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Issue: Spring 2006 USC’s Lists & Urban Legends From Dr. von KleinSmid's Cabinet of Mysteries… Compiled by Annette Moore The University of Southern California’s 125th anniversary has provided a prime incentive for Trojan historians to reflect upon the noble institution that brought us all together. It also inspired the Trojan Bookstores to commission a labor of an entirely different sort: USC’s First Book of Lists and Urban Legends, an accumulation of cardinal-and-gold odds and ends, a convoluted cul-de-sac of lists encompassing Trojan facts, figures and anecdotes, as well as a jumble of urban legends grounded in events and circumstances – some bona fide and some outright unverifiable. We invite you to explore with us a randomly selected sampling from this bit of Trojan miscellany.
Trojan Values, as Inscribed on the Trojan Shrine
USC’s Heisman Trophy Winners Things That Were Forbidden for Early USC Students Using tobacco, in any form, in or about the “university building” (today’s Widney Alumni House) Drinking intoxicating liquors, or even keeping such substances in their rooms or “elsewhere” Being absent from their rooms after 10 o’clock at night for any reason other than attending to the sick Engaging in loud conversation, loud laughing, wrestling, jumping or any other activity that would make unnecessary noise at the university Leaving town without the knowledge and consent of the university president Contracting debts without the knowledge and consent of their parents or guardians Deporting themselves in a disorderly manner in boarding houses Playing cards or engaging in gambling of any kind Visiting establishments where drinking, billiards or gambling were permitted Engaging in any breach of good morals or good order Wearing corduroy trousers – except for juniors and seniors Writing on or otherwise defacing the university building or furniture Using “obscene or profane” language Wearing firearms or other weapons
Honorific Epithets “College of the Year 2000” “Hot School” “Leadership Institution” Top National University
The Legend of the The Legend
According to certain Trojan sources, the original plans for the Harbor
Freeway called for the road to follow a straight line north from
Exposition Boulevard. This would have resulted in a highway cutting
diagonally across 28th Street toward the rear of the Automobile Club
complex. Folks at USC weren’t pleased about this at all: It would have
thwarted ambitions to expand the University Park campus northward, and
bisected Fraternity Row. Longtime
USC Alumni Association executive director Arnold Eddy took credit for
offering a solution. He proposed to have groups of three alumnae from
each Trojan sorority make appointments with the head of the Freeway
Planning Commission on consecutive days. During these meetings, the
women were to ask as many questions and raise as many objections as
they could, with the goal of taking up as much of the chairman’s time
as possible. The
scheme brought positive results in no time at all. The chairman called
Eddy within a matter of days to say: “Keep those women home. They are
wearing me out! We will have the freeway go east of Figueroa Street.” The Skinny Hey, if Arnold Eddy says it’s true, then it must be.
Oscar Statuettes Held or on Exhibit in the USC School of Cinema-Television Archives Clark Gable Edward G. Robinson Frank Sinatra Frank Sinatra Frank Sinatra David Wolper David Wolper USC Cinema School USC Alumni Nominated for Academy Awards in the Acting Category Robert Stack ‘40 John Wayne USC Trojan Marching Band’s Platinum Records
The Legend of the HUNCHBACK The Legend Trojans have long claimed that the tower scenes in The Hunchback of Notre Dame
(1939), directed by William Dieterle and starring Lon Chaney, were
filmed in the bell tower of USC’s Seeley Wintersmith Mudd Memorial Hall
of Philosophy. The Skinny In fact, The Hunchback of Notre Dame was filmed entirely on location in the San Fernando Valley. There is one movie that features the Mudd Hall tower, however, and that’s Big Man on Campus (1989) – ironically, a film whose original title was The Hunchback of UCLA.
