Topline:
Noble Johnson was able to find success in Hollywood by playing characters of every race except his own.
About this episode: Host Jacqueline Stewart talks with Cara Caddoo — media studies scholar at Indiana University Bloomington — about Johnson's career and legacy.
Why you should listen: Previously lost materials help us better understand Hollywood's overlooked first Black movie star.
The list of things that makes Noble Johnson remarkable is almost comically long. He was the first Black matinee idol and the first Black person to write a Hollywood movie: The Indian's Lament (1917). He’s also believed to be the only Black actor to play a starring role in a silent-era film: Universal’s The Lady from the Sea in 1916.
Throughout his long career in Hollywood, Johnson acted alongside some of the most famous actors in film history, including: John Barrymore, Douglas Fairbanks, Anna May Wong, Bette Davis, John Wayne, Gary Cooper and Bob Hope. He was in the original King Kong (1933), The Mummy (1932), Moby Dick (1930), The Ten Commandments (1923) and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916).
He was a skilled horseman, makeup artist, and dog trainer. (An article about Johnson from the December 1933 issue of Kennel Review notes that he taught a deaf English bull terrier to understand hand signals — a skill he’d learned from Mexican sheepherders he’d worked with in his home state of Colorado.)
Johnson also started his own independent studio in Los Angeles, the Lincoln Motion Picture Company. History was made just last year, when a film scholar discovered a fragment of one of their earliest films — 1916’s The Trooper of Troop K — embedded within another Lincoln Company film from 1921.
The company was formed in Los Angeles in 1915 by Johnson, who served as president, and a small group of other founding members — Black and white — while Johnson was also working as an actor for Universal. Their mission was to make so-called “race films”: movies intended for Black audiences that featured Black actors in roles that weren’t stereotypical caricatures (unlike other films made by white filmmakers at the time) and that weren’t played by white actors in blackface.
What now stands as the oldest surviving footage of a film produced by a Black film company is from The Trooper of Troop K (a discovery that was made in 2021 by Cara Caddoo, Indiana University cinema and media studies scholar).
Prior to Caddoo’s identification of the footage, and its verification by the Library of Congress, film scholars believed the oldest surviving films produced by Black filmmakers were from the 1920s.
The Lincoln Motion Picture Company’s films were popular, and they played in theaters across the country (thanks to Noble’s brother George P. Johnson, who marketed and distributed them), but Caddoo told The Academy Museum Podcast host Jacqueline Stewart, the company’s run was short-lived.
“The big Hollywood companies that were doing the same thing, they were struggling. It was just really hard to make a profit off of the productions. And especially enough profit that they could continue making more productions,” says Caddoo.
There was also the flu pandemic of 1918, which resulted in the shuttering of many movie theaters and made distributing films even more difficult and costly.
But another unique problem for the Lincoln Co. was the success Johnson found being cast in films for studios like Universal, playing characters of various races.
“On one hand, Noble is playing all of these Black leads in the Lincoln Motion Picture Company films,” Caddoo says. “But at Universal where he was working as a contract actor, he's playing, Native Americans, he's playing Asians, he's playing Mexicans.”
At the Academy Museum in L.A., Johnson is featured in an original 1937 issue of The Academy Players Directory, a catalog of photos of actors that for years was published by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and used by directors, writers, producers and studio heads to cast films.
For the first several years that the directory was issued, including the one on display in the museum, it was racially segregated. But Johnson is included among the white actors.
And while film historian Caddoo says Johnson never “passed” in the sense of denying his Blackness and saying he was white, she also says, “he also just refused to talk about his race altogether.”
George P. Johnson: At Universal, out of 50 pictures, I don’t think he played a Negro part in more than about three. As a great makeup artist, he made up as an Indian or a West Indian or a South American or pretty near anything they wanted to make-up.
Interviewer: But in the Lincoln Company films he played Negro parts?
Johnson: Oh, in the Lincoln Company he played naturally. He didn’t need any makeup, no. Of course we were featuring Negro films, that was our business. But he got in pictures accidentally and made good. He got in all those big pictures, but he didn’t get in there as a Negro, he got in there as an actor.
