San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
When S.F. mourned ex-president
Items have been culled from The Chronicle’s archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago.
1993
Jan. 7: From around the world they come to see the two-story house at Broadway and Steiner, where Mrs. Doubtfire hung her falsies. The cars slow down, the occupants point. It’s newly sanctified, hallowed ground, the setting for the current No. 1 movie in the United States. “I’m actually standing on the spot where Robin Williams played with the pony,” said a man from Texas, pausing on the sidewalk in front of the house, overwhelmed by his good fortune.
“Mrs. Doubtfire” is a comedy about a shipping clerk who impersonates a nanny in order to trick his estranged wife and visit his children. Much of the movie takes place in Pacific Heights, or appears to. Actually the interior scenes were filmed in a studio and look nothing like the interior of the house.
“We’ve been tricked,” said Michael Dahger, a salesman from Australia, as he stood in the kitchen and gazed at the stove. In the movie, actor Robin Williams leans too close to the stove and burns his artificial breasts. Different kitchen, said Dahger, different stove. Different breasts. Dahger was allowed into the home because it is currently on the market, and real estate agent Bob Gee was showing it to prospective buyers. The asking price is $1.4 million, which Dahger said he didn’t have on him right then. The house, unsold since before filming began last spring, is priced right, Gee said. “It’s a reflection of the real estate market, not the movie,” said Gee, who said he was glad that the house had starred in a comedy instead of a horror picture, which traditionally reflects poorly.
— Steve Rubenstein
1969
Jan. 6: Funeral services will be held here tomorrow for John Angelo Napoli, the publicity-shy fisherman who saved 70 persons — ruined his health — when the hospital ship USS Benevolence went down off the Golden Gate on the night of Aug. 25, 1950. His act of heroism all but forgotten — just as he wanted it. Mr. Napoli died on Saturday. He was 64.
The captain of the 34-foot stern cruiser Flora was returning to the bay with his 750-pound salmon catch when the U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat hailed him and asked for assistance. The freighter Mary Luckenbach, outbound, had rammed the Benevolence. Twentythree persons drowned, but in the six harrowing hours Mr. Napoli dragged 54 survivors over his gunwales.
He jettisoned his catch and some of his gear to make room. Too exhausted to pull in the last 16, he tied them to the Flora and radioed for help. “People,” he said later, “are heavier than salmon.” The strain of that night caused Mr. Napoli permanent injury to his back. The Flora, badly bruised, lay at her mooring for weeks before he finally decided to sell her at a loss. Mr. Napoli slid into debt. Reporters were forced to pry his misfortunes out of him. “You don’t go around whinin’ after you save someone from drownin’. ” Nearly three months after the rescue operation the Navy paid him $4,422 for injuries to himself and the Flora. Another $1,100 was contributed by the public through a Chronicle fund and the Luckenbach line gave him $15,000. In 1961, nearly 11 years later, Congress awarded him $25,000.
1944
Jan. 10: Purchasers of toothpaste, shaving cream and other goods packed in collapsible metal tubes will not be required to turn in a used tube before receiving a full one after March 1, the War Production Board announced yesterday. Used tubes were chiefly important for their tin salvage, the WPB said. Since the tin content was reduced last year, the tubes now being turned in yield less tin. The production agency urged that consumers continue to turn in used tubes on a voluntary basis after March 1, especially old tubes purchased a year or more ago, which have a higher salvage value.
1919
Jan. 9: Troops at the Presidio and all other camps and posts about San Francisco gave yesterday afternoon the last tribute to Theodore Roosevelt. At 3 o’ clock Pacific Time, the hour of the funeral of the former President, big guns at the Presidio and the other forts and posts thundered out the slow twenty-one-gun salute that signifies that a first citizen of the United States is no more. Hundreds of persons gathered at the Auditorium yesterday afternoon to take part in memorial exercises.
The New York Society of the Pacific Coast sent the following message of condolence to Mrs. Roosevelt: “The New York Society of the Pacific Coast feels great grief and sincerely mourns the passing of America’s greatest citizen and extends to you and your family the intense sympathy of its membership, comprising all the native New Yorkers who are now residents of the Pacific Coast.”
Resolutions of sympathy were adopted by the Young Men’s Christian Association, of which Colonel Roosevelt was a life member, and forwarded to Mrs. Roosevelt.
Johnny Miller is a freelance writer.