Boardwalk Empire – A real life connection

Shadowfax said:
A little cheesy teaser of our phone message before we picked up

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Not all that cheesy when you consider the class act from whence the photo came.
One thing for sure is that you will be getting a hand written note from Mariska even if nothing else which will send the personal sentimental value through the roof. You can't sell that for any amount.
 
We seem to have hit some dead ends for now attempting to track down the lost cousin. We still have to put a letter together with the newspaper clipping of the school Uncle Don opened and send it to his then real estate lawyer who is still kicking. We are hoping the picture jogs the old guy's memory and he can shed more info about Uncle Don and maybe he also knew of the child.

The issue is time to do everything and put together a letter with as much info as possible. With summer approaching with too many plans along with all the hours/days spent in the garden, it is taking a back seat for a bit.

On the other front, we are still hoping to get that hand written letter from Mariska when she has the chance to reply and maybe also help us date the pics of her parents. I am confident she will still reply in her own time so we will just wait patiently until she does.

So for now, this story has sort of come to the end of a chapter. If anything new comes up, or when Mariska finally replies, I will update the thread again.
 
Ok. Although, the big stand out is that phone call from Mariska. That's one for the books no matter how you look at it. Class act.
It may be a while before you receive that letter, but you will.
 
Just when I thought the trail was dead, another pc of the puzzle arises. About a month ago I ordered a book from Amazon that was out of stock but I just finally got it in the mail Friday. The book is called Chance of a Lifetime and is the story of Nucky Johnson (Boardwalk Empire), Paul D'Amato (500 Club Owner), the 500 Club and Atlantic City from the 1800s thru the late 60s early 70s.

One of the contributing people of the book is Vicki Gold, the daughter of the then Official Atlantic City Photographer. All the photos in the book came from her collection of her fathers archives. We actually spoke to Vicki without knowing any of this early on. She also founded the AC Historical Museum, aided in the writing of Boardwalk Empire and has a few other books under her belt.

In the book is a photo of Jayne Mansfield putting her toes in the wet cement with her autograph at the 500 Club. They had their own Walk of Fame right outside the club with many stars feet, hands, and signatures in it. The pic of Jayne shows her wearing a wig that is scarily close to the ones in the 5 pics we have with Uncle don. Also in the pic is husband Mickey, looking just the same as in the pic we have with him in it. It may not be the exact wig, but we are thinking it was the same time or very close. It may even be the night after the pics were taken of her getting her wig touched up and just might be the same wig or at least one that Uncle Don made for her.

We are going to give Vicki Gold a call tonight to see if she can tell us the year of the photo. If it falls between '55 and '60, we may just be on to something.

We also finally got a letter written up with a copy of the newspaper clipping of the Ribbon Cutting of Uncle Don's Beauty School to send to his then Lawyer Roy Baylinson, who is also in that pic. Robbert Raffalo, owner of the Antique and Book Store that we met with in AC knows Roy and will show him the pic and info to see if we can jog the old timers memory a bit to get any info he can remember.

So the trail is not dead yet, just sparse with clues we hope to put together.

Cheers!
 
The contact info we had for Vicki Gold-Levi was stale, but we were able to get her cell number from the Antique Dealer in AC yesterday. We called her last night and although she did not fully remember her first conversation with us, she was very interested to hear and see what we have this time around. She asked us to email her some scans of the pictures and she will try to date them and identify those we are unsure of.

Vicki also said that she was just recently contacted by someone wishing to speak with her about putting a video or film together about the 500 so she said when she gets more details she will put them in contact with us if what we have is relevant to the story line.

She also suggested another good book with lots of 500 photos called The Last Good Time, which is mostly about Paul "Skinny" D'Amato and the 500 Club only. We ordered it after the call. She also said that Skinny's Daughter in Law is still alive and would see about getting us a contact number for her.

The newspaper clipping was also forwarded to the Lawyer in the picture and we are waiting for some feedback or we will call the guy ourselves in a few days.
 
OK, so here is a little treat for those who are still following this thread. I am in the process of making High-Res Scans of all the pics for myself, but also watermarking them for shared use. I am using my companies proprietary software to render the large jpegs to PDF and apply the watermarks where needed. I can place them top, bottom, sides, or diagonal. Then in order to get them back to a smaller jpeg file for sharing, I used the Windows Snip-It app to capture from pdf and save back to jpeg.

