George Hodel KFI Radio Announcer of Classical Music for Earle C. Anthony in Early L.A. Radio at Age 16

By Steve Hodel | July 10, 2024 |
July 10, 2024
Birch Bay, Washington
I knew my father had been a radio announcer of classical music in Los Angeles in his youth, but this is the first time I have found documentation.
The Los Angeles Examiner article below lists him as the programmer/announcer of his own radio show for Earle C. Anthony on KFI radio in 1923, at age 16. I quote from the 1923 article “Song Series On KFI Bill”:
 “…Signalizing the response of the Anthony Studio of KFI to the constant demand of the public
for notable departures from the ordinary, George Hill Hodel presents Dione Neutra, versatile
Swiss musician, who has a charming soprano voice and ability as a cellist. Her program from 8:30
to 9:00 will be devoted to a series of songs which she studied under the great European singing master August Becker.
After long years of concert and recital work, Mme. Neutra has come to Los Angeles to make her home.”
…
Los Angeles Examiner
August 6, 1923

 


KFI Studio 1924                  Earle C. Anthony 1920s             KFI studio 1924
Dione Neutra 1901-1990
https://www.neutrahistory.org/welcome-to-the-social-history-of-the-neutra-vdl-compound/who-comprised-the-neutra-family/dione-neutra-190
Dione Neutra, an accomplished cellist featured in 1923 on George Hodel’s classical music program, was the wife of famed modernist architect Richard Neutra.  The photo above left shows Dione in their Silver Lake home in Los Angeles.
The Neutras were close friends of Frank Lloyd Wright and his son Lloyd Wright, who, three years after this performance, designed and built the Hollywood “Sowden House,” which George Hodel purchased some nineteen years later, in 1945.
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4 Comments

  1. Patricia ONeill on July 11, 2024 at 10:52 am

    GHH is a perfect example of high ideals, great expectations gone awry. Your father, Steve, had his spirit crushed at a very young age and the rest is the sad history of his fate from there on😓. Take pride, Steve in your work(s), dedicated to exposing some very ugly events that affected so many lives along the way. As I have said again & again about your books, nothing, absolutely nothing can be done to repair the damages until the TRUTH is brutally exposed, discussed and acted upon by all LE!! Keep up the good work Steve Hodel👍!

    Reply
    • Steve Hodel on July 11, 2024 at 10:57 am

      Patricia O:
      Thanks as always for your long continued support.
      Yes, “The Truth does set one free.” I doubt LE will ever take appropriate action as it would confirm the LAPDs two greatest heroes, William H. Parker and Thad Brown had blood on their hands. But, will settle for the public knowing the Truth. Best, Steve

      Reply
  2. Luigi Warren on July 11, 2024 at 1:02 pm

    Steve: The Neutras were very close to Rudolph Schindler in the 1920s, living in his bohemian communal-living house on King’s Road in West Hollywood for several years. Galka Scheyer also lived there at one point, as did a number of other artistic notables. Sadakichi Hartman would give readings at the King’s Road house dressed as his hero, Edgar Allan Poe. We know that Schindler designed furniture for GHH ca. 1940. I think it likely GHH was familiar with the Kings Road house and sought to emulate Schindler’s setup when he started advertising in the LAT classifieds for artistic roomers to fill up the Sowden House just weeks after the Black Dahlia murder. -LW

    Reply
    • Steve Hodel on July 11, 2024 at 1:53 pm

      LW:
      Yes, they were all “connected,” for sure. The young genius doing his debates in South Pasadena salons would fit right in with all the modernists and their artistic and literary thinking—all peas from the same pod. Update July 29th: Also as to your mention of Galka Scheyer, she was the one that took the Hodel Family portrait photograph in 1944 which included Dad, Duncan, Michael, Steven, and Kelvin.

      Reply

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