Then complaints from white theater owners — that Johnson’s Lincoln Motion Picture Co. films were taking business away from their theaters — changed things.
“They complained to Universal,” Caddoo says. “And Universal called Noble on the carpet and was basically like, ‘Are you gonna continue with that work or are you gonna continue with our work?’”
The fact that Johnson was “kind of advertising himself out there as this representative of the Black race,” Caddoo says, also “really complicated Universal's ability to market and to advertise him as all these different kinds of racial types. And it really made it dangerous for Universal, in their minds, [to show] him on screen with white women.”
While all the reasons that Johnson had for leaving the company he founded aren’t totally known, he parted ways with his partners in 1918 and the company shuttered in 1921.
Today, though Johnson may not be a household name, the impact he had on Hollywood is undeniable. He had one of the longest-running careers of any Hollywood actor — spanning 1915 to 1950, from the silent era to horror films of the 1930s and comedies in later years. Apart from his groundbreaking work making “race films” with his own company, and creating opportunities for himself and other Black actors, he also used his skills as an actor and makeup artist to originate character types that previously hadn’t existed.
You don't forget seeing him on screen. He's just got this charisma and this ability to kind of take over whatever scene he's in.
“Even though his characters, in many ways, we would see them as problematic today,” says Caddoo, “They're always these standout [roles]. You don't forget seeing him on screen. He's just got this charisma and this ability to kind of take over whatever scene he's in.”
When it comes to Johnson’s legacy, Caddoo says he paved the way for actors who would be described as “ethnically ambiguous” today. “He made space for these other kinds of actors and he made space for other kinds of representations on screen that weren’t legible and that weren't easy to read.”
“And I think that's really important because it really pushes us to think about the complexity of race and also the complexity of what it means to be Black. That there's a much wider range of appearances, of behaviors, of actors who are Black than we typically see on screen.”
It's now available from LAist Studios. Check it out wherever you get your get podcasts! Or listen to the second episode of season two on the player above.
Topline:
California’s mandate requiring later start times for middle and high schools is already yielding results, with students sleeping more, reporting better mental health and scoring higher math and English scores, according to a new study.
Why now: The new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research examines the effects of Senate Bill 328, California’s statewide mandate for later school start times. The law, which went into effect in 2022, requires most middle schools to start no earlier than 8 a.m. and high schools no earlier than 8:30 a.m.
Findings: Students reported experiencing better mental health since schools shifted to later start times, with boys reporting the largest reductions in sadness, hopelessness and suicidal ideation, and Hispanic students reporting the biggest drop in difficulties concentrating.
Read on... for more on the new study and how some parents feel about the change in start times.
California’s mandate requiring later start times for middle and high schools is already yielding results, with students sleeping more, reporting better mental health and scoring higher math and English scores, according to a new study.
The new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research examines the effects of Senate Bill 328, California’s statewide mandate for later school start times. The law, which went into effect in 2022, requires most middle schools to start no earlier than 8 a.m. and high schools no earlier than 8:30 a.m.
The study found that the new law increased the share of students sleeping at least eight hours per night by 13%, meeting the minimum recommended for adolescents by health experts. The largest jump was among boys.
The study shows that “rest and sleep are incredibly important in the function of schools,” said Osea Giuntella, an author of the report. Although the short-term increase in sleep is moderate, it has led to significant improvements in mental health and academic outcomes, he said.
Giuntella, a University of Pittsburgh researcher who studies sleep and economics, said the study’s first-year results are consistent with previous research linking better sleep to improved student well-being and academic performance. The study used changes in teachers’ commute arrival times from the American Community Survey as a proxy for later school start times, comparing sleep and mental health data before and after SB 328 took effect in the 2022-2023 school year and tracking academic gains from 2022 through 2025.
Students reported experiencing better mental health since schools shifted to later start times, with boys reporting the largest reductions in sadness, hopelessness and suicidal ideation, and Hispanic students reporting the biggest drop in difficulties concentrating.
