Haunted Hollywood – Page 13

October 24, 2013September 29, 2017

Dan Aykroyd’s Former Haunted House

Another spooky locale that I learned about thanks to fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory, and his fabulous book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites was the longtime home of Ghostbuster Dan Aykroyd and his wife, actress Donna Dixon. The residence piqued my interest due to Aykroyd’s claim of numerous hauntings taking place there over the years. So I, of course, immediately added it to my Haunted Hollywood To-Stalk list and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there back in early May.

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Dan Aykroyd is not the first celebrity to live in the two-story, country-style abode. In fact, the property’s tenancy records read like a Who’s Who of Hollywood and include such luminaries as Natalie Wood, Ringo Starr, Alfre Woodard, (possibly) Renee Zellweger, and “Mama” Cass Elliot. According to the book Swans and Pistols, during Cass’ tenure there, the singer encouraged famous guests like Eric Clapton, Ryan O’Neal, David Crosby, and Don Johnson to write notes on a “graffiti” wall in the living room. (How cool would that have been to see?) Dan and Donna purchased the site sometime during the 1980s and it was not long before strange occurrences started taking place.

A 2003 iVillage article quoted Dan as saying, “A ghost certainly haunts my house. It once even crawled into bed with me. I rolled over and just nuzzled up to whatever it was and went back to sleep. The ghost also turns on the Stairmaster and moves jewelry across the dresser. I’m sure it’s Mama Cass because you get the feeling it’s a big ghost.” Dan’s bed must have been a pretty busy place because in 2005 he told ContactMusic.com that the spirit of a man who died at the home in the 1960s bunked with him, as well. That same year he also spoke of the specter in a Huffington Post interview, saying, “Have I personally ever seen a ghost? Not one. Have I ever felt an unseen presence near me? Damn right. In my bed no less when we lived in Mama Cass’s Hollywood estate.” You can watch a video below of Aykroyd talking about selling the Cass residence and the fact that he had to disclose that there had been some “unusual activity” on the premises “that could not be explained rationally or physically.”

And after going through my photographs of the property yesterday, I tend to believe him. The picture below, which gave me the chills when I saw it, has not been altered in any way. Creeeeeeepy!

Aykroyd apparently put the house on the market several times while owning it, but the place never sold. I guess not many people are willing to cuddle up to ghosts. According to The Real Estalker, in 2006, the actor tried to lease it out at the whopping rate of $30,000 a month. It remained on the market for over 450 days, though, until he decided to offer it for sale in November 2007 for $4.2 million.

According to Berg Properties, the estate was finally sold one month later to none other than actress Beverly D’Angelo (of the Vacation movies) for $3.8 million. She, too, has been visited by Mama Cass’ apparition, as she talks about in the below (overly dramatic) clip from a Season 3 episode of Celebrity Ghost Stories.

Sadly, not much of the 4,828-square-foot residence is visible from the street. According to The Real Estalker, the estate, which was originally built in 1951, boasts 5 bedrooms, 5.5 baths, a master bedroom with an attached office and weight room, a library, 6 fireplaces, over one acre of land, a pool, and a motor court. There also seems to be some sort of tree house on the premises, as you can see below. You can check out some interior photographs of the pad – wallpapered kitchen ceiling and all – here.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to E.J., of The Movieland Directory, for writing about this location in his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Dan Aykroyd’s former haunted house is located at 7708 Woodrow Wilson Drive in the Hollywood Hills.

October 23, 2013September 29, 2017

Heather’s House from “New Nightmare”

Way back in April, after stalking the talking road condition sign location from L.A. Story (which I blogged about here) and Malibu Hindu Temple from Beverly Hills Ninja (which I blogged about here), Mike, from MovieShotsLA, took me to the Tarzana-area house where Heather Langenkamp (who played herself) lived with her husband, Chase Porter (David Newsom), and son, Dylan (Miko Hughes), in the 1994 horror flick Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. And while I had not yet seen New Nightmare at the time, Mike thought the residence would fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme – and he was right. I’m not typically a huge fan of sci-fi-style horror flicks (I much prefer the Scream/I Know What You Did Last Summer/more realistic brand of scary movies), but I just watched New Nightmare and have to say that I actually enjoyed it. That most likely has to do with the fact that the flick centers around the filming of a new installment of the Nightmare series, during which a grown-up Heather Langenkamp, the actress who starred as Nancy Thompson in the first and third A Nightmare on Elm Streets, has to deal with the fact that the character of Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) has come to life and is stalking her son. Y’all know me – anything having to do with the production of a movie and I’m in!

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Heather’s house was one of the main locations used in New Nightmare and the property shows up repeatedly throughout the movie – usually in nighttime scenes.

Despite the fact that almost twenty years have passed since filming took place (How can that be, by the way??? That means that it’s practically time for my twenty-year high school reunion!!!), the residence still looks almost exactly the same today as it did then.

Even the mailbox has been left unchanged!

Had to do it! Winking smile

In real life, the five-bedroom, five-bath residence, which was originally built in 1952, measures 4,512 square feet and sits on a 0.43-acre plot of land. It last sold in November 1996 for $741,000.

As you can see, the dwelling is really quite idyllic and picturesque and not the type of place where one would expect a horror film to be shot, but perhaps that was the point – that nightmares can happen anywhere.

The real life interior of the home . . .

. . . as well as the backyard, both of which you can see photographs of here, were also used in the filming.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Heather’s house from Wes Craven’s New Nightmare is located at 5132 Calvin Avenue in Tarzana.

October 22, 2013September 29, 2017

Henry Kyle’s Former House

Many, many months back, my mom texted me to ask if I had ever stalked the Bel-Air mansion where Texas tycoon Henry Harrison Kyle was murdered on July 22nd, 1983. Because the property had also once been the residence of filmdom’s first “It Girl,” Clara Bow, my mom thought it would fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood posts. That was the first that I had ever heard of the place and, of course, started chomping at the bit to stalk it, so I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to do just that a short time later.

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According to a June 1996 The New York Times article, legend has it that the 1923 manse was originally built for the then King of Spain. Sometime during the early 1930s, the pad was purchased by film producer Louis Lewyn and his wife, Marion Mack. The couple loaned the residence to actress Clara Bow to live in shortly thereafter and the starlet remained there for the next couple of years.

For those not familiar with Old Hollywood lore, the Brooklyn-born Bow became a silver screen phenomenon thanks to a starring role in the 1927 silent film It. The flick was based upon a magazine article penned by British novelist Elinor Glyn, who explained the elusive trait as such, “’It’ is that quality possessed by some which draws all others with its magnetic force. With ‘It’ you win all men if you are a woman and all women if you are a man.” From 1927 on, Clara, who starred in over 58 films during her lifetime, would forever be known as “The It Girl.” The phrase caught on and is still used regularly in Hollywood to this day. Sadly, Bow’s heavy Brooklyn accent interfered with her career during the advance of “talkies” in the mid 1930s. The beauty retired from acting in 1935 at the age of 28 and moved to Nevada. She spent the remainder of her years hidden from the public eye and passed away from a heart attack at the age of 60 on September 27th, 1965.

Multimillionaire Henry Kyle, who amassed his fortune via extensive real estate, coal mine, bank, and oil-drