Alabama Actress: Joyzelle Joyner

My brother Richard recently alerted me to this actress from Alabama; I was not familiar with her. Let's investigate.

I've done a number of pieces on the blog about actresses whose careers began before 1960; some are linked from this post. Joyzelle Joyner is certainly one of those women from the state who found some success in Hollywood, although her career film career did not last very long. 

Lillian Joyzelle Joyner was born on August 27, 1905,  in Mount Pleasant in Monroe County. She was one of 10 children of Francis E. "Frank" Joyner [1854-1920] and Anna Lillian Brantley Joyner [1874-1964]. According to their marriage certificate found on Ancestry.com, the parents had married in Mount Pleasant on June 6, 1888. 

I have not determined what led Joyzelle from Alabama to Hollywood. Her entry in the International Motion Picture Almanac 1937-1938 gives us a hint, as well as some personal information about her. She was listed as 5' 5" tall, with dark brown hair and dark grey eyes; she weighed 125 pounds. Her hobby was collecting funny dolls. The book also notes she had 11 years of stage experience, including six months on the "West Coast circuit". Perhaps that stage experience eventually led to California and the movies.

The Internet Movie Database has numerous listings for Joyzelle between 1926 and 1935. There's even a 1925 listing for the silent Ben- Hur, but the role of "slave girl" is uncredited and unconfirmed. Many of the other parts have her as "uncredited" or "dancer", "cabaret dancer", "Indian dancer" or "cantina girl". Two blog posts discuss these many "exotic dancer" bits and the few substantial roles. One is Emma's 2013 piece, "The Life and Scandal of Joyzelle Joyner" and Trav S.D.'s post from 2022, "Joyzelle Joyner: Of Cooch and Courthouses." Both are heavily illustrated.

In 1932 Joyzelle appeared in two westerns, directed by her second husband, Phil Rosen [1888-1951] a cinematographer and prolific director of both silent and sound films. Whistlin' Dan featured Ken Maynard, one of the big western stars from the 1920s into the 1940s. Joyzelle has the female lead, "Carmelita". 

She has a secondary role as "Dolores" in The Vanishing Frontier, a western that stars Dothan, Alabama, native Johnny Mack Brown. I've written several pieces on this blog about him. Two discussed his 1928 silent films Our Dancing Daughters and A Lady of Chance. The first paired him with Joan Crawford [one of two he made with her] and another Alabama native, Dorothy Sebastian. He starred with Norma Shearer in the second film, much of which is set in Alabama. These attempts to make Brown a romantic lead did not take, and westerns became his forte. I've written about his role in 1930's Billy the Kid, the first sound film about the outlaw; and covered his 1945 Flame of the West in which he plays--of all things--a doctor. 

I wonder if Joyzelle and Johnny talked about their Alabama roots on the set of The Vanishing Frontier.

Joyner was married at least twice. In November 1927 she was seeking a divorce from Dudley V. Brand [1898-1956], who shot her in the arm during an argument. See below for a bit more information on that incident. According to a family source on Ancestry.com, she married Phil Rosen in 1929 when she was 25. The 1940 U.S. Census shows Rosen married to "Joyselle" Rosen; by the 1950 census his status was "divorced". Interestingly, the U.S. Death Index 1940-1997 at Ancestry lists her as "Joyzelle Brand". 

Prior to the altercation with Brand, a note in Variety discusses phone calls to Joyner from a woman threatening to murder her entire family. A brother and two sisters were living with her at the time. The address given is 4453 Kingswell Avenue, Hollywood. That building as it looks today can be seen on Google Maps. 

Joyner died on November 30, 1980, in San Juan Capistrano, Orange County, California. According to Find-A-Grave burial details are unknown, as they are with her father. Brother Clarence and sister Rose are buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills; both died in 1972. Joyzelle must have brought her mother to California at some point. Anna died in 1964 and is also buried in Forest Lawn.

 Rose, as Rose Eliska, apparently performed in Hollywood as well, according to Inside Facts of State and Screen 26 July 1930, page 7. 

 If you have more information about Joyzelle or members of her family, please let us know in the comments.  

Ian Keith and Joyner in Prince of Diamonds [1930]

Source: IMDB

San Francisco Examiner 11 Nov 1927

via Newspapers.com

Variety 3 August 1927 via the Internet Archive 

International Motion Picture Almanac 1937-1938 via Internet Archive 

The Vanishing Frontier was a 1932 film and one of numerous westerns starring the Alabama native Johnny Mack Brown made in a long career. Joyzelle played "Dolores" in the movie. 

Presumably Joyzelle and Ken Maynard in a still from Whistlin' Dan

Source: Mystery*File blog 

Joyzelle Joyner at a family celebration in September 1954. She is second from the right on the bottom row.

Source: Victoria Joyner via Ancestry.com 

Columbiana Bank Robbery in 1932

Last year I wrote about two bank robberies in Shelby County in 1931 and 1932. I've also written about the infamous 1926 bank robbery in Hartselle, which has never been solved. Now it's time to take a look at another 1932 bank robbery in Shelby County. All of these posts align with a longtime interest of mine in the history of crime in Alabama and the Deep South. I've even published  a book about it, Criminal Activity in the Deep South: An Annotated Bibliography, 1700-1930 [Greenwood Press, 1989]. 

So let's see what happened at the Columbiana Savings and Trust Bank on November 3, 1932. I found an article about the crime in an old Birmingham News issue I had; that's the first one below. I found others via Newspapers.com 

Early that Saturday morning the bank was robbed of $16,575.00. Luckily the financial institution was insured and promptly paid for the loss the following week. 

Sidney M. Bird, 22, had worked as a bookkeeper at the bank for some 15 months in place of regular employee L.G. Lutton, who had been out sick. After the robbery, Bird told authorities he arrived at about 7 A.M. and was met by a man in a blue shirt and overalls and pointing a pistol. The man forced Bird to open the vault and then knocked him out with a blow to the head.

Actually, Bird was not being quite truthful. 

The young man had set the bank vault timer to open at 4 A.M. After taking the money and hiding it under his house, he returned and hit himself a light blow in the head with a hammer.

Bird continued working at the bank, and on December 15 took the money and hid part as he drove to Birmingham to take a train to Memphis. In that city he deposited some in a bank in the form of bonds and then the remaining amount in a St. Louis bank.

He was eventually arrested in St. Louis in February 1933 and returned by officials to Columbiana. Bird had been watched and followed since the robbery. His confession helped authorities find all of the stolen money. Interest on the bonds made up for money Bird had spent.

In December 1933 he pled guilty to embezzlement and sentenced to at least seven years in the penitentiary and not more than eight. The judge suspended the sentence until January 1.

One of the articles below notes that "Bird is a member of a prominent Shelby County family and is married." Records at Ancestry.com and Find-A-Grave tell us more about Bird [1910-1999] and his family. Sidney married Mavoureen Seale [1912-1999] in Birmingham on April 20, 1931. A son Sidney Maurice Bird, Jr., was born in Columbiana on September 27, 1932; the couple had a daughter Martha Jean Bird later. 

I've yet to find how long Sidney actually served, but the family remained intact. The 1940 U.S. census lists them in Calera and Sidney as working as a salesman for a paper company.  The 1950 U.S. census lists Sidney as manager of a hardware and appliance store in Calera and Mavoureen as bookkeeper. In addition to the two children, her father Arthur F. Steele also lived with them. Sidney is buried in Columbiana and his wife in Calera. 

The son Sidney Jr. [1932-2018] had an outstanding life. He attended Auburn and graduated from pharmacy school in 1954. After active duty with the U.S. Army, he returned to Calera and opened Bird Building Materials. He is buried in the Alabama National Cemetery in Montevallo. 

Sidney's crime took place in the depth of the Great Depression, not long after his marriage and just over a month after the birth of a first child. Could financial desperation have been a factor? 

Birmingham News 16 February 1933

Shelby County Reporter 10 November 1932

Birmingham News 15 February 1933

Source: Newspapers.com

Birmingham News 17 February 1933

Source: Newspapers.com

Shelby County Reporter 14 December 1933

Source: Newspapers.com 

Sidney M. Bird, Jr. 
His Glomerata yearbook photo 1952 while at Auburn

Source: Ancestry.com 

My Son Amos Has a New Book Out, Part 3

Over the years members of our family have published several books. Those items include two books related to Native American history in Alabama by my father, Amos J. Wright, Jr., a book by yours truly on crime in the Deep South and several books that featured mom's art. 