Terra Ziporyn, executive director at nonprofit Start Schools Later and longtime advocate of later school start times, said SB 328 was a key part of California’s response to what schools have described as a student mental health crisis.
“The first step in addressing student mental health problems is to not create them in the first place,” Ziporyn said. “You can get a lot of counselors, but systematically depriving an entire adolescent population of adequate sleep is a surefire way to hurt their mental health.”
The study also found significant improvements in academic achievement, with eighth grade students making measurable gains in math and English, particularly among Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students.
Giuntella, the study’s author, said the improvement in scores was likely “largely driven by the change in sleep” based on comparable studies where increased sleep led to higher GPAs. That’s also why Hispanic students, who are already less likely to get adequate sleep than white students due to lower family income and family and work responsibilities, improved their math and English scores the most, Giuntella said.
The state mandate is the only one in the nation.
“California set a huge precedent for the whole nation by saying, ‘We cannot leave what is essentially a public health decision in the hands of local districts,’ ” Ziproyn said. “It’s not just a negotiable school budget item that you trade off against anything else.”
But some parents have said later start times complicate work commutes, push back sports and extracurricular activities and lead to some students simply pushing back the time they go to bed.
The study found that sports and extracurricular activities did start later after the change to later start times, but the changes were “marginal and not statistically significant,” Giuntella said.
“And it’s true that, yes, students may even go to bed a little later than they were, but they are definitely sleeping in more in the morning,” she said.
Guintella described later start times as just “one institutional factor” that may help address a complex sleep-deprivation problem, pointing to issues like the rise in nighttime screen use.
Some school districts found the transition to later school start times “too hard and too expensive,” Ziporyn said. Ziporyn said district administrators could have received more guidance from the state Department of Education to explain the benefits of later start times, and involve families in finding solutions to logistical problems.
“(Schools) have to fully understand why this is being done and communicate it with confidence to the community that they’re doing the right thing for kids,” Ziporyn said.
San Francisco Unified, for example, worked with operations experts at the Yale School of Management, Georgia Tech University and Northwestern University to redesign their bus routes in response to the change. With more than 120 schools and 18 different start times, the district generated about 1,000 new feasible bus schedules, which ended up saving the district about $5 million and with a majority of families and staff members satisfied with the transition to later start times, according to a report by Yale Insights.
But most schools in California did not have access to dedicated consultants to ease the transition, Ziporyn said.
“California could have improved making these resources more readily available to the districts,” Ziporyn said. “Built into the law was that there was supposed to be help from the state Department of Education about getting this done, and building that community buy-in is part of it.”
Giuntella said the state can improve its implementation of SB 328 by collecting statewide data on later school start times to “assess the impact of the reform.” In the meantime, schools can take from the study that later start times are “effective and powerful tools” for student outcomes.
“This happens often with some shock to individual and families’ habits, and so it also requires the ability to navigate this transition in a way that doesn’t backfire,” Giuntella said.
EdSource is an independent nonprofit organization that provides analysis on key education issues facing California and the nation. LAist republishes articles from EdSource with permission.
Topline:
Two bills requiring data centers to disclose water use head to Newsom’s desk. Data centers are using billions of gallons of California’s water. Will Newsom make them say how much?
The backstory: As fights about data centers erupt nationwide, California lawmakers have approved a pair of bills to make data center developers disclose how much water they really use. The bills are a new test of whether California will set limits on an industry that’s becoming a flashpoint over water, electricity and the environmental consequences of artificial intelligence.
Why it matters: Lawmakers on Monday cleared Assembly Bill 2469 by Assemblymember Diane Papan, a Democrat from San Mateo. The bill bars local governments from approving new or expanded data centers unless the developer discloses its water plans and covers the full cost of any new water pipes, treatment or storage for the facility. This bill will now join Papan’s Assembly Bill 2619 on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.
Read on... for more on the bills.
As fights about data centers erupt nationwide, California lawmakers have approved a pair of bills to make data center developers disclose how much water they really use.
The bills are a new test of whether California will set limits on an industry that’s becoming a flashpoint over water, electricity and the environmental consequences of artificial intelligence.
