"Just the Facts: Chief William Parker's War on Mickey Cohen and the Los Angeles Underworld" lecture by "L.A. Noir" author John Buntin April 8, 2010

WHAT: "Just the Facts: Chief William Parker's War on Mickey Cohen and the Los Angeles Underworld" lecture by "L.A. Noir" author John Buntin
WHEN: Thursday, April 8, 7pm
WHERE: Los Angeles Athletic Club, 431 W 7th St, Los Angeles, CA 90014,
COST: Free, reservations required from http://lavatransforms.org/lanoir
RELATED EVENTS: On Saturday, April 10 John Buntin takes his tales on the road for Esotouric's bus tour "John Buntin's L.A. Noir" – info http://www.esotouric.com/lanoir

LOS ANGELES, CA-- Other cities have histories. Los Angeles has legends. For more than sixty years, writers and directors from Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder to Roman Polanski and James Ellroy have explored L.A.'s origins, its underbelly, and (yes) its blondes in fiction and films like "The Big Sleep," "Double Indemnity," "Chinatown," and "L.A. Confidential." Yet this preoccupation with a mythic past has obscured something important -- the true history of noir Los Angeles. For the real deal curious Angelenoes have a new guide in John Buntin, the author of the best-selling social history "L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America’s Most Seductive City" (Random House).

On the evening of April 8, John Buntin makes a special appearance at the historic Los Angeles Athletic Club at the invitation of LAVA – The Los Angeles Visionaries Association, with the local debut of a new lecture, "Just the Facts: Chief William Parker's War on Mickey Cohen and the Los Angeles Underworld."

In downtown Los Angeles in 1922, two very different men began their very different careers. William H. Parker III was a 17-year-old from Deadwood, SD, working as a movie usher at Loews’s State. Mickey Cohen was a 9-year-old hoodlum who was about to commit his first violent crime — a hold-up of the California Theater.

In his talk, John Buntin will explain how the bitter rivalry between these two very different men shaped the culture of the LAPD and the history of 20th century Los Angeles, first as lieutenants to older, more powerful men, then directly with each other. In the process, the two men intersected with the agenda’s of some of the most powerful and colorful figures of the twentieth century, from Robert Kennedy to J. Edgar Hoover to press magnates Harry Chandler and his nemesis, William Randolph Hearst; from studio head Harry Cohn of Columbia to entertainers Jack Webb, Frank Sinatra, Lana Turner, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

Novelist Michael Connelly calls "L.A. Noir" "fascinating, flat out entertaining." "Important and wonderfully enjoyable," says Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times. Kirkus Reviews raves, "A roller coaster ride... Gripping social history and a feast for aficionados of cops-and-robbers stories, both real and imagined," and USC historian Kevin Starr says the book is "a tour de force of non-fiction narrative."

Reservations are required for this free lecture. To reserve, visit the event page on the LAVA website - http://lavatransforms.org/lanoir

Author John Buntin's full schedule of L.A.-area appearances:
* April 8, 7 pm – "Just the Facts: Chief William Parker's War on Mickey Cohen and the Los Angeles Underworld" free lecture sponsored by LAVA – The Los Angeles Visionaries Association, LA Athletic Club, 431 W 7th St, Los Angeles, CA 90014, reservations required from http://lavatransforms.org/lanoir
* April 9, 5:30 pm -- Whittier Reads, Whittier Public Library, 7344 S. Washington Ave., Whittier, CA 90602 (562) 464-3450
* April 10, 12 pm -- "John Buntin's L.A. Noir" Esotouric bus adventure, Clifton's Cafeteria, 648 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90014, (323) 223-2767
* April 10, 5:30 pm -- Metropolis Books, 440 South Main Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013, (213) 612-0174
* April 23rd, 12 pm -- Lunch at The Library, Whittier Public Library, 7344 S. Washington Ave., Whittier, CA 90602 (562) 464-3450
* May 15, 2 pm -- Marie Northrop Lecture Series: "Mayor Frank L. Shaw: 1933 to 1938," Taper Auditorium, Richard Riordan Central Library, 630 W. 5th Street Los Angeles, CA 90071, (213) 228-7069

Official Website: http://lavatransforms.org/lanoir