Treasure Chest Thursday
By Don Taylor

California Bathing Beauties

For this week’s Treasure Chest Tuesday, I’m looking at several photos from the Donna Darling Collection. First, Image 0174 is a photo of Donna Darlings Bathing Beauties in a “Beach Promenade.” In most of the advertisement billings, this show was called, “The California Bathing Beauties. The show probably began in July 1920 at Moss’ Broadway at 41^st and appears to have played in Philadelphia, Washington DC, Coney Island, Baltimore, Albany, Alexandria (IN), Wilkes-Barre, Reading, New Haven (CT), and Bridgeport (CT).

I have not learned who the other five women are in the photograph, but it is clearly Donna in the top back.

Donna Darlings Bathing Beauties in a Beach Promenade – cropped, edited, and resized for the web. See Note Below.

Photos 0194

Next, I looked at the Donna Darling Collection Item 194 – a set of seven photographs.

Two of the photos are of Donna holding Russell – one as a baby and one as a toddler with both Donna and Russell in swimming suits. Next are two photos of Russell. In one he is sitting in a walker of some sorts and the other he is standing behind a life ring aboard the SS Virginia out of New York. In 1930 Donna, Sammy, and Russell went to Panama for work. Russell would have been about three, which looks right for this photo. A Wikipedia article[i] indicates that the SS Virginia was built in 1928, was part of the American Line whose route was New York to Havana, to the Panama Canal, then on to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Russell Amsterdam (Kees) & Donna Montran c. 1927	Russell Amsterdam (Kees) & Donna Montran – c. 1930.
Russell Amsterdam (Kees) in walker c. 1928	Russell Amsterdam (Kees) (aboard S S Virginia) c. 1930

Sammy Clark Amsterdam (with car) – 1927

Next is a photo of Sammy Clark Amsterdam standing alongside a car. I don’t know cars well enough to identify what it is. [If anyone that can identify it I’d love to hear from you. – Please, use the comment form below.] The license plate indicates it was in Michigan in 1927.

The final photo is something of a mystery. This is clearly Donna holding a baby, but the baby doesn’t appear to be Russell. I believe the baby is Sylvia and I believe the man is Harvey Knight, Donna’s stepfather. If so, this would be from 1932. [Photo below.]

Conclusion

December (XX) 1924 – The Bathing Beauty Review featuring Donna Darling and Murry Earle played at the Al Ringling Theatre in Baraboo, Wisconsin.

Probably, Harvey Knight, the baby appears to be Sylvia Amsterdam (Kees) & Donna Montran is on right – circa 1932.

Sources

[i] Wikipedia Article: SS Brazil (1928) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Brazil_(1928)