The Satyr Book Shop

Hollywood, California

 

At left is a detail (full image at bottom of page) of the original Satyr Book Shop, at 1620 (or 1622) Vine St., Hollywood, California. As can be seen from the full image, it was located in the same building as the Hollywood Brown Derby (entrance under large awning at left). The bookshop opened (I think) in 1926, and was originally co-owned by Stanley Rose; this photo dates from sometime in the 1930s. [Photo courtesy Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences/Margaret Herrick Library]

The photo at right is a recent discovery: a fantastic detail shot of the front of the Satyr Book Shop in 1931. The dapper gent at the left is Universal Pictures star John Boles; I haven't yet figured out who his companion is. Obviously it's a staged publicity shot (credited to photographer Ray Long), but I don't know what film it might have been promoting. It also might have just been a general publicity shot of Boles, perhaps to accompany a "news" items about what a voracious reader he was. (I'm just making this up; I have no idea if he was a reader at all.) Thanks to the sharpness of the original photo, and thus the visibility of various books in the window display, it's possible to date the photo as May 1931. (One of the books on display is Dashiell Hammett's The Glass Key, published that month.) [Photo courtesy Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences/Margaret Herrick Library; originating in the Leo "K" Kuter Collection, the original photo is now in the John Boles biography file; special thanks to Kristine Krueger for finding it!]

 

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