Lawmakers on Monday cleared Assembly Bill 2469 by Assemblymember Diane Papan, a Democrat from San Mateo. The bill bars local governments from approving new or expanded data centers unless the developer discloses its water plans and covers the full cost of any new water pipes, treatment or storage for the facility.
This bill will now join Papan’s Assembly Bill 2619 on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.
California senators last week, in a decisive 30 to 9 vote, approved the measure requiring data center operators to report their estimated or actual water sources and use — under penalty of perjury — when seeking and renewing a business license or permit.
It’s almost identical to a bill Papan authored last year, which Newsom vetoed amid pressure from the tech industry.
Newsom said at the time he was “reluctant to impose rigid reporting requirements … without understanding the full impact on businesses and the consumers of their technology.”
Papan said she’s often asked whether she thinks her do-over will survive Newsom’s desk, this time.
“To which I say, the opportunity for leadership has not gone away. If anything, it has been amplified,” Papan told CalMatters.
Since Newsom’s veto last year, public sentiment has shifted, with bipartisan backlash building against facilities that have become the ganglia of artificial intelligence.
A Public Policy Institute of California survey found that a majority of residents oppose construction of data centers in their areas, and are concerned about the environmental impacts.
“We currently are seeing a phase of heightened concern because of the rapid evolution of the industry — and the lack of transparency,” said Iris Stewart-Frey, an environmental science professor at Santa Clara University who led a study this year highlighting how rarely data center developers disclose their water use.
“I think that's where these bills can really make some progress in getting the sides back to the table and conversation,” Stewart-Frey said, “and also recreate some of this public trust.”
Opacity around data centers’ environmental impact is fueling fights around the state, from the desert and parched Imperial County to cities and farm towns.
With little oversight and even less state direction, local governments are saying no to data centers, citing concerns about environmental issues, electricity rates, and often, water.
Monterey Park, in the San Gabriel Valley, led the way when voters approved a permanent ban in June. The Coachella City Council approved its own ban last week to public applause. Others including the Tulare County Board of Supervisors are pausing as they weigh more permanent moratoriums.
Nationally, New York State has enacted a yearlong moratorium, and 70% of Americans told a Gallup poll that they oppose the facilities.
A fight over a data center in the city of Gilroy, in Santa Clara County, recently made national news, which Stewart-Frey attributed to growing public awareness and distrust of the secretive industry.
“It's also emblematic of the fact that the data center industry in California has not been releasing actual water use data, right?” said Stewart-Frey. “This lack of transparency is also biting them in the back here.”
Papan said that’s the point of her bills.
“I don't think we should be eliminating anything without sufficient knowledge about what their needs are, and then how can we meet those needs,” Papan said. “Help us help you,” she said, to data center developers, “because if you go into an area that doesn't have sufficient water supply for you, it's not going to work.”
The usual coalitions have lined up. Environmental and community groups back the bills, seeking more transparency over how much water these facilities really use. On the other side are the heavy-hitting and big-spending tech industry and business groups.
Khara Boender, a Western government affairs director for the Data Center Coalition, said the trade association is concerned that these bills single out data centers from other non-agricultural water users.
Reporting tied to receiving a business license or permit “should apply to other similar commercial and industrial users, as that would provide context and a holistic view of water demands,” Boender told CalMatters.
A few wildcards have also entered the fight. As of mid-August, the League of California Cities, the California State Association of Counties, and the Rural County Representatives of California opposed Papan’s bill requiring developers to disclose water plans and pay for upgrades.
In a July letter the groups said the measure — which would bar local governments from approving data centers that fail to disclose required information about their water plans — “undermines local governments’ ability to protect and represent their communities through established permitting mechanisms and community engagement processes.”
Water agencies have mostly stayed quiet, raising only technical issues, with one exception: Santa Clara Valley Water District, a water wholesaler in a data center hotspot, supported both bills.
“Despite local efforts to mitigate the impact of data center water demand, more information on water use could help local water agencies, such as Valley Water, plan for actual needs,” Joshua Golka, head of state government relations for Valley Water, said in a letter to Papan Friday.
