George Hill Hodel, only child, born 1907 in Los Angeles to Russian and French parents recently immigrated to the United States. Attends Montessori School in Paris. Intellectual and musical prodigy. On returning to Los Angeles, studies piano with composer Vernon Spencer. Inducted into the Genetic Studies of Genius longitudinal study headed by Stanford Professor Lewis Terman after scoring 186 on an IQ test. Grows up in South Pasadena. Has his own private attached residence built for him by prominent Russian architect, educator and “international man of mystery” Alexander Zelenko as a 15th birthday gift from his parents.
Gains advanced admission and matriculates at the newly-established California Institute of Technology as an undergraduate in 1923. Extracurricular activities: reporter for Caltech Weekly, editorial assistant on the 1924 Caltech “Big T” yearbook, editor-publisher of a Decadent mode literary magazine, Fantasia. Does not progress to sophomore year at Caltech, apparently due to his impregnating a faculty member’s wife as a freshman.
During the latter part of 1924 he works as a junior crime reporter at the Los Angeles Record, the smallest and scrappiest of Los Angeles six major newspapers, working first vice, then homicide. Plugged into Los Angeles arts scene, with connections into Baker Block bohemia (Sadakichi Hartmann, Ben Berlin). Subject to a partly flattering but mostly scathing hit piece in the Hearst press by ex-Record journalist Ted Le Berthon (“The Clouded Past of a Poet,” December 9, 1925, Los Angeles Evening Herald.) Worked as a taxi driver (illegally, because under age) servicing LA’s downtown hotels, an advertising copywriter, classical music announcer on the radio, and in the antiquarian book business before moving up north to resume his studies as a premed at UC Berkeley in 1928.
