i kno the welsh thing is a stretch but how could fouke get the idea the man was welsh unless the man had very VERY very strong welsh features…. i just did more search on the surname vaughn to be sure… heres what i got…… Vaughan /ˈvɔːn/ and Vaughn are surnames, originally Welsh, though also used as a form of the Irish surname McMahon. Vaughan derives from the Welsh word bychan, meaning "small", and so corresponds to the English name Little.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obitu … 72163.html

Bob Vaughn
Thursday 17 January 2002 00:00 GMT0 comments

The Independent Online
Robert Franklin Vaughn, cinema organist: born San Francisco 8 February 1911; married (one son); died Bakersfield, California 4 January 2002.

Bob Vaughn hammered away at his Wurlitzer at virtually every movie house from Long Beach to Ojai between 1925 and 1929. He worked seven days a week, including matinées, until the "talkies" arrived (their 75th anniversary falls this year), making his début at the Westwood cinema in Brentwood, California, accompanying The Phantom of the Opera.

He was born in San Francisco in 1911. Both his parents were musicians, his mother a classically trained pianist, while his father played the violin. Bob learned to play both instruments but his father died when he was 15. "Overnight things changed," he remembered. "I was only a kid but I knew I had to grow up fast and become the family breadwinner."

He took a job in a local factory, but used to play the piano for friends at parties. On one such occasion he caught the eye of a guest, a moviehouse proprietor, and was offered a job to play at his theatre. "It was a daunting task," he said, "playing in the dark, with the responsibility of a film and the audience’s emotions resting on your shoulders."

He gained a reputation and was compared to the other great theatre pipe organists of his time, Gaylord Carter, John Mari and Lee Erwin. Hollywood’s élite also paid compliments. Personal messages of thanks accompanied a film’s premiere from its stars – Charles Farrell, Janet Gaynor, Rudolph Valentino, Vilma Banky, the Gish sisters, Gloria Swanson.

"I try to keep the music pulsing with different themes for different scenes, always looking for the climaxes without anticipating them until they happen," he said in 1988. "The secret of making it work is that you must feel like you’re a part of the picture – the audience shouldn’t even be aware that you’re there."

Film became by far the most popular pastime for any American. "I played until my fingers bled," he recalled. "To get from theatre to theatre I quickly decided that the fastest mode of transport was a motorbike." He wore a tuxedo under his leathers and was still riding his Harley Davidson up until his 85th birthday.

The actress Barbara Kent was a former neighbour:

He played at the premiere of my film Flesh and the Devil [1926] at the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. When the lights went down and the film was showing I looked to my right where our film’s lead, Greta Garbo, was sitting. I could see tears in her eyes. For a brief moment Bob melted her icy heart.

After the "talkies" came, he took a job as an investigator for the Immigration and Naturalisation Service, serving with them for 30 years. It wasn’t until he moved back to San Francisco in the early Sixties that he became an accompanist again. He showed up at the old Avenue Theatre one day just to fool around with the Wurlitzer. When the manager Geoff Hansen heard the sounds wafting from the 16 ranks of pipes, he refused to let Vaughn leave until he agreed to play there on a weekly basis. When the theatre closed its doors in 1984 (Vaughn blamed the invention of video recorders), he took up residence at the Castro, the UC Theatre in Berkeley and the Towne Theatre in San Jose – where he played until summer 1999.

Vaughn built his own personal soundtrack library of silent film scores over the years. Few of the original scores survived, so Vaughn spent decades researching popular music from the 1920s. More recently he was an active member on the National Film Preservation Board.

Among his many treasures was the sheet music for "The Perfect Song", the love theme from The Birth of a Nation (1915) that Lillian Gish autographed and sent to him shortly before her death in 1993.

Here a different DOB ; August 14, 1911:
http://wwww.thedeadrockstarsclub.com/2002.html

Bob Vaughn (Robert Franklin Vaughn) – Died 1-4-2002 ( Cinema Organist ) Born 8-14-1911 in San Francisco, CA, U.S. – Played the violin, piano and Wurlitzer organ – He accompanied The Phantom Of The Opera and the premiere of Flesh And The Devil.

