“We have plans to refurbish and improve displays in the museum and the building itself and to place a mural about Glendora history on an exterior wall,” Slakey said. (Sally Rand was a friend of Dorothy Rubel, Michael Rubel’s mother.) Huell Howser of “California’s Gold” public television fame visited, as did President Eisenhower, Alfred Hitchcock and Bob Hope. The Glendora Historical Society maintains both a museum on Glendora Avenue and Rubel Castle, a folk art masterpiece built by Michael Rubel out of river rock, recycled materials and “an assemblage of relics and artifacts of Glendora’s early agricultural and industrial eras,” according to the group’s website. “What a fantastic group of smart, experienced, and committed men and women.” Slakey joined the board of the historical society after giving a presentation on segregation in L.A. Another took a lower division geography course at UCLA and told me he had learned most of the content in my ninth-grade class.” “One of my students became a city planner. “We did a survey of pre-1950 houses as well as a general plan for the city, among other projects,” he said. “It was actually designed by a student of Wright’s who had an office in Chino,” Slakey said, but the interesting aspects of the home are many, he added. Slakey, a Glendora resident since 1974, will present his findings on Rand’s Glendora home, which was built for her and is often attributed to architect Frank Lloyd Wright. She later starred opposite Humphrey Bogart and Karl Malden and counted Sammy Davis Jr. DeMille, who renamed her Sally Rand, after the atlas. Born Helen Beck, she was discovered by Cecil B. Rand earned the nickname “The Fan Dancer” after she performed at the 1933 World’s Fair show, performing in what appeared to be nothing but a pair of strategically-placed ostrich feathers. She even worked in the circus and headlined a show in Las Vegas. By then, she had enjoyed a career in Vaudeville, silent films, talkies, radio, television and theater. Sally Rand was 75 when she died in Glendora in 1979. To join, visit click on Events, then the meeting date, Sept. Slakey will start his presentation at 7 p.m. “Sally Rand’s Frank Lloyd Wright House Revealed” is set for 6:30 p.m. Steve Slakey, who used to teach at La Puente High School, was one of those teachers who made any curriculum come alive for his students (and a curious reporter who wrote about them.) I can’t wait to see how he gives the Slakey treatment to a famous resident at the next meeting of the Glendora Historical Society. Photo from the archives of Claremont Heritage A rendering by Foster Rhodes Jackson of the home he designed for actress Sally Rand in Glendora.
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