Obituaries

Longtime American Hotel resident Terry Ellsworth died at Cedars-Sinai Hospital the morning of Nov. 4, 2022, at the age of 74. He had been battling cancer for several months.

Ellsworth moved into the American in 1994 and soon felt “like a spy in the house of art.” He was an active participant at Jim Fittipaldi's Bedlam salon, often working as a bartender at the raucous speakeasy that in the late '90s and early 2000s was one of a handful of vibrant underground venues in the Downtown Los Angeles Arts District.

He forged friendships with Fittipaldi and others in the creative community, who rallied to help support him as he recovered from a heart transplant in 2004. Ellsworth was living on the second floor of the American Hotel before being admitted to Cedars-Sinai in mid-October.

An art installer by trade, for many years, Ellsworth worked with Art Share L.A., a community arts center across the street from the American Hotel.

Posted Sept. 15, 2022

Emmeric Konrad, whose distinctive style of painting is bold, amusing and often kind of creepy, has died at the age of 58. 

Konrad "was an artist of extremes, painting raw, graphic imagery — often involving half-naked women and martini glasses — but with a winking irony," wrote Dan Evans in the Napa Valley Register.

A former Marine, Konrad and his wife, Faye, have been prominent members of the Downtown Los Angeles art community for decades. He often made "live paintings" during events at Art Share and other venues in the Arts District, and his work is currently being exhibited in a show entitled "Bring Tequila" at Gloria Delson Contemporary Arts on Spring Street.

A memorial service at REN Gallery is being planned on Oct. 22.

He's been called "the Chicano Charles Bukowski," but he's more familiarly known among his friends and fans as simply "The Beast." Prolific writer and DTLA denizen Jim Marquez passed away after a brief illness on Nov. 30. He was 54.

Born and raised in East L.A., Marquez was a hard-living, hard-drinking novelist in the vein of Hunter S. Thompson and Henry Miller. He published more than a dozen books — both fiction and non-fiction — set in the seedy streets and bars of downtown. Just before the pandemic, Marquez set off on a journey across Europe and wrote about it in the memoir, "A Mexican-American in Paris: Beastly Tales Romping Across Pre-Covid Europe."

Marquez returned to L.A. and was living in Koreatown when he died. His books — "A Movable Beast: Tales from L.A. and Beyond" and "Beastly Bus Tales," among others — display a gritty gusto that is simultaneously funny and sad, sometimes violent, and brutally honest. Marquez brilliantly captures the beauty and the horror in the underbelly of Los Angeles.

Frank Theobald was a third-generation native Angeleno, raised on the streets of Downtown L.A. He and his husband, sculptor David Hollen, had a studio across the street from the American Hotel for many years before development forced them to relocate to another loft in the Arts District.

The couple’s space in the basement of 810 E. 3rd St. became a modern salon, where all the artists in the community around Traction Avenue and Hewitt Street gathered for drinks and lively conversations.

Both Frank and David were interviewed for the documentary “Tales of the American,” sharing their experiences as part of the Arts District.

"The people that are moving here are moving here because they're attracted to that sense of community," Theobald says in the film. "But unfortunately, their sheer numbers are destroying it."

On Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019, Frank Theobald passed away at the age of 70 surrounded by his husband and many of their closest friends. Frank's vibrant spirit, his vast knowledge of Los Angeles history and his indomitable sense of humor will be sorely missed.

In the early 1980s, Dr. Mongo was an ex-con living on Skid Row in Downtown L.A. when he found his way to Al’s Bar and started selling poems to artists and others entering the punk-rock dive.

“I'd come down here and get people before they come in the place, recite a poem to them, and, you know, get some money,” he says in the documentary “Tales of the American.” “I became Al's Bar's Poet in Residence, right?”

Mongo Taribubu — a name he adopted after studying philosophy and literature at Case Western Reserve University — was born in Memphis in 1940. He died this week in Los Angeles. He was 78.

He performed his poem “Penitentiary” — in which he personifies the soul-crushing brutality of prison — many times onstage at Al’s Bar.

“Dr. Mongo came on stage and started reciting this poem,” says photographer Raymond Y. Newton. “I was transfixed!”

The poet’s good friend and artistic collaborator Drew Lesso has said: “Dr. Mongo doesn’t deny the hardship of life or the beauty of life. He is whole in his poetic expression. That is his triumph.”