Is She the New Queen of Los Angeles?
As the city’s population continues to decline, one woman is now vying for the title of “Queen of L.A.”
It’s a title that’s had the attention of some locals for quite a while, but it’s also one that’s been hotly contested by others.
The first woman to appear on “LA Weekly” to compete in the Queen of L.A. title was former Miss L.A. in 1976. The city’s first female mayor, Lillian Hellman, ran for governor as a woman in 1928 and was elected. Even the L.A. Times’s inaugural editor, Helen Horesh, wrote in her profile of the newspaper in 1936: “If it is so important to the Los Angeles of tomorrow, why should I be surprised at the desire of some day to be its Queen City? We need a king, not a queen.”
Today, we’re going to take a look at some of the more recent “queen” candidates, who are trying to claim the title of city’s “Queen.”
The Last L.A. Queen
It’s a title that’s become as much a local talking point as the city’s former mayor. When I first wrote about the title of Queen of Los Angeles in 2011, it was a contest that had already attracted the attention of a former L.A. mayor who wasn’t even running for mayor anymore.
Before the last several years, the former mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, had been making the rounds to talk about his career in politics. The topic of Queen of LA has come up a time or two in interviews, as have his political rivals and other candidates vying to be “Queen.” In fact, a few weeks ago, his former campaign manager, Mike Gonzalez, published an op-ed about his experience as “Queen of LA” in his hometown paper, the Santa Monica Reporter.
But despite his political prominence, Villaraigosa isn’t contesting the title.
“I am not being challenged by anyone,” he told the LA Times last year, when Gonzalez’s op-ed was published alongside his