Michael Kiparsky, director of the Wheeler Water Institute at the UC Berkeley Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment, called Papan’s bills “necessary, but not sufficient.”
He expects that even with more data, small communities with limited resources and staff will still struggle to assess the benefits and risks. The version of AB 2619 that senators approved last week cut an earlier provision requiring California agencies to develop guidance for local governments.
Papan said that guidance would have been nice to have, but that there were state costs associated with developing it. An Assembly analysis estimated that developing water-use and emerging technology guidelines would cost $2 million the first year, and $1 million annually after that.
“The main goal has been transparency. Let me give you the data, and let's go from there,” Papan told CalMatters. “I just didn't want anything to divert from that main goal.”
Kiparsky called for the state to establish a strike team to help small communities analyze the data that would be produced under the legislation. He also thinks the state should post this information in one place so officials and academics can assess the impacts of data centers and the policies regulating them.
“To be really clear, data centers are not bad or good … we use them every day for just about everything we do involving technology,” Kiparsky said.
The real question, he said, is whether a given community — and its specific mix of land, water, and energy resources — is the right spot for one.
“You can’t answer those questions just with what’s required from this bill — you need to have the understanding that comes from experts looking at it,” Kiparsky said. “The state, in my opinion, can and should provide that.”
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
Topline:
Erik and Lyle Menendez may get another chance at parole — and a bit sooner than expected.
What changed: On Monday, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation revealed the brothers had been granted a parole suitability hearing tentatively scheduled for March 2027. Previously, the state had determined they would not get another parole hearing until August 2028.
Family statement: The Menendez family issued a statement, expressing appreciation to the Parole Board for recognizing the brothers’ efforts to change themselves and help others in prison.
“For almost 40 years, Erik and Lyle have worked to take responsibility for their actions, confront and heal from the unimaginable abuse and trauma they endured, grow as individuals, and dedicate themselves to serving others,” the statement read.
The backstory: The brothers were convicted of murder for the August 1989 shotgun killings of their parents in their Beverly Hills home.
After they spent decades in prison, the brothers' asked the court for a hearing that would give them a chance at getting out. A judge later resentenced each of them to 50 years to life, making them eligible for parole.
Last August, the brothers were denied parole for three years.
Read on ... for details on the case.
Erik and Lyle Menendez may get another chance at parole — and a bit sooner than expected.
The brothers were convicted of murder for the August 1989 shotgun killings of their parents in their Beverly Hills home. They’ve been held in prison for more than three decades.
On Monday, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation revealed the brothers had been granted a parole suitability hearing tentatively scheduled for March 2027. Previously, the state had determined they would not get another parole hearing until August 2028.
The Menendez family issued a statement Monday, expressing appreciation to the Parole Board for recognizing the brothers’ efforts to change themselves and help others in prison.
“For almost 40 years, Erik and Lyle have worked to take responsibility for their actions, confront and heal from the unimaginable abuse and trauma they endured, grow as individuals, and dedicate themselves to serving others,” the statement read.
It continued: “Through efforts such as helping to establish a hospice program and creating Green Space, they have sought to build an environment that reminds people serving life sentences that their lives still have meaning and that, regardless of their circumstances, they can choose each day to grow, heal, accept accountability, and contribute something of value to the world around them.”
Erik Menendez was 18 years old at the time of the murders. He’s now 55.
Lyle Menendez is now 58. He was 21 in 1989.
The brothers were tried twice in the 1990s in connection with the killings of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez. The brothers claimed they were sexually abused by their father, a wealthy business and former music executive, and that their mother had been complicit.
The first trial ended in a hung jury and a mistrial.
The defense argued that the brothers believed their lives were in danger at the time of the killings, and that their actions were not murder but imperfect self defense, meaning they genuinely believed the danger was imminent even if they were wrong.
In the second trial, the sexual abuse evidence was limited, and the jury reached a verdict.
The brothers were sentenced to life in prison without parole.
After they spent decades in prison, the brothers' asked the court for a hearing that would give them a chance at getting out. A judge later resentenced each of them to 50 years to life, making them eligible for parole.