Since 2018 my son Amos Jasper Wright IV has published three books. His first, the short story collection Nobody Knows How It Got this Good, appeared that year from Livingston Press. My blog post about the book is here, Good Reads page is here and the StoryGraph page here. I also wrote about his appearance at the 2018 Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge. 

A second book, the novel Petrochemical Nocturne, was also published by Livingston Press in 2023. I also wrote about his appearance at the festival that year. My blog post about that book is here, the Good Reads page here and the StoryGraph page here. 

Now we come to his latest work, which has an official publication date of March 27. The publisher's web site describes The Battle of Danziger Bridge in this way:

"The Battle of Danziger Bridge presents a collection of interlocking stories set in contemporary New Orleans dealing with dilemmas and questions of local and national urgency. The collection deploys a mix of male and female, black and white narrative voices in humor and pathos, some of whom narrate multiple stories or reappear as characters in other stories, creating a cacophonous effect of conflicting perspectives and values. This overlapping action and character give the collection the cohesiveness of a novel."

The new book also has Good Reads and StoryGraph pages. 

Amos' author web page is at www.amosjasperwright.com

Alabama Photo: Montgomery Bookstore in 1977

I've done a lot of postings about bookstores on this blog, including a few I've never visited since they are no longer around. Many of the earlier ones are listed in this post from April 2022. In 2024 I wrote pieces about Branch Books in Hartselle and Branch Books 2 in Cullman. In March 2025 I posted an item about a "bookstore tour" of Huntsville my brother Richard and I undertook one weekend. More recently I've written about two closed bookstores, Anders Bookstore in Auburn and Eve's Books in Helena. 

Recently I was wandering around the wonderful Alabama Mosaic site and came across the photograph below. So here we are. Again. 

The photo was taken by John E. Scott in November 1977 inside a bookstore at Eastdale Mall. That mall had just opened August 3. Scott's photo shows two Goodwyn Junior High School students, Donna Kilpatrick on the right, taken for "Who's Who" section of the school yearbook. The other young lady is unidentified on the Alabama Mosaic web site. 

Could this store have been a B. Dalton Bookseller? Founded in 1966, the chain eventually had 779 stores but had liquidated the last 50 by 2010. Most of the stores were located at indoor malls. This dormant page at Yelp shows an Eastdale Mall location. 

Source:

Alabama Dept. of Archives and History 

Gail Patrick & O.R. Cohen in 1933 Newspaper Ads

I've mentioned in several recent posts that I've been perusing numerous issues of the Gadsden Times newspaper from the 1930s and 1940s saved by my paternal grandmother Rosa Mae Wright. She also had some old issues of the Birmingham News mixed in the batch. I'm finding lots of fascinating articles and advertisements. The two items here are ads that focus on two people with strong Alabama connections and both appeared in the News on February 16, 1933. 

I've done a number of posts on this blog about both individuals. In 2015 I wrote one of the early "film actresses from Alabama" posts about Gail Patrick. Since then I've covered a couple of her early films, "The Preview Murder Mystery" and "Murder at the Vanities" and an appearance in a radio production of "The Maltese Falcon". I also wrote about her work as Executive Producer on the classic "Perry Mason" TV series. 

Octvaus Roy Cohen [1891-1959] was a very prolific author of novels and short stories who lived in Birmingham during much of the 1920s and 1930s. He founded a group of local writers called The Loafers that included novelists Jack Bethea, James Saxon Childers and others. During those decades and beyond he published numerous short stories set in the city and featuring black characters; those stories are considered racially insensitive at best today. Cohen also published stand-alone crime novels and a series of stories about private detective Jim Hanvey. Seven of those tales were published together in 2021 in the Library of Congress' Crime Classics collection. 

I've posted twice about Cohen's books and their covers, here and here. He also had various stories and novels adapted for films. I Love You Again, a 1940 picture starring Myrna Loy and William Powell, is one of those; The Big Gamble, which happens to star Birmingham native Dorothy Sebastian is another. 

You can read more about The Loafers in John W. Bloomer's article ""'The Loafers' in Birmingham in the Twenties", Alabama Review April 1977. 

Comments on the advertisements are below. 