The Legend of the WIDNEY FIRE The Legend
It’s been alleged that Widney Alumni House – USC’s beloved albeit
curiously mobile designated historic landmark – once was seriously
threatened with destruction. Back in the summer of 1922, a lone
graduate student in chemistry was conducting research in a small
second-floor room when a flask containing absolute alcohol suddenly
cracked and the liquid ignited. Before he could do anything, the
wallpaper caught fire. The blaze erupted between the student and the
room’s only sink. It being summer, there was no one around to help, but
fortunately the student was able to rush to another room and draw water
to extinguish the rapidly spreading flames. The student, so it’s told,
was none other than Robert Evans Vivian, who went on to serve as dean
of USC’s engineering school for 18 years, and for whom USC’s Vivian
Hall of Engineering is named. The Skinny
One source of this story is the late John R. Reynolds, former director
of University Relations and a consummate Trojan historian. Still, dean
Vivian didn’t mention any such escapade in his book, The USC Engineering Story. Maybe it’s a ‘SCecret he would have preferred to have taken to his grave. As an aside, Widney Alumni House has a longstanding affinity with students and fire. In the earliest days, when the city still lacked electricity, students tended wood-burning stoves in what then was known as “The University Building” to earn part of their tuition. Surgical “Firsts” by USC Physicians 1993 1993 1999 2001 First Whipple procedure (surgery used to treat pancreatic cancer) using hand-access laparoscopy First removal of a chest tumor using the da Vinci Surgical System 2002 USC’s Rhodes Scholars Frank Swain J. F. Goley Gerald Brown James J. O’Toole Patrick C. Haden Holly C. Wyatt Tara M. Silvestri Desmond Koh USC’s Marshall Scholars Roland L. Trope Andrew L. Oros Jacob M. Chacko Paul D. Miller David M. Chacko Nilay U. Vora
A Few of USC’s Most Prominent Celebrity Dropouts Let’s face it, when fame and fortune beckon, it’s hard to resist packing up the books and hearkening to the call… Hugh Beaumont Art Buchwald Jackie Coogan J. Paul Getty Macy Gray Lionel Hampton Daryl Hannah Michael Landon John Raitt Jonathan Silverman Robert Stack John Wayne David L. Wolper
Models for the Trojan Shrine The
Trojan Shrine was presented to the university as a gift from the Alumni
Association on June 6, 1930, as part of USC’s 50th anniversary
celebration. Russ Saunders Ernie Pinckert
The Legend of the TOWERING TOWER The Legend
The story goes that the globe-shaped finial was placed atop the Von
KleinSmid Center after Waite Phillips Hall of Education was erected
because Chancellor von KleinSmid was disappointed that his namesake
building’s carillon tower would not be the tallest structure on the
campus. The Skinny
Without a doubt, the indomitable Rufus Bernhard von KleinSmid had no
intention of leaving anything short of a larger-than-life legacy at
USC. Tony Lazzaro, USC’s associate business manager and director of
campus development at the time, saw a metal orb on one of the buildings
at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York and proposed a similar structure
as a finishing touch for the tower. President Topping and other
university administrators concurred, and the finial was added in 1966,
one year after the Von KleinSmid Center opened and two years before
Waite Phillips Hall was completed in 1988. (Incidentally, at 167 feet, the Von KleinSmid Center Tower stands eyeball to eyeball with the University Park campus’s tallest edifice, the Seeley G. Mudd Building, while Waite Phillips Hall comes in second at 156 feet.)
Trojan Inventions and Achievements That Have Shaped American Popular Culture Educational Television THX Surfing Bozo the Clown
Wham-O Recycling Symbol “People’s Court”
Just a Few of the Feature Films Shot on the University Park Campus Astronaut’s Wife The Bachelor Being John Malkovich The Caine Mutiny Clockstoppers Forrest Gump The Four Seasons The Graduate Inventing the Abbotts Legally Blonde Love and Basketball Marathon Man Monster-in-Law Personal Best The Ring Thirteen Days Torn Curtain Young Frankenstein
Trojan Major League Baseball MVPs Fred Lynn California, American League Championship Series California, All-Star Game Most Valuable Player, 1983 Randy Johnson
The Legend of the TROJAN COLUMN The Legend
The Trojan Column, a gift to USC from the Republic of Turkey in 1952,
was long believed to have been a relic of the ancient city of Troy. In
fact, the presentation plaque reads: “This section of a column from the
legendary Troy, quarried and polished without the aid of iron tools at
an unknown date before 1200 B.C., stood in the courtyard of a public
building, believed to have been a temple of Trojan Apollo.…” The Skinny
We hate to break this to you, but in 1994, USC faculty member John
Pollini – professor of classical art and archaeology – determined that
the column’s a fake. It was probably quarried from an area around the
city of Troy, but it’s made of a material and in a style that date not
from the classical period, but much later – circa 30 B.C. to A.D. 400. Furthermore, there was no official statement from the Turkish government indicating that the column fragment actually came from ancient Troy. At the dedication ceremony, a professor from the University of Ankara stated simply that this “piece of stone” was “part of the soil of [his] own ancient country.” Another Trojan Invention That Shaped American Popular Culture Color Television
Women Deans at USC For current schools whose names have changed over the years, we’re using the current one. Martha Boaz Elizabeth Monk Daley Marilyn Flynn Karen Symms Gallagher Arlien Johnson Sherry P. May Mrs. C. S. Nellis Dorothy Wright Nelson Alice C. Parker Jane Pisano Madeline Puzo Barbara Solomon Barbara Solomon Lucy H. Stagg Ruth Weisberg Beulah Wright Elizabeth M. Zelinski
Trojan Who Got the Copyright on Love Leo Buscaglia ‘50, AM ‘54, PhD ‘63 An alumnus and longtime professor at USC, Buscaglia initiated a non-credit self-actualization course called Love 1A in 1969. The course begat a book, Love, in 1972, the title of which – to the author’s amazement – had not previously been claimed.
The Legend of the SPACE ALIENS The Legend
During and after World War II, rumors abounded about the building that
housed USC’s human centrifuge – which was built to test the effects of
weightlessness, first on monkeys and then on humans, in simulated
space. In particular, it was said that the facility contained space
aliens. The Skinny It’s not surprising that a certain air of mystery surrounded USC’s human centrifuge. For many years, USC was the only university to house such an instrument. It was installed in 1943 and used in the development of the G-suit to prevent pilot blackout during World War II as well as in research related to the first U.S. space missions. Several important discoveries emanated from the centrifuge, including the development of a partial-pressure suit for emergency extreme-altitude protection and a blood-pressure recording device for continuous monitoring of test subjects. About any testing on extraterrestrials, however, the scientists remain mum.
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