Last August, the brothers were denied parole for three years.
Parole commissioners said they took into account the brothers’ positive actions while in prison as well as their ages at the time of their crimes. But the commissioners also found each sibling would still pose a danger to the public if released, despite their efforts at rehabilitation.
It’s not clear why parole authorities moved up the brothers’ tentative parole suitability hearing date, but family members said they were grateful.
The family said in the statement that the move brings them “one step closer to a future with [the brothers] that once seemed impossible.”
Topline:
Tropical Storm Marie dumped around an inch of rain in the Southern California region over the Labor Day weekend. Forecasters say we might see minimal rain on Tuesday in the region but temperatures will rise for a hot and humid week ahead.
Advisories remain: Coastal flood and high surf advisories are in effect for Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange and San Diego counties until Tuesday 11 p.m.
Officials with the National Weather Service warned beachgoers that there was an increased risk of drowning in the ocean.
“Rip currents will be widespread and very strong, potentially pulling swimmers and surfers out to sea,” the advisory read.
Week ahead: Rose Schoenfeld, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told LAist there is a small chance of thunderstorms Monday and Tuesday afternoon.
She said she expects a warming trend to start Monday and continue through the week.
”By Wednesday when temperatures will be peaking, we're looking at temperatures even at the coast, 90s to maybe around 106,” Schoenfeld said.
Tropical Storm Marie dumped around an inch of rain in the Southern California region over the Labor Day weekend. Forecasters say we might see minimal rain on Tuesday in the region, and temperatures are expected to rise for a hot and humid week ahead.
Coastal flood and high surf advisories are in effect for Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange and San Diego counties until Tuesday 11 p.m.
Officials with the National Weather Service warned beachgoers that there was an increased risk of drowning in the ocean.
“Rip currents will be widespread and very strong, potentially pulling swimmers and surfers out to sea,” the advisory read.
They also advised beachgoers to remain out of the water or, if they do go in, to stay near occupied lifeguard towers and away from rock jetties.
Southern California felt the effects of the tropical storm on Sunday particularly along the coast. In Long Beach, one person was injured after being hit by a piece of plywood while prepping their home for the storm.
Long Beach Fire Department Capt. Jack Crabtree told LAist that 12 garages and two homes in the city flooded. City lifeguards and Fire Department personnel rescued three surfers, he said.
Waves pushed Long Beach’s water taxi, the Aqua Link, into the Alamitos Jetty. The Fire Department’s Marine Safety Division pushed it back onto the water, Crabtree said.
In Newport Beach, Adam Yacenda, lifeguard battalion chief for the Fire Department in Newport Beach, told LAist the department had conducted 187 rescues over the weekend as of Monday morning.
The majority of those rescues — 177 — happened Saturday.
Even so, he said, “the rain was a nice reprieve,” from most long weekends, when the department is usually much busier. He said many people stayed away from the beaches. The red flag surf warnings were also a deterrent.
Because of the high surf advisory, Yacenda advised beachgoers to stay out of the water through Tuesday. But for those who plan to get into the water anyway, he recommended speaking with a lifeguard who can provide advice on some locations that are safer than others.
Further south in San Clemente, high surf damaged the Metrolink Pacific Surfliner track. Service was paused from the Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo station in Orange County to the Oceanside stop in San Diego County while crews made emergency repairs.
Two beach parking lots are closed in Seal Beach because of flooding concerns.
Rose Schoenfeld, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told LAist there is a small chance of thunderstorms Monday and Tuesday afternoon.
”We're not completely out of the woods for any precipitation, but should be much more isolated, generally more minimal,” she said.
Schoenfeld said she expects a warming trend to start Monday and continue through the week.
”By Wednesday when temperatures will be peaking, we're looking at temperatures even at the coast, 90s to maybe around 106,” she said. “That's pretty warm.
"And then if you add on top of that the tropical humidity that we still will have lingering in the area, we're looking at a pretty significant heat event, especially for those near the coast without air conditioning,” she continued.
Because of the humidity, low temperatures later in the day won’t be as cooling as they would be otherwise.
