Family History #2. 1930s & 1940s. The Great Depression. Peoria. Move To LA. Frank & Rose. Marinellos. Radio City. Sunset and Vine. KNX. CBS. Architecture. Tom Breneman. Jane Harker #2 Warner Brothers. Samuel Lanier. Updated 10/20/2025

Frank LaRocca, brother of Diana Cotterell’s grandfather and defacto father Ned, was a violinist.

He worked as a music director in Decatur, Illinois during the 1920s.

Frank’s wife was named Rose. The rest of the LaRocca family still lived in nearby Peoria, Ill., where the LaRocca children of Sal and Anna had grown up.

Mildred Marinell”o”

was a first cousin of Donna LaRocca, Diana/Paige’s mother. She was introduced in Family History #1.

Mildred and Donna lived next door to each other in Peoria, Ill., in the 1920s and 1930s, (see below) and later in Sherman Oaks, CA. in the 1950s. Mildred appears as a witness at the Hollywood wedding of Donna to Robert M. Cotterell in 1940. (See other 1940s chapter.)

Below

shows the 1930 census of Ned, “Jeanette” and Donna LaRocca listed as “Lodgers.” Lena Buckley listed as the “Head of House.”

That’s strange as the LaRocca Home on Martin St. has census records going back to the 19–teens when Salvatore LaRocca bought the home. Or maybe they rented?

Look right above the LaRoccas green and yellow highlighted. We see that Donna’s cousin Mildred lives next door with her parents Anthony and Kathryn LaRocca Marinello. There is no Roxy, Paul or Frank LaRocca listed as they were previously.

Mildred dropped the O or I from her last name. She was a singer in the 1930s.

Frank and Rose may have departed for the West Coast by this time.

Paul and Roxy remained in their hometown of Peoria until their deaths. One son named Nikolas died as a young man of about 20 years.

1931 and 1932 Los Angeles phone directories list Frank LaRocca and wife Rose in Los Angeles. The couple are listed at 2303 Gatewood.

Ned, his wife Virginia LaRocca and 9-year-old Donna, join Frank and Rose in Los Angeles by 1934.

The family moved into a house located at 2234 Shoredale Ave. It’s located about 2 blocks away from Frank and Rose on Gatewood.

The Shoredale and Gatewood houses were in a neighborhood very close to Elysian Park. This location is near the LA River and Riverside Drive.

This was well before “the 5” freeway was built.

 Brothers Frank and Ned LaRocca are listed as “music teachers” in the LA phone directory in the mid–1930s. 

Ned and “Gin” on Shoredale and Frank and Rose not even 3 streets away on Gatewood.

Ned and Virginia LaRocca performed in Vaudeville tour acts in Los Angeles during the teens, 1920s, and 1930s. The green line is the LA River, grey with white stripe is the 5 Freeway, and light grey is the aptly named Riverside Dr. From what I observe on google maps, the buildings they lived in are still standing.

Not only were the LaRoccas familiar with LA due to their performances, both the area and both Ned and Virginia had sibling already settled in Los Angeles.

As we have seen, Frank LaRocca and his wife Rose.

And, Virginia’s sister and sometimes partner in Vaudeville, Josephine Young Harker and her husband George Truman Harker. Harker was a businessman from San Francisco by way of South Dakota. They were living in South Pasadena with their

Ned, Virginia and Donna wintered in Santa Monica one year during the Great Depression, according to a Mormon family history website. The story went that Ned LaRocca was supporting a houseful of women on a meager salary during the Depression.

Perhaps Ned played in a dance band on the famous Santa Monica Pier. Some write ups say he was a “Jazz Harpist.“

1937 January

According to his death certificate, Frank LaRocca is admitted to Methodist Hospital with peritonitis/perforated duodena. After one week in the hospital, Frank dies, having contracted pneumonia two days earlier.

From find-a-grave. Frank’s tombstone in Peoria, Illinois.

His find-a-grave page includes an obituary from the Peoria newspaper, stating that Frank’s brother: Ned LaRocca lives in LA, is a harpist in a “Hollywood radio orchestra.“

Ned played at the famous Hollywood Hotel in the 1930s.

In the late 1930s, A “Radio Row,” was forming along the section of Vine Street between Hollywood Blvd. and Sunset Blvd. The anchors were NBC, CBS, ABC.

Moving pictures and radio replaced Vaudeville as the entertainment offering to the masses in the 192os and 1930s.

Technology created and distributed the new medium.

Music was needed for Radio dramas, comedies, advertisements and news shows.

A Streamline Moderne building was the new west coast headquarters of NBC radio. on Sunset & Vine in Los Angeles, opening in 1938.

*Below, I’m attributing radiocityhollywood.com below for several historic descriptions and explanations.

The National Broadcasting Company originally used the phrase Radio City to describe their studios at Rockefeller Center in New York City.  When NBC opened their new Hollywood studios at Sunset and Vine in 1938, they placed the words  Radio City prominently on the front of their new building.  However, the area between Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard on Vine Street became known as Radio City for tourists and locals alike who visited the many radio studios and radio themed cocktail lounges and businesses in the area.

radiocityhollywood.com

CBS radio aka “Columbia Square” opened just down the street from NBC, and also in 1938, either months or weeks before NBC.