Here are 2 pics from the collection, one is Jayne, Micky Hargitay, and Uncle Don, the other is just Jayne striking an outrageous pose. Enjoy!

Jane3-w_zpsupvimitc.jpg


Jayne5-w_zpsz9vmytud.jpg
 
One door closes while another one opens.

We decided to call the old Lawyer on Friday knowing he had seen the newspaper clipping sent to the Antique Dealer. The guy was supposed to give the Lawyer his own copy and told us he mailed it to him. We found out during the call that he was only shown the picture and did not get the copy intended for him. We sent one on but the bad news is that about 4-5 months ago, just when we got all these pictures, he lost his memory...like completely. He is retiring now because of it. He sort of remembered the name Dominic Pinto, but who knows. Had we only gotten the pictures a little earlier, he may have been the last person able to tell us stories.

Last night, I got all the pics resized and watermarked and along with a description of each, I published it all out to a single PDF using my companies software. We emailed the set to Vicki Gold Levi to see what she can add and verify as well as hook us up with whoever recently contacted her about a 500 Club project of some sort.

We also received an email from Mariska's assistant Saturday morning. Not quite what we wanted to hear, but what we expected. She passed along that she would be of no help identifying anything about the pics because A- it was all before she was even born, and B- she has thousands of cataloged pics of her parents stored away safely somewhere. He said they just finished shooting for the next season and she is now off with family enjoying herself, but did inscribe and send another photograph to us. We are waiting to see that in the mail and hope she wrote a little more than God Bless and says something about the pictures we sent her. We shall see in a day or so.
 
Yesterday's mail brought us 2 goodies.

First package was the last book we ordered "The Last Good Time" Which is mostly about Skinny D'Amato, The 500 Club, and the the beginning and progression of The Rat Pack.

The second package was from Law & Order-SVU
Inside was another Mariska SVU Glam Shot with a really nice inscription thanking my wife for the wonderful pictures of her mother and that she will treasure them and then signed. I suppose this part of the story probably ends here, but it was a pleasure and exciting to be able to share these photos with Mariska as both of our families (my wife's) had crossed paths in the past before the 3 of us were ever born.

Now we are just waiting for the response back from Vicki Gold when she gets a chance to go thru the pics we sent and identify-date-confirm details for us.
 
We got an email back from Vicki Gold today. She has started reviewing the photos and gave some preliminary feedback. No details yet, but she says she remembers my wife's Uncle as she spent lots of time at the 500 with her father. She said that the picture we have of Perle Mesta would have been from her time in AC during the 1964 Democratic Convention. She also said the picture of Frank & Dean was not one of her fathers, but might have been taken by a well known Photo Journalist named Jack Bradley.

This morning I was able to track him down sort of. Turns out that most pictures we see of Louis Armstrong were taken by Jack Bradley and there is a whole archive and museum in New York called the Luis Armstrong House Museum. I called the head Administrator there this morning to find out that Jack is still alive and that she would be a middle man for the first contact to see if he did take the picture. If yes, she will have him contact us. I forwarded her a low res watermarked copy of the picture with history and details to be forwarded to Jack Bradley and waiting for a reply.

Baby Steps, but still moving forward :)
 
Shadowfax said:
One door closes while another one opens.

We decided to call the old Lawyer on Friday knowing he had seen the newspaper clipping sent to the Antique Dealer. The guy was supposed to give the Lawyer his own copy and told us he mailed it to him. We found out during the call that he was only shown the picture and did not get the copy intended for him. We sent one on but the bad news is that about 4-5 months ago, just when we got all these pictures, he lost his memory...like completely. He is retiring now because of it. He sort of remembered the name Dominic Pinto, but who knows. Had we only gotten the pictures a little earlier, he may have been the last person able to tell us stories.

Last night, I got all the pics resized and watermarked and along with a description of each, I published it all out to a single PDF using my companies software. We emailed the set to Vicki Gold Levi to see what she can add and verify as well as hook us up with whoever recently contacted her about a 500 Club project of some sort.

We also received an email from Mariska's assistant Saturday morning. Not quite what we wanted to hear, but what we expected. She passed along that she would be of no help identifying anything about the pics because A- it was all before she was even born, and B- she has thousands of cataloged pics of her parents stored away safely somewhere. He said they just finished shooting for the next season and she is now off with family enjoying herself, but did inscribe and send another photograph to us. We are waiting to see that in the mail and hope she wrote a little more than God Bless and says something about the pictures we sent her. We shall see in a day or so.
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Well, I'd say Mariska fulfilled all requirements with what she sent to you. Another pic of her (glam shot) not just autographed and a two word note, but autographed and inscribed thanking you and your wife. Then remember the phone call on top of that! She doesn't sit there calling all the SVU viewers everyday! In my opinion, she went the extra mile when you add it all up even though she could shed no further light and such. She was very appreciative of what you gave her.

