealism seemed quenchless." No doubt reviewer Michael Wilmington (Calendar, Oct. 14) has accurately characterized the mood of Yugoslav director Jovan Acin's "Hey, Babu Riba," which, as Wilmington points out, recalls innumerable American predecessors in the "American Graffiti" vein.

As many as 75,000 people exposed to iodine-131 in fallout from above-ground nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s could develop thyroid cancer as a result, according to data released Friday by the National Cancer Institute. At highest risk are people who were children during the 1950s and who drank milk contaminated with the radioactive iodine.

Forty-nine years ago this month, the Hollywood Ten--screenwriters who refused to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee--were sent to prison for contempt of Congress. So began a decade of hysteria that whipped Hollywood into a frenzy, ruining the careers and lives of many. But on Monday night, the writers and their families wore their blacklisted title like a badge of honor as a younger generation of screenwriters honored them with a lifetime achievement award.

The sunny, eternally optimistic images of the 1950s depicted in such TV comedies as "Leave It to Beaver" and "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" could leave one to believe that the decade was carefree and fun. Fatherly Dwight Eisenhower was the president; the country was enjoying post-World War II prosperity. All was calm and copacetic in the suburbs. In reality, the '50s were also marked by turmoil and fear. The Cold War was raging between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

El Camino College was born during a time of extraordinary optimism, respected journalist David Halberstam said as the college kicked off its Golden Anniversary celebration Tuesday. Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author of 14 books, including "The Best and the Brightest," told a crowd of more than 2,000 at the Torrance community college that the postwar era in the United States holds the key to America's future.

They didn't march. They didn't mobilize. They seemed too caught up in the current of their times--the 1950s, when women's roles were rigidly circumscribed and sharply limited--to rock the boat. But in their own subtle ways, they were readjusting the craft's direction. Imogene Coca and Arlene Francis, major figures in the early history of television who died last week, seem at first glance to have fulfilled the female stereotypes of the era. Coca, who died at 92 at her home in Westport, Conn.

The birthplace of the counterculture Beat movement may soon be recognized by the very establishment that its devotees railed against. The Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board voted unanimously Wednesday to recommend landmark status for City Lights Bookstore, the quirky building where Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and a 1950s literary bunch known as beatniks drank coffee and questioned authority.

Forty-nine years ago this month, the Hollywood Ten--screenwriters who refused to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee--were sent to prison for contempt of Congress. So began a decade of hysteria that whipped Hollywood into a frenzy, ruining the careers and lives of many. But on Monday night, the writers and their families wore their blacklisted title like a badge of honor as a younger generation of screenwriters honored them with a lifetime achievement award.

The word could come from anywhere. A rumor passed along by a friend. An item in a newspaper hinting at a pending sweep. Just a whisper was enough, and they'd be off, bags quickly packed and plans strictly adhered to. The key, Muriel Goldsmith remembers, was to stay invisible. Out of sight meant out of reach, and out of reach meant, in those troubled postwar years, no subpoena to testify before government committees rooting Communists from positions of power and influence.

Kid and Linda Ramos live in an Anaheim home that looks like the set of a '50s sitcom. All that's missing from their retro surroundings is a laugh track. Not only have the Ramoses collected furnishings, kitchenware and clothes primarily from the '50s, they've created a lifestyle similar to that of their favorite TV couple, Lucy and Ricky. Like Ricky Ricardo, Kid Ramos works as an entertainer. He's a guitarist with the Fabulous Thunderbirds rock and blues band.

Comedy albums were a potent, talked-about part of the hipster culture of the 1950s and '60s, a time when Lenny Bruce records were passed around like so much contraband and people could instantly recite the routines of Woody Allen, Bob Newhart and Nichols and May. It was an era when comedians could legitimately wear the tag "comedian-commentator." And a time when comedy albums could sail straight to the top of the Billboard chart.

Sock hops and hot rods. Rumblers wearing leather and girls in tight sweaters. Ronald Main never got over it. The 51-year-old building contractor comes home each night to a private museum of 1950s kitsch, where he can woo his "teen angel" to the croons of Elvis and Buddy Holly, and relive the glorious time when he was a high school wrestling star and self-proclaimed juvenile delinquent.

One of the best things about TV in the '90s is that at almost any hour of day or night you can escape it for TV of the '70s, '60s or '50s. When shows get to be this old, they are no longer merely reruns; they also may have become classics. It's made me very happy to spend Tuesday nights this summer nestled in the bosom of the '50s, the first full decade of television. From 8:30 until midnight, I can watch nothing but black-and-white beauties that first made me laugh many, many years ago.

The Rolling Stones aren't ready for rocking chairs yet, and neither is a pioneering group from Chester, Pa., that makes the British legends look boyish. The original Comets--Bill Haley's backing band for such singles as "Crazy, Man, Crazy," "See You Later, Alligator," Big Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle and Roll" and the signature tune of '50s rock, "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock"--proudly claims 63-year-old tenor saxophonist Joey Ambrose as its youngest member.

To those who didn't experience them, the 1950s are mostly a lost decade, the foggy abyss separating the indelible 1940s (World War II) and 1960s (hippies, Camelot, Vietnam and Nixon). In strong rebuttal, here comes "The Fifties," a swell, smart Canadian documentary adapted for the History Channel, which is airing it as eight hours spread-eagled across six nights, beginning Sunday.