Veteran performing artist Ned LaRocca found employment for his harp skills at both these NBC and CBS buildings

 

This building is the new home to KNX Radio, where Ned LaRocca found work in the late 1930s and 1940s.

Radio Row in LA must have been a scene overflowing with human activity. Many people needed wanted or both, to be in the area.

The buildings contained employees of the many different businesses, their friends and families, audience ticket holders, tourists from near and far, “Big wigs” in the Industry, interns, janitorial staff, waiters, waitresses, hosts, cooks, caterers, and owners were present on the scene.

Professional radio performers like Tom Breneman and musicians like harpist Ned LaRocca also had a job in Radio City.

The Hollywood Palladium opened two years later between NBC and CBS, with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, featuring band singer Frank Sinatra. Across Vine Street, on the northwest corner of Sunset and Vine, sat Music City and Capitol Records, operated by bothers Glenn and Clyde Wallich.

A block away, the Columbia Broadcasting System opened its new modern studios at Columbia Square.  Across the street, on December 26, Earl Carroll opened his premier nightclub and restaurant, with the glamorous neon sign proclaiming, “Through these portals pass the most beautiful girls in the world.”

The National Broadcasting Company, after moving from New York to San Francisco, opened its’ new Moderne studios at the intersection of Sunset and Vine in Hollywood, California.

radiocityhollywood.com

Film-Noirish image at Sunset & Vine, found on the internet. Looking at NBC from Vine St.

NBC on the right. 1940s. Capitol Records on the left, before the iconic new location, the “Stack of Records” building, was built at nearby 1750 Vine St. by Welton Becket and Assoc. (Opened in 1956)

The radio industry in Los Angeles was at its’ zenith in the 1930s through the 1940s.

There was a radio industry presence before the iconic NBC and CBS buildings in 1938. And I wonder in Ned found work there upon his relocation to Los Angeles.

Roughly the 1930s and 1940s was the Golden Age of Radio.

Television would soon replace radio as the mass entertainment medium of choice during the 1950s.

More from Radio City Hollywood:

The American Broadcasting Corporation set up shop a few doors north on Vine Street.  Up the street was the Radio Room, Club Morocco, Mike Lyman’s and the famous Tom Breneman’s Breakfast in Hollywood restaurant. Even further up Vine, just before Hollywood Boulevard, Clara Bow operated her restaurant, the It Cafe.  Across the street,  south of the Boulevard, was the world famous Vine Street Brown Derby, more restaurants and bars, and at Selma Avenue, the RCA building. Further south, at the end of the block, at the intersection of Vine Street and Sunset Boulevard stood the radio flagship studio, NBC Radio City.

It was a glorious year, 1938, for Hollywood and for radio. And, while NBC called their new studios Radio City, the entire area became famous across America and around the world.

Radio City Hollywood website.

Tom Breneman broadcast his mega popular show “Breakfast In Hollywood” from his restaurant on Vine off Sunset Blvd.

I have listened to a few of his radio broadcasts on YouTube. Breneman often asked audience members, “Where are you from?” The answers come from a combination of tourists and locals, from my observation.

Mr. Breneman was known as the Mayor of Encino. Here we see Tom’s family in the 1940s. Breneman made the commute from the Encino in the SanFernando Valley to Hollywood for his show.

Ned LaRocca made the same trek in the 1950s from Studio City.

Tragically, Breneman died of a heart attack in 1948.

Ned LaRocca continued to work at NBC and CBS throughout the 1940s. He made an important contact with Leith Stevens, a conductor and composer who worked in Radio for years in NYC.

More on Stevens in the 1950s chapter.

1938, 1939 & 1941 LA phone directory, Joseph LaRocca is listed as a musician and living at 3834 Evans.

Besides Mildred Marinell, Donna LaRocca had another female cousin named Mary Jane Harker, born two years after Donna, in San Francisco.

Jane had a very short lived Hollywood career, from 1945-1947, contracted to Warner Brothers studio.

Please see new chapter on Jane Harker.

Mary Jane Harker. Warner Brothers Actress & Model. 2nd Cousin to Paige Young. Bio. & Photos. Under Construction. 5/29/2025

Jane Harker was the daughter of Josephine Young, Virginia Young LaRocca’s sister. Her father was named George Truman Harker. There is much more information about this couple in Family History Part #1.

She was out of Hollywood, both the industry and LA, by 1947, after marrying war hero, Navy pilot Samuel L. Lanier.

Military life moved the couple and their 4 children around a lot, Hawaii and San Diego, but eventually they settled in Jacksonville, Florida.

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The information about Jane Harker that you see on websites imdb and Warner Brothers wiki, is incorrect.

I hope to establish the correct biographical information on this forgotten Warner Brothers contract player.

Article announces a hometown war hero’s engagement to a beautiful Hollywood starlet and native Californian: Jane Harker.

A little about Samuel Lefkovits Lanier:

There were dozens of short articles in newspapers across the US even been hundreds, that appeared when Jane Harker left a burgeoning film career in LA.

The reason was to marry and relocate with her military husband Lt. Samuel L. Lanier.

Below is a small sampling of these announcements.

I will be adding more in the future along with Jane Harker’s many fashion photographs published. “High fashion” as opposed to studio publicity pin-up shots.

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