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.