In Leigh Fondakowski’s harrowing new book, Jonestown survivors talk about what happened in Guyana — and the might-have-been utopia that still haunts their dreams
This year marks the 35th anniversary of the infamous Jonestown murdersuicides orchestrated by Reverend Jim Jones in Guyana. More than 900 people lost their lives.While Jones’ Peoples Temple is inherently a Bay Area story — that of an Indianapolis preacher who, in 1965, moved his followers to Ukiah and later San Francisco, where they became a political force — the church branched out to L.A. and attracted thousands of local congregants. In her new book, Stories From Jonestown (University of Minnesota Press), author Leigh Fondakowski interviews more than 40 survivors, former cult members, relatives of the deceased and vario
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"Like a lot of other stuff in my life, I sort of fell backwards into it,” screenwriter Will Beall says of his unexpected perch atop Hollywood’s A-list. Unexpected, because just five years ago Beall was busy working for Tinseltown’s second most famous employer, the L.A. Police Department, where he was a homicide detective in South Central’s notoriously rough 77th Division. Then he published his first novel, the gritty rookie-cop saga L.A. Rex, which earned Beall plaudits from Joseph Wambaugh, fellow LAPD vet–turnedauthor, plus a gig adapting the screenplay for über-producer Scott Rudin.
When that script landed in seventh place on 2009’s "Black List” — the annual insider survey of the industry’s best unproduced screenplays — Beall
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In the 1960s, Mercedes Cortes arrived in Hollywood after fleeing her homeland of Guatemala, which was roiled by bloody unrest. After moving around a bit, she and her husband and their three sons settled in a two-bedroom apartment on Eleanor Avenue, a community of run-down apartment buildings and old Craftsman-style houses, which is a short walk from Paramount Pictures and Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where many stars are buried.
A decade later, Cortes' world was shattered again — when gang violence and drug dealing hit her beloved neighborhood. This time, the affable, soft-spoken housekeeper bravely stood her ground as Hollywood was en
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Behind the Goodyear auto shop on Lincoln Boulevard in Venice, there's a dimly lit parking lot with scattered cardboard boxes and two Dumpsters. At night it's as silent as an empty church, and mist drifting in from the ocean forms a permanent fog. Up against the shop's rear façade, there's a small indentation in the wall, about 4 feet wide and 1 foot deep.
This indentation is where Russell Sheen, 61, has made his home for the past three months. A Vietnam vet and self-proclaimed alcoholic (sober for 15 years), Sheen walks with a limp from shrapnel he caught in his left leg during an explosion while in combat. He lost his apartment last year. He's been on the streets ever since.
"I've been in probably some of the worst spots in the world. I
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