Hollywood to Honolulu, The Story of the Los Angeles Steamship Company
There was a time when the great steamships ruled the ocean, and it was actually quite brief, only about four decades or so. The ships that come to mind immediately are Titanic and Lusitania, both lost in tragic circumstance, but that's why they're remembered. There were dozens more that blazed new paths of commerce and travel across the seas, creating not just new industries, but the popular-culture image of the luxurious life aboard the ocean liner, where passengers were cared for as if they were in a great hotel. The Los Angeles Steamship Co. was just such a venture. Created to serve the then-small port of Los Angeles -- LASSCO as it was called -- lasted just little more than a decade, but it made an indelible impression, as Hollywood moviemakers often called upon the line to create an oceangoing romance or thriller. All this comes to life in the new book Hollywood to Honolulu -- The Story of the Los Angeles Steamship Company. Authors Martin Cox and Gordon Ghareeb are obviously steamship buffs and spent years examining newspaper mircofilm for every nugget they could find on the vanished line. It's a fascinating volume, well-illustrated, not just for ocean liner fans but for anyone interested in how Honolulu came to be the crossroads of the Pacific. As every route begins with a starting point, why not Los Angeles? The gamble by Los Angeles businessmen worked -- today, Los Angeles has the busiest port in the nation. --Honolulu Star Bulletin, June 28, 2009Emerging from obscurity after more than half a century, LASSCO's story is exceptionally well presented. Its services and liners deserve to be remembered as much as their counterparts on the Atlantic are. This volume is not only an eye opener, but also a realistic and revealing appraisal of LASSCO's Los Angeles-San Francisco coastal service, its Hawaiian service, its cruises to nowhere and two circumnavigations of South America. There is much informative reading between the covers, including an exhaustive roster detailing the careers of the more than two dozen vessel owned or chartered by LASSCO, and five Matson liners. Longevity alone should not be a prerequisite for remembrance and Hollywood to Honolulu successfully brings an all-but-forgotten episode of maritime history into the light. --Seatmboat Bill, Summer 2009The entertaining 70,000 word text is augmented by an armada of photographs and color reproductions of LASSCOs elaborate advertisements. This hard-covered time machine brings to life the people, the dreams, and the celebrities of the era all paraded against a backdrop of global, local and cinematic history. --The Telegraph, Summer 2009