Patrick, a Birmingham native, graduated from Howard College [now Samford University] and completed two years at the University of Alabama law school. In 1932 she entered a Paramount Pictures contest for the "Panther Woman" character in an upcoming film, Island of Lost Souls. She was picked as one of four finalists from the 60,000 applicants. Patrick did not win, but was offered a standard studio contract. She met with studio brass and negotiated a better contract for herself. That law school training came in handy. 

The Mysterious Rider was the second of four films she made that year, playing Mary Benton Foster. The star of the film was Kent Taylor, who made some 110 movies in his career. In one of the others in 1932 she played a secretary and the other two were uncredited bit parts, the last ones she had in a career of more than 60 films made between 1932 and 1948. She did not watch herself in a film until 1979, when she finally screened one of her most famous, My Man Godfrey [1936]. 

The Galax Theater opened on 2nd Avenue North in Birmingham before 1920, showing silent films. The theater operated until at least 1945 and was torn down in 1963; the BTNB building opened on the site the following year. 

Zane Grey published more than 90 books, most of them Western novels. The Mysterious Rider appeared in 1921. 

Here's the ad for Cohen's radio mystery. Westinghouse was once a radio and television production behemoth that merged with CBS in 2000. This page has a paragraph about The Townsend Murder Mystery, radio broadcast, information about two of Cohen's detective characters in other fiction, David Carroll and Jim Hanvey, and a bibliography of Cohen's novels. 

On that page author Jon Breen says, "In an unusual and unsuccessful experiment, Cohen’s radio serial The Townsend Murder Mystery (1933) was published in book form the same year it was broadcast coast to coast (from WJZ’s New York studios) on NBC.  However it played on the air, it doesn’t work as a print mystery."

Excerpt from the listing of radio programming in the Birmingham News for February 16, 1933. KDKA is considered the first commercially licensed radio station in the United States, beginning broadcast on November 2, 1920.

This broadcast description was included in the book, which was actually the  script. 

This radio script was published in 1933 by D. Appleton-Century. 

A photo of Octavus Roy Cohen at Getty Images includes this original caption:

"The famous writer of Negro stories has just completed an original drama for
radio. The Townsend murder mystery, an 18 week mystery serial, begins on
February 14, on a coast to coast NBC network. The drama, which will require
a cast of 40 actors will be heard three times a week."

I've seen this work described as the "First radio play published in book form" and as the "first mystery novel to revolve around radio."

Jim Reed's wonderful Reed Books & Museum of Fond Memories in Birmingham recently had this item for sale on ABE Books: 

1933: Westinghouse Brochure Promoting Radio Show THE TOWNSEND MURDER MYSTERY By Octavus Roy Cohen (creator of Amos 'n' Andy series) with Illustration of Characters from Show Plus Photos of Westinghouse Products

Apparently Cohen did work briefly on the Amos 'n' Andy radio series but he was most certainly not the "creator". 

McClendon Memorial Museum in Duck Springs

Yes, here we are with another advertisement from the old issues of the Gadsden Times I've been going through in recent months. Saved by my paternal grandmother Rosa Mae Wright, most were from the 1930s and 1940s. She also saved a massive Etowah County centennial edition of the paper dated June 23, 1968, where I found this ad.

I wasn't familiar with the McClendon Memorial Museum in Duck Springs, so naturally I did a bit of research. This Facebook post gives a summary. Yancey McClendon was eleven years old when he died in 1963. His parents Eloise and Ralph decided to honor their only child with a museum. Over the years, as noted in the ad, a collection developed of 14,000 Indian artifacts and many other items.

Ralph died in 1989. Eloise continued to operate the museum until her death on February 11, 2002. Unfortunately, she left no will and no other provisions for the collections. An auction was held in 2003. All three family members were buried in the Duck Springs Cemetery. 

A similar museum was Ma'Cille's Museum of Miscellanea in Gordo. This collection was maintained by Lucille House and included many thousands of Native American artifacts and various quirky items as well as others of local history interest. She died on December 31, 1999. The museum had closed in 1994 and contents auctioned in 1998. The place had been around for decades; the New York Times published an article about it 1970. In 2004 45 photographs of the museum were exhibited at the University of Alabama. 

Lucille House was the mother of prolific Alabama artist Glenn House [1931-2014]. He was also director of the Book Arts program at the University of Alabama; Dianne and I met him when we were in library school there in the early 1980s. His first graphic design job resulted in his most famous work, the Moon Winx Lodge sign. 

