Consultant injured in altercation
Here is a look at the past. Items have been culled from The Chronicle’s archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago.
1993
March 1: Political consultant Clint Reilly was under wraps and under heavy sedation yesterday after his altercation Friday with Executive Editor Phil Bronstein of the San Francisco Examiner. Reilly’s San Francisco office and home were swamped with calls from reporters yesterday, but to no avail. Reilly’s assistant, Maureen Early, said Reilly remained “heavily sedated” and was “not allowed to talk to anyone.” Efforts to get further details from the Examiner drew a blank. Reilly, a top political adviser to Mayor Frank Jordan, left the Examiner in an ambulance and underwent surgery after suffering a broken ankle in a physical altercation with Phil Bronstein during a heated discussion over the paper’s coverage of Reilly. In this case, the spin-doctors appear to be prescribing large doses of silence and rest for all involved.
— Phil Matier and Andrew Ross
1968
March 1: With the topless boom apparently on the way to becoming a business bust, the nightclubs of North Beach are ready to try something new. At the Condor on Columbus, where the possible shape of things to come was previewed yesterday, something new turned out to be as old as Sally Rand and Lady Eve. Give or take a fig leaf or two, the likely successor to the topless craze — already four years old — adds up to complete nudity. Unappareled pioneer of the trend in all her stark 38-22-36 glory, is Maria Barry, a 22-year-old dancer. At the noon press preview Miss Barry descended from the Condor’s ceiling on top of the fur-lined piano that Carol Doda, the ample topless trendsetter, once made famous.
Miss Barry, at first, wore a transparent trench coat and a conveniently placed tommy gun, in imitation of the distaff side of Bonnie and Clyde. But in no time at all, she was utterly herself as she danced the death spasm scene from the popular gangster movie, to the rat-a-tat-tat of a rock number. And that was it — until possibly, the mayor is heard from. “Look at those Swedish movies,” explained Dave Rosenberg, long considered the Sol Horuk of the topless scene, “look at those Hollywood flicks where you can see Liz Taylor’s butt. Look at miniskirts. Why, in comparison, the topless thing was beginning to look like ‘Little Women.’ ” Rosenberg, at 361 pounds, the self-styled “world’s greatest press agent,” hopes the barely discernible triangle patch will make an urbane Mayor Alioto “see things our way.”
— Michael Grieg
1943
Feb. 27: San Francisco (or “Frisco,” as the case may be) has given many stars to the stage and screen. Now, with love and kisses, it presents to a palpitating public its latest gift — Angelo J. Rossi, actor extraordinary. Whether Angelo would have made the grade were he not also Mayor of San Francisco (or “Frisco,” as the case may be) is a moot point. But the fact remains that His Honor returned home yesterday from a Hollywood junket, to announce that he, in person, and not a reasonable facsimile, is in the prologue to the forthcoming film, “Hello, Frisco, Hello” (or “Hello, San Francisco, Hello,” as the case may be). It seems that he went to the film capital not only to urge that executives of Twentieth Century Fox to hold the premiere of the film “Hello, Frisco, Hello” (or “Hello, San Francisco, Hello,”) in San Francisco (or “Frisco”) but also to lodge a complaint about the picture’s title. His protests apparently proved so devastating that officials dusted off Angelo’s head with a chamois, powdered his nose and filmed him as he intoned: “There is only one name for the city of St. Francis, and that ladies and gentlemen, is SAN FRANCISCO.” The mayor was assured he will be a prologue and not a trailer. Said the Mayor later, “You might think all this is silly. But you also would be surprised to know how many people don’t like the name of ‘Frisco.’ ”
1918
Feb. 26: John Riondozzo, 514 Chestnut Street, a rock cod fisherman, was shot through the lung and perhaps fatally wounded yesterday afternoon by a Fort Mason sentry after the boat in which Riondozzo and four other fishermen had failed to heed an order to move out of the 100-yard limit off the end of the transport dock. Vincenzio Garaneoda was shot through the leg. The sentry was Private Mark Daniels who said he hailed the boat as it started to pass the end of the dock. When no attention was paid to the order Daniels said he fired one shot over the boat then one into it. The fishermen said they heard no order and when they did not respond, the sentry fired twice at close range. As Riondozzo and Garaneoda fell wounded, the other three sheered out and made all speed to Fisherman’s Wharf. Men on the wharf heard Riondozzo’s screams and notified the police. The two injured men were taken to the Harbor Emergency Hospital. There the surgeons said Riondozzo would die, but that Garaneoda’s wound was superficial.