If the last link is right this is his DOB:

Robert Franklin Vaughn
in the California Birth Index, 1905-1995
Name: Robert Franklin Vaughn
Birth Date: 14 Aug 1911
Gender: Male
Mother’s Maiden Name: Leasenfelt
Birth County: Los Angeles

I guess the later DOB is the correct one, bc here is another obituary with the Aug 14, 1911 DOB :

http://www.sierrachapteratos.org/vaughn.html

Robert F. Vaughn Obituary

August 14, 1911 — January 4, 2002

Few people could ever fill the silence better than Bob Vaughn. And no one ever felt more strongly that the silents were golden.

Think Louise Brooks, Fritz Lang, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, and you’ll understand why thousands of Bay Area people feel that the next showing of "City Lights" will seem slightly dimmed. Vaughn, possibly San Francisco’s most celebrated theater pipe organist, who entertained untold numbers of silent-era filmgoers since the 1920s, was buried yesterday in a ceremony much more vocal than any of the movies he spent his life spinning notes around.

Bob Vaughn was the last of the great theater organists who learned their art during the era of silent film, a group that included such notables as Gaylord Carter, John Muri and Lee Erwin. He was something of a local art house legend, an accompanist who provided moody music for sad hearts, silly syncopation for slapstick and cinematic history for an overeducated film population.

Vaughn was a burly, sonorous, white-haired champion of celluloid refinement and at the same time a Harley-loving, leather-clad adventurer who often wore a tuxedo under his motorcycle togs.

He was complex. He was sophisticated. He was as original as one of his cherished silent-era film scores. And he will be missed by anyone who ever had the pleasure of hearing him play at any of the repertory theaters in Oakland, Berkeley, Palo Alto, San Jose and San Francisco during the past three decades.

Vaughn died a few days back in a Bakersfield rest home at age 90. Friends gathered at St. Cecilia’s Church in the Parkside yesterday to bid their final farewells — not far from the home where Vaughn lived for most of the past 30 years.

"He was bigger than life, a one-of-a-kind character," said Anita Monga, the Castro Theatre’s longtime film booker. "He’d drive his motorcycle all the way to Fresno just to play a showing. And even though he had more knowledge about film and film scores than almost anyone, he wasn’t a diva. He just loved what he did to the end."

The end came nearly 70 years after Vaughn first started playing pipe organs in theaters around Long Beach, starting with one of his favorites, "Phantom of the Opera." From 1927-29, Vaughn worked seven days a week on his craft, including matinees, the pace slowing as the talkies took over and many of the grand Wurlitzers were mothballed. For a time he worked in stage orchestras, but as the silent era ended, Vaughn left the music field. He spent 30 years working as an investigator for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, including a stint for the INS on Angel Island.

It wasn’t until Vaughn moved back to San Francisco in the early ’60s that he returned to the accompanist fold. He showed up at the old Avenue Theatre one day just to fool around with the Wurlitzer. When manager Geoff Hansen heard the sounds wafting from the 16 ranks of pipes, he refused to let Vaughn leave until he agreed to play there on a weekly basis.

Vaughn’s fans still lament the closing of the theater in 1984, though they could still travel to the Castro, the UC Theatre in Berkeley and the Towne Theater in San Jose to hear him play.

And play he did — at public screenings, private parties, at funerals, weddings or at home. Though not formally trained, Vaughn spent his formative years learning the intricacies of theater organs, intent on weaving improvisation and composed scores — the hallmark of most silent film accompaniment.

"I don’t think of myself as a soloist," he told onetime Chronicle movie writer John Stanley in 1988. "I try to keep the music pulsing with different themes for different scenes, always looking for the climaxes without anticipating them until they happen. The secret of making it work is that you must feel like you’re a part of the picture — the audience shouldn’t even be aware that you’re there."

But it was hard to ignore his exemplary work on such classics as "Wings," "Ben-Hur," "The Big Parade" or "Birth of a Nation." He scored Abel Gance’s "Napoleon" long before Carmine Coppola weighed in with his version. Vaughn was perhaps most fond of his interpretation of "Pandora’s Box" because of his affinity for the film’s lead, the great Louise Brooks.