Now you have some further light from others on the whole thing.
I'd say you did darn good!
 
We got a reply letter from the Lawyer. It may be one of the saddest letters I have read. He said he learned to smile more when he saw the picture, but with his memory loss, he feels his life is over. His wife died 7 years ago and he is just lost.

He remembers the name and face, but that is all. He gave us another tidbit of info tho. In the newspaper pic we have along with the Mayor and AC Greeter, he told us that his wife was the Mayor's daughter. Small world.

So that left us with one more name to look up. The AC Greeter Brigitte Graupner, who we found today on Facebook. My wife reached out to her and we are waiting for a reply.

Ha, I also hit another brick wall with the photo of Dean and Frank. Turns out I found and contacted the wrong Photographer, Jack Bradley. Last night I finished reading the first book I bought and in the acknowledgements, the author thanked the real Jack Bradley who passed away in 2001.

Maybe we can get some info from the Miss AC Greeter while we wait for more back from Vicki Gold.

Cheers and have a great weekend!
 
Just when things look like they hit a dead end, Social Media rears it's ugly head for a lucky turn of events.

Firstly, we touched base with Vicki Gold Levi again and had a nice conversation about AC and events. She was able to provide us with a little detail but after too many questions she could not answer, she suggested we get in contact with Paula Jane D'Amato, Skinny's daughter. She gave us her last known email addy. Due to other priorities, we have yet to take the time to craft a good email to her......BUT...another twist arises from the ashes.

Last Friday while poking around for other ways to get in touch with the woman from the newspaper clipping, I stumbled on to a Facebook Group called "Atlantic City Memory Lane 50's to 70's". I poked around a bit and noticed lots of Old Timers talking about their childhood memories. We joined it and crafted a first post asking to get in touch with Briggitte Groupner, a group member and the woman in the news photo, and if anyone remembered my wife's Uncle.

The very first response was from a woman who used to live next door to Skinny, and always had her hair done by Uncle Don's wife, Arlene. She also said that Paulajane stayed in touch with Arlene and was going to call her and pass our contact info along. The next response was from the son of the Mayor of AC who was in the same photo.

So with a little patience, we hope to strike up a dialog with Skinny's daughter, who obviously has some info we are searching for as to the whereabouts and details about Aunt Arlene as well as Uncle Don and his shops. We are also waiting to speak to the first responder to the post who can also shed some light on our story.

I am almost done reading the second book I bought, The Last Good Time and have learned quite a lot about the history and coolness of Atlantic City NJ. I am gearing up to marathon watch Boardwalk Empire in the near future since it is really all inter-related to the story we are trying to tell. I just watched an interview with Vicki Gold about the production and closeness to reality of the series, as she was one of the chief consultants to get the period details correct. It is interesting how she points out that the show includes specific places that were not actually there in the given year, but helped with the overall story, which is Based On, not all total facts, but close.
 
Brian, thanks for the update. Some things are worth waiting for.
 
Last night wile reading some more of The Last Good Time, there was a page or so of comments about how Skinny and other mob related folks helped sway the large Italian vote for Kennedy. That interview was with the husband of the woman who answered my wife's Facebook post.

We also crafted a short email and sent it off to Paulajane D'amato and it did not come back as a bad addy so we are hoping she still looks at that email and responds. If she also gets that call from above noted woman, all the better chances for responses.
 
Well, no luck with Paulajane yet but the woman from the 1967 newspaper clipping just accepted my wife's facebook friend request last night. She finally saw the original message my wife sent and replied with email addy and a willingness to talk. We sent a copy of the newspaper photo with some questions this morning.

Paulajane did not respond to 2 emails sent so we are unsure if we have a good addy or it went to spam, or she is just too tired of people asking her questions about it all. I have the phone number of her cousin's Law Firm and will go that route if needed.

