
Chicago Tribune

Chicago Live! Almanac: 1927

Let us now praise famous men, when fame meant something...before TV and Twitter.

1927, our almanac year, and there is Charles Lindbergh.

He makes the fame and celebrity of any contemporary stars look dim. In this age, a figure the stature of Lindbergh is almost unimaginable. He came out of nowhere, descending from the skies in his Spirit of St. Louis onto a runway at an airfield outside Paris and into the collective consciousness of the world.

"The flying fool," he was called before the flight across the Atlantic. Afterward he was "The Lone Eagle." He was "Luck Lindy."

Here he is, in his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, at Chicago's Municipal Field (now Midway International Airport), which opened in 1927. It was part of what was called his cross country victory tour.

Lindbergh's life was a flashbulb frenzy, the media insatiable, and the glare became blinding, overwhelming, when his baby son was kidnapped and murdered in 1932.

To escape the madness, he fled to Europe, where he went kind of mad, getting cozy with master-race ideas. He became a critic of American involvement in World War II and made a famous speech in Iowa that was laced with anti-Semitism. When he died in 1974, one obituary said, "Lindbergh was wrong everywhere but in the pilot seat."

Let us now praise famous men.

In 1927, Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs and five years later he was in Chicago, facing the Cubs in...ahem, ahem, the World Series. It was here he made his famous "called shot."

Or did he? Here, see for yourself. You be the judge.

Let us now praise famous men.

On Sept. 22, 1927 in Soldier Field 104,943 people gathered for the heavyweight championship fight between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney. It was the fight of the "long count," that started when Dempsey, trying to regain the title he had lost to Tunney the year before, landed a left hook that sent the ex-Marine to the canvas. Was he saved by a long count?

Here, see for yourself. You be the judge.

When the crowd left the stadium after the fight–Tunney won by decision–they were amazed to see copies of the Chicago Tribune waiting for them, complete with coverage of the first nine rounds and a headline noting the "long-count." The papers had been rushed via speedboat on a three-minute ride from the presses at the tower.

People thought that a miracle and there were other miracles that year, 1927. The movies began to talk...and to sing.

That was Al Jolson in the "Jazz Singer."

He was a huge star. So was this woman.

Let us now praise Greta Garbo.

In 1927 Life magazine called her "the dream princess of eternity, the knockout of the ages."

This photo was taken at Union Station as the very camera shy Garbo opened the door of her Pullman stateroom.

Her first talking film was "Anna Christie" in 1930. MGM enticing the public with the catch-phrase "Garbo talks!" But within a decade she was not talking, fleeing from the screen and the press, remaining for the rest of her life elusive...silent.

There is a lesson here. So, let us now praise–are you listening Charlie Sheen, Snookie, Kardashians, Lindsay Lohan...

Let us now praise silent stars and contemplate real fame.Copyright © 2015, Chicago Tribune