| On a fateful day in 1977, Sallie Fiske faced the studio cameras for the last time. |
| The pioneering woman of early L.A. television had hosted a fluffy afternoon show on KCOP-TV in the 1950s called "Strictly for Women" and later served as an evening news producer. She later made her way back on the air at KCOP for another show. It was at the height of singer Anita Bryant's antigay crusade, and Fiske felt compelled to tell her viewers that she was a lesbian. |
| The station swiftly fired her, and Fiske's career in television was over. |
| I thought about this long-forgotten cancellation this week after ABC temporarily pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air after comments he made about Charlie Kirk's alleged killer sparked outrage on the right. |
| Sallie was my first editor, and I met her more than a decade after her KCOP firing. She had reinvented herself as an activist newspaper publisher, and I snagged a summer internship at the West Hollywood Paper. |
Crossing Melrose Avenue |
| My first day brought profound culture shock. I grew up in the Fairfax District, which at the time was a sleepy working-class Jewish neighborhood known for its delis and bakeries. But cross Melrose Avenue and you enter West Hollywood, a mecca of trendy boutiques, fancy restaurants, Rolls-Royces parked in valet lots, art galleries and, of course, gay bars and bathhouses. |
| To a 17-year-old, the newsroom was mesmerizing. This was the late '80s and the talk in West Hollywood was dominated by AIDS hospices, Wolfgang Puck, David Hockney, Elizabeth Taylor and TexMex cuisine. Sallie was the ringleader, smoking at her desk and regularly erupting with a volcanic laugh. |
| In my eavesdropping, she introduced me to a new way of thinking. Sallie spoke with warmth and empathy about those on the margins, the gay teen prostitutes, the transgender people, the AIDS sufferers abandoned by family, the homeless people who even back then were setting up their camps in alleys. |
| These were people I just assumed you should avoid. |
| Yet over the summer, I could feel my mind being changed by her empathy and rage at the forces she felt were killing her community as a plague spread. Then one afternoon, I interviewed two men who were HIV-positive about a rally they were planning. One extended his hand and we shook. No big deal. But moments later, doubts crept into my mind, and I casually made a detour to the men's room and scrubbed my hands with soap. |
Lessons it was easier to ignore |
| Of course, that never made it into my report to Sallie. And that was the least of my secrets. |
| I was gay, still in the closet, terrified and too timid to frame what was going on all around me as my story, too. I left the paper, relieved that my secret was still intact. Now, I am haunted by what could have been had I told the truth. |
| I didn't know about Sallie's television coming out until my colleague Elaine Woo published her obituary in 2004. |
| "She had been in the closet her whole life. She just felt, 'I can't take it anymore,'" fellow activist Ivy Bottini told Woo. |
A grim trade-off |
| Sallie's papers are housed at the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at USC. I went there this weekend and found nothing about her firing from KCOP. But there was one essay from that period that spoke to her thinking. |
| She described some of L.A.'s first big Pride parades in the mid-1970s and how some gay elites privately balked at what they saw. Too flamboyant. Too in-your-face. These raunchy displays set us back. It was only after conservatives placed a measure on the ballot that would have banned gay people from teaching in California schools that the upper classes saw the power of activism, she wrote. She called the successful fight against Proposition 6 a "coming out for the middle class." |
| "It showed the public at large we covered the whole spectrum of society, that we could not be dismissed." |
| Jimmy Kimmel returned to the air Tuesday, an opportunity Sallie never got. I wonder how she would feel about her trade-off: An obituary focused on a lifetime of activism, but at the price of losing her first career simply for telling the truth. |
Today's top stories |
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| Arnold Schwarzenegger, with USC interim President Beong-Soo Kim at a recent university event, has been vocal in his opposition to Proposition 50. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times) |
Arnold Schwarzenegger aims to terminate gerrymandering once again in California |
- The former California governor, who championed the creation of an independent commission to draw California's congressional districts, returned to state voters' TV sets on Tuesday in a new ad opposing a November ballot measure by state Democrats to boost their party's ranks in Congress.
- A committee opposing Proposition 50, which would replace districts drawn by an independent commission with ones crafted by partisans, plans to spend $1 million per day airing the ad statewide.
- Schwarzenegger describes the ballot measure as one that does not favor voters but is in the interest of entrenched politicians.
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The aftermath of a late summer storm in San Bernardino County |
- A late summer monsoon that swept over Southern California last week, triggering mudslides and flash floods, also destroyed multiple homes and led to a child's death, officials said.
- The flash flooding washed away a vehicle in Barstow, killing 2-year-old Xavier Padilla Aguilera and injuring his father.
- Among the homes destroyed was one owned by a couple expecting their fourth baby. The couple also lost most of their family pets.
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An L.A. petition alleges 'ethnic cleansing' by federal immigration agents |
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More big stories |
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Commentary and opinions |
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This morning's must reads |
| | | Pasquale Di Fabrizio made shoes for Liza Minnelli, Tom Jones, Robert De Niro, Sarah Jessica Parker and so many more. Years after he died, L.A. shoemaker Chris Francis sorts through the astounding archive of famous feet. | | | |
Other great reads |
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For your downtime |
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| (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) |
Going out |
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Staying in |
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And finally ... the photo of the day |
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| BC Smith's "Phasmagorica" is not a theatrical or magic performance. The event aims to re-create the feel of a vintage séance. (Roger Kisby / For The Times) |
| Today's great photo is from Times contributor Roger Kisby at "Phasmagorica," a séance reimagined as art that attempts to conjure the feeling of a séance in late 1880s America. |
| Have a great day, from the Essential California team |
| Jim Rainey, staff reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, fast break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters |
| How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com. |
