Pickwick owners seek help with history
JOYCE RUDOLPH
Many of us who grew up in Burbank remember spending the summers
swimming at the Pickwick pool.
In an effort to preserve memories for their family’s posterity,
current owners Carole and Ed Stavert are on a quest to find
photographs and information on Pickwick’s past, prior to when their
family purchased the facility in 1953.
The family changed the name to Pickwick Gardens three or four
years ago from Pickwick Recreation Center. When the Stavert family
purchased it, it was called the Pickwick Swim Park. The only things
on the property then were the swimming pool and a mobile home park.
Later, the ice skating rink, bowling alley and restaurant, Five
Horseman Inn, were added, Carole said.
“The restaurant was called that because there were five original
owners,” she said.
Today the ice rink remains. The pool was filled in during the
mid-1980s and planted with lush gardens, a romantic place for
weddings and serene locale for seminars and conventions. Carole and
Ed and their son, Ronald Stavert, continue the business that even
employs their grandchildren.
As the family is celebrating 51 years of ownership, Carole said
they are seeking the community’s help in finding out more about the
facility prior to 1953.
She wants to know where the name Pickwick came from and who the
original owners of the pool park were.
“So many people stop by and tell us that they grew up at the pool
and many world champion skaters have trained here,” she said, adding
it would be a shame for that information to be lost forever.
If you can provide this information, call Carole at 845-5300, ext.
120, or mail information/pictures to her at 1001 Riverside Drive,
Burbank, CA, 91506. Carole promises to return photographs loaned to
her.
*
Burbank artist Lois Ramirez was invited to participate in the
“Summer Artist Series” at the Market Street Gallery in Lockport, N.Y.
The series is divided into three, one-month sessions. Three
different artists participated in each session. The 20 artworks that
she sent were from her “Number Series” and each are mixed media
collages measuring 16-by-16 inches. Some of the items contained in
them are old documents, drawings, fabric from a luggage rack, old
letters, marbleized paper, tickets and a ripped window shade.
*
Sean Alan Cutler has been named managing director of the Colony
Theatre Company. Cutler replaces Amanda Diamond, who has accepted the
director of finance position at the Pasadena Playhouse.
Barbara Beckley, producing director of the Colony, said Diamond’s
years of devotion helped the theater with many things, but at the top
of the list was to realize the dream of becoming an Equity theater.
Cutler has spent the last 15 years in New York City. He began his
career as an actor at 8 in his hometown of Miami. At 15, he was
nominated for a Carbonel award for Best Actor in a Play for the role
of Eugene in “Brighton Beach Memoirs.”
He is a graduate of The New World School of the Arts in Miami and
earned degrees in film and television production and political
science from New York University.
Cutler has worked extensively Off-Broadway, where he served as a
member of the management team of Blue Man Group’s New York City
production of “Tubes,” as the company manager and acting general
manager of “American Rhapsody: Songs of the Gershwins,” and most
recently as the associate general manager of the long-running hit,
“The Donkey Show” and its sister production, “The Karaoke Show.”
*
ASIFA-Hollywood, The International Animated Film Society, is
sponsoring the 32nd Annual Annie Awards, honoring outstanding
achievement in animation in film, television, commercials and short
subjects. Winners as well as juried lifetime achievement award
recipients will be recognized at an annual black-tie gala celebration
Jan. 30 at the Alex Theatre in Glendale.
These awards recognize overall excellence as well as individual
achievement in areas ranging from production design, character
animation and effects animation to storyboarding, writing, music and
voice acting in 21 categories.
Entries submitted for consideration must be from productions that
originally aired, were exhibited in an animation festival or
commercially released in their country of origin between Jan. 1 and
Dec. 31, 2004.
All rules, category information and entry forms are available
online at www.asifa-hollywood.org or by calling 842-8330. The
deadline to receive entry forms is Oct. 1. All nomination judging
material is due by Oct. 29. Final nominations will be announced Dec.
6.
For awards show tickets, call 842-8330.
* JOYCE RUDOLPH’s column appears Wednesdays. For events happening
this weekend, read her 48 Hours column Saturdays. Reach her at
637-3241.