Alex Xydias, More Than Just So-Cal Speed Shop
It would be easy to just list his vast number of accomplishments and still have a plenty long story. But it wouldn’t tell you about the man. By the time you read this he will have celebrated his 99th birthday. And he’s still vital, charming, witty, kind, and the very definition of a class act as he ever was. He can fit in virtually any situation or crowd. He was in on the ground floor of the speed shop business as well as trade shows. He’s been a racer, a retailer, an editor, a promoter, and a film maker, and has done it all with style.
If you were fortunate enough to be around Alex and his close friend of seven decades Wally Parks you would soon see they were two of a kind. Both real gentlemen who still had no problem busting the chops of the other. “Can we go now or are you going to sign autographs all night?” was one of the more common jabs.
Alexander Basil Xydias literally grew up in Hollywood. His father Anthony was a Greek immigrant who raised himself up from running a small theater in Mississippi that catered to World War I soldiers in nearby Camp Selby but by the early ’20s had moved to Hollywood and became a movie producer under the title Sunset Productions. By 1928, young Alex lived in a big house on Crescent Heights Boulevard complete with a maid and a new Auburn or Cord in the driveway. Sunset Productions made dozens of movies, many of them westerns starring silent film hero Jack Hoxie. Then, a year before the Depression, it all came apart. Anthony developed prostate cancer. He survived, but his recovery took so long that he completely missed the conversion to talking pictures. His business failed and with it his marriage.
It’s tough being a single parent any time, but especially so for a single mother during the Depression. Alex’s mother rented out rooms and became a fortune teller (Madam X). Young Alex went from a life of opulence to peddling magazines and newspapers on the streets of Hollywood. But it wasn’t as disastrous for him as you might think. He was still young and the Depression had affected nearly everyone. His mother did well enough to send Alex and his sister, Carolyn, by bus or train to stay with her brothers and sisters in Mississippi for the summers. It was culture shock to be sure but Alex remembers it as some of the greatest times