Vaughn built his own personal soundtrack library of silent film scores over the years, in part because of his love of the genre and also because they became so very difficult to find. Few of the original scores survived, so Vaughn spent decades researching popular music from the 1920s, songs with lurid titles such as "Despair," "Redemption" and "Gruesome Tale." Among his many treasures was the sheet music for "The Perfect Song," the love theme from "Birth of a Nation" that Vaughn had autographed by Lillian Gish.

"Some organists will tell you they plink away without sheet music, but believe me, nobody can fake it in the dark for very long," he told The Chronicle. "You have to be watching for the moment when Hardy slaps Laurel so you can give it the right sweetener."

And sweetly his music soared. "He could play anything," said Gary Meyer, longtime proprietor of the recently closed UC Theatre. "He would show up at the theater’s anniversary each year and play ‘Happy Birthday,’ and there would be a thousand people singing it along with his playing. He was a special person."

Said Leonard Maltin, the ubiquitous film critic on "Entertainment Tonight": "I’ll never forget him doing ‘Old Ironsides’ for an early Cinecon in D.C. and finishing the show with tears in his eyes."

It’s hard to say what kind of music he would have provided his audience at the church yesterday, but no doubt there would have been a tinge of sadness mixed with a few notes of light sweetener. For if Vaughn had any regrets, it was that he knew he would not be able to play the organ at his own funeral.

This is the only photo I could find of, it is from his later years:

wow great post man…good info…ive never seen that pic of him before…i can see a close resemblance to the age progression sketch of Z… im not like 100 percent set on this theory…i look at all suspects from all angles… i just love all the different possibilities and want to kno more info like u posted…im 25 and didnt no about zodiac till maybe two years ago…i did research a lot last year and this year i finally watched the movie…how much of that movie is true id have to ask robert liesmith

Also, I have something of a gift of mimicry, and I just enjoy what a pompous ass I am.

Marshall also claims he’s one of those rare people blessed with almost total recall.

I always wondered if Vaughn was friendly with Anton LaVey. That is something I looked into at one time but didn’t really find any connection. There were also several people in the bay area that were making some crazy films at the time and there could be something there. I have done a lot of research on this. Here’s a link to one film you might find interesting…

http://zodiackiller.forumotion.com/t325-house-of-zodiac

Here’s the Avenue theater ceiling with the Zodiac signs on it:

I always wondered if Vaughn was friendly with Anton LaVey. That is something I looked into at one time but didn’t really find any connection. There were also several people in the bay area that were making some crazy films at the time and there could be something there. I have done a lot of research on this. Here’s a link to one film you might find interesting…

http://zodiackiller.forumotion.com/t325-house-of-zodiac

You know that LaVey was also an organist, right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1EXeurb4lI

I always wondered if Vaughn was friendly with Anton LaVey. That is something I looked into at one time but didn’t really find any connection. There were also several people in the bay area that were making some crazy films at the time and there could be something there. I have done a lot of research on this. Here’s a link to one film you might find interesting…

http://zodiackiller.forumotion.com/t325-house-of-zodiac

You know that LaVey was also an organist, right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1EXeurb4lI

Yep, that is why I thought there could be a connection. Some of those underground film makers in the SF area had a bit of a Satanic vibe to their work. IF Marshall and/or Vaughn were making snuff films, I think there’s a good chance that Kenneth Anger (Church of Satan) would have been involved somehow. Just a hunch. I would bet that they all at least knew each other. There were a lot of really cool psychedelic short films being made in San Fran back then and, just like the beat writers in the area at the time, they kinda had this weird little social group.

If you do some research you will find a lot of cool stuff on these film makers, and some of it you may even find are interesting (most likely coincidences) little things that will make you think of the Zodiac case. I have found dozens. I do think it is entirely possible that a film maker or group of film makers may have been responsible for the Zodiac murders.

Check out Scorpio Rising by Kenneth Anger if you get a chance. Hell, check out anything by him. Last I knew, most of his short films were on the Youtubes.

Reminds me that Manson Family member Bobby Beausoleil was involved in Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising.