I love shots of buildings that are creatively lit up at night and this one of the Vine Street Brown Derby glows with charm. I’m putting this one at the late 1930s because next door is the Eddie Cantor Gift Shop, which started showing up in photos taken of the Derby in the 30s. In the 1930s he was one of the world’s highest-paid radio stars so I’d love to know why Cantor felt the need to open a gift store. Perhaps he was all too aware of the vagaries of showbiz and felt it a wise move to diversify his income. I wonder what he sold – Eddie Cantor ashtrays and bobbleheads, maybe?

UPDATE:

I got to thinking about Cantor’s store, why he opened one, and how long it was open for. My googling led me to David Weinstein who wrote “The Eddie Cantor Story: A Jewish Life in Performance and Politics” (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PS54JM4/ ). So I contacted David and asked him if he could answer these questions. He wrote back and told me:

“Cantor understood the power of celebrity. From the time he headlined on Broadway during the late 1910s, he was a master of promotion (especially self-promotion) and marketing. Along these lines, for a short time in 1937, I believe that there were at least two Eddie Cantor Gift Shops in Los Angeles. The Vine Street store in your picture opened in 1936 or 1937 and closed within a year.

Cantor was active in actors’ labor unions, including the Screen Actors Guild during the 1930s. He served as SAG’s president from 1933 to 1935. Cantor opened a gift shop in the SAG building, circa 1937. The address of the gift shop was 8749 Sunset Blvd. and SAG’s address was 8743 Sunset. The attached ad (see below) from the Screen Guild Magazine (July 1937, page 22), gives you a sense of what the store carried. It wasn’t filled with celebrity products from Cantor and other stars, but was a more general gift shop for “bric-a-brac” and antiques.

David’s website is: https://www.davidmweinstein.com/