Another person befriended from the Atlantic City group is the son of the Mayor in the same pic. We are also reaching out to him to view a few pics and help/confirm who they are. The first person to say they remembered Uncle Don and Arleen fell off the radar and has not responded to several messages. She was the one who said she would contact Paulajane because she kept in touch with Arleen. Not sure what happened there but I guess some people just don't want to be bothered helping others and talk a big story but don't follow through.

So even tho we are not getting all the answers we had hoped for, we are making slow steady progress and now finding people who at least remember the people and shops and the times to speak with. All in all, we have come a pretty long way on this journey in 7 months and still hoping to learn much more as we slowly connect with the people who know.
 
What a tough thing to research. We keep hitting walls.

We finally made contact with Briggitte Graupner, who was Miss Atlantic City Greeter in 1967. She is in the newspaper picture from the opening of Uncle Don's Beauty School. It turns out that the reason she is even in the picture is because Uncle Don awarded a full scholarship to the winner of the AC Greeter contest and Briggitte won. But, she declined the prize and never took the course or had any further contact with Uncle Don or Aunt Arleen, so that is a dead end.

The Lawyer in the photo lost his memory and the Mayor in the picture died years ago. We did make contact and conversed a bit with the Mayors son, who is also a member of the Facebook Group we found.

We also found who we think is Aunt Arleen on Facebook and befriended her, but she will not respond to any messages or questions sent, not even to say she is not who we are looking for. That makes us think it may be her but she just doesn't want to open a 50 y/o can of worms. The marriage only lasted 5 years.

The other woman from the group who said she could put us in contact with Paula Jane D'Amato also fell off the radar and stopped responding.

Why is it so hard for people to be a little open and helpful when there is nothing for them to gain besides just being nice to someone? Boggles the mind.

We are not giving up but it seems to get harder with each new pc of the puzzle, not easier.
 
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Long time with no update. It's been a pretty busy summer so we did not pursue this much.

But, this morning I hit on a lead we have been looking for. On the Facebook page for the Atlantic City Group, someone posted a pic of the old 500 Club and all the responses were from those with memories of Skinny and the club. Then there was a reply from a user with very little profile, with pics of dogs and the user account was all the names of her dogs.

It was Paula Jane, Skinny's daughter that we have been trying to make contact with as she thanked everyone in the trail, talked about growing up above the club in their apartment, and finished with Paula Jane D'Amato.

I had my wife Friend Request her with a message and she did accept the request. Now we are waiting for a response to the message and to start a dialog if she is willing.

The woman we found on facebook believed to be the ex-wife of Uncle Don still won't respond to messages, but as we put details together, we are more certain she is Aunt Arlene.

I also found another member of same AC group named Louis Pinto and he looks just like Uncle Don so we first thought maybe it was the lost son we were looking for, but then found his father's name to also be Louis. My wife friended him and they spoke. We believe the guy's father was a cousin of my wife's dad and uncle. He is looking into it on his end and we are waiting for that reply.

So we seem to be making a little progress, but only baby steps. If we can get Paula Jane to talk to us, most of our questions might be answered.

By the time we find out all the info, we may miss the window of opportunity on the value of many of the autographed pics we have aside from the Frank and Dean.

Cheers!
 
Wow, as you can see by my last entry here, things looked to be just one dead end after another. It has been since 10/27/15 that we made contact via Facebook with Paula Jane and thought we would have moved forward in this quest, but that was the last we heard from her after she accepted FB Friend request and read my wife's letter.

That was until this morning. Out of nowhere, Paula Jane messaged my wife thru FB and they chatted for some time. PJ is in London on vacation and said when she gets back she would look at our pictures and tell us what she can.

I guess the fact that we did not hound her and keep asking, she decided to give us some time. Unfortunately for her, she is the person with the most info about a lot of things that went down in Atlantic City and the 500 Club, her father and friends so she is always being sought after by everyone who has a question or a story.

Hopefully more to come and the journey is not quite over.
 
The Baby Steps continue....

After we got home from vacation last Saturday, my wife contacted Paulajane via Facebook as requested earlier when she was on vacation herself. Carolyn wrote a short note outlining who we have already talked to and offered to take her to lunch if we could meet while she is in New Jersey during August, she lives in Florida now.

This morning there was a reply with a cell number and request to call her, which we will do tonight. Paulajane is the one and only authority left to be able to quantify what we have and help us identify the unknowns in the portfolio. If she does give us a meeting, we will be able to piece most of this story together. We only can hope that she may have knowledge of the son Uncle Dom had, but that one is the longest of long shots.

More to come.....
 
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