Frank LaRocca, brother of Diana’s grandfather and defacto father Ned, was a violinist and music director in Decatur, Illinois.

1930

Ned and Virginia are listed in the census as living in Peoria, Ill. Ned a musician and Virginia a housewife.

Phone directories list a Frank LaRocca and wife Rose in Los Angeles. The couple resided at 2303 Gatewood. Frank was a violinist and conductor.

  1934

Ned, his wife Virginia LaRocca and their 9-year-old daughter Donna, join Frank and Rose in Los Angeles. The family moved into a house located at 2234 Shoredale Ave. located about two blocks away from Frank and Rose on Gatewood.

Ned and Virginia had performed their vaudeville acts in the Los Angeles area many times in the teens and 20s, so they had familiarity with the area.

(Per LA phone directories seen in the LAPL and voter registration ancestry.com)

This neighborhood is very close to Elysian Park, the LA River and Riverside Drive, 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. 

1937: According to his death certificate, Frank is admitted to Methodist Hospital with peritonitis/perforated duodena. After one week in the hospital, Frank dies, having contracted pneumonia two day previous.

He is buried in his home town of Peoria, Illinois.

Frank’s find-a-grave page includes an obituary. It states that brother Ned LaRocca lives in LA and is a harpist in a Hollywood radio orchestra.

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

This sensational streamline moderne building was the new west coast headquarters of NBC radio and opened in 1938. Architect was John C. Austin. Austin was also architect of the Griffith Park Observatory along with Frederick M. Ashley.

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

Veteran performing artist Ned LaRocca found a steady paycheck at both NBC and CBS as I discovered from this document found on ancestry.

The website radiocityhollywood.com describes vividly what must have been a fascinating “scene”overflowing with human activity; many types of people who had a requirement,a desire, or both, to be there: from Radio City employees, to ticket holders to tourists from near and far.

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.

A block away, the Columbia Broadcasting System opened it’s 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 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.

radiocityhollywood.com

The radio industry in Los Angeles, and the world I imagine, was at its’ zenith from the late 30s through the 1940s. This era was short lived. Television would soon replace radio as the mass entertainment medium of choice. (1950s)

CBS radio aka “Columbia Square” opens just down the street from NBC. Also opened in 1938.

It’s the new home to KNX Radio, where Ned LaRocca performed.

Film-noirish look at Sunset & Vine. found on the internet. NBC on the right. 1940s. Capitol Records on the left, before the iconic new location (the “stack of records” building) was built at 1750 Vine St. by Welton Becket and Assoc. (Opened in 1956)

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.

1940s.

Tom Breneman broadcast his popular show “Breakfast In Hollywood” from his restaurant on Vine off Sunset Blvd. I’ve listened to a few radio broadcasts and Breneman asks the audience members”where are you from?” It seems like the are a combination of locals and out of town visitors.

Ned LaRocca continued to work at NBC and CBS throughout the 1940s and made an important contact with Leith Stevens, conductor and composer.

. Jane Harker was the daughter of Josephine and George Truman Harker and a first cousin to Donna LaRocca, Diana/Paige’s mother. I write more about them in Family History Part #1.

The information about Jane Harker that you see on websites like imdb is incorrect. I’m attempting to correct it.

I have a lot of material collected about Jane Harker if anyone would like to collaborate on this project contact me.

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