But I digress. Also below are photographs of a McClendon Museum postcard recently added to my collection, printed by the Scenic South Card Company in Bessemer. 

Football in Gadsden in 1908

In recent months I've gone through numerous 1930s and 1940s issues of the Gadsden Times. My grandmother Rosa Mae Wright saved these publications, especially during World War II. I found a lot of fascinating articles [and advertisements!], and this blog post features one of them. 

I've also recently enjoyed Lars Anderson's 2007 book, Carlisle Vs. Army: Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner and the Forgotten Story of Football's Greatest Battle. He's written several books, lives in Birmingham and is on the University of Alabama faculty. I find early college football in the U.S. to be fascinating, and there is a lot about the game in those days in this book. Jim Thorpe, Pop Warner and the Carlisle Indians also form a number of incredible stories.

American football was a very different animal in those early days before World War I. On November 6, 1869, Rutgers and Princeton played what is considered the first intercollegiate game in the U.S. Each side had 25 players and tried to kick a round ball across the opposing team's goal; carrying or throwing the ball was not allowed. By 1872 several other schools in the northeast including Columbia and Yale began play. Over the next two decades more teams entered the sport and the rules of play and the size of the field underwent great changes, many introduced by Walter Camp such as the system of downs and the line of scrimmage. In these early years betting on games was common as were hired players who did not attend the schools. 

By the early 20th century football had become so violent that efforts began to change or ban the game. A military formation called the flying wedge had been used in that first 1869 game and caused numerous injuries and even deaths. Nineteen players died from various causes in the 1905 season alone. The forward pass was legalized in 1906 to hopefully reduce injuries, but did not catch on for some years. The flying wedge was banned about the same time. Although various conferences had already been founded, a national organization to oversee college athletics was organized in late 1905 by 62 schools that met in New York City. 

The article below, published October 29, 1940, describes Gadsden football in 1908. By that time the game had already started to develop on college campuses in the state. Auburn and Alabama fielded their first teams in 1892 and played each other initially in 1893. The rivalry paused in 1908 for many years due to arguments over player payments and other money issues. Both teams became charter members of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association when the group was organized in 1894. 

This article outlines the history of football in the Gadsden area in 1908. Former college players met and an eleven man team was proposed and a "complete schedule for the season." Possible players who attended the meeting included two former Alabama stars, two from Auburn, one from "Carolina", another from the University of Chicago and four "regarded as apt pupils of the game." The two Alabama players were selected as coaches.

Opponents would include Ninth and Seventh District schools, Jacksonville, Anniston, and "other cities in the district." Thanksgiving Day contests with Jacksonville Normal School [now Jacksonville State University] and the Seventh District Agricultural School were scheduled. 

At the time Jacksonville, captained by "a local boy", presumably one from Gadsden, was undefeated. Gadsden actually played Jacksonville in one of the Etowah County team's earliest games on November 2, 1908, and won 7 to 0 with one touchdown and a safety. At this time a touchdown gained a team five points and a safety two. The article includes the lineup of Gadsden players for that game.

The team lost its next game on November 14. "Gadsden football enthusiast" Lonnie Noojin coached the Blountsville Ninth District School to the win 20-2. A contemporary account is given in the second article below: "Gadsden Downed by Farmer Lads." The school is described in the article as Blountsville Agricultural College. 

Another team in the area was Disque High School [1901-1924, when it became Disque Middle] coached by Prof. J.R. McClure. That team beat Gadsden Athletics 20-15 and tied Birmingham's Woodlawn 5 to 5 on November 23, 1908. On Thanksgiving Day Birmingham High School beat the Gadsden Athletics 19 to 4. 

The 1940 article and the two 1908 ones below are a good start for a history of football in Etowah County. I found the 1908 ones on Newspapers.com; I'm sure more could be located. Several of these games are noted as taking place at Elliott Park, which was just west of Alabama City. One research area that would be interesting is to search for all these names of individuals at Ancestry.com, Find-A-Grave, etc., to learn something about them. Perhaps another day....

The history of football in these early decades at the high school and self-organized levels is largely unknown. You can read more about early high school football in the state at the Alabama High School Football Historical Society. 

Gadsden Times 14 November 1908

Gadsden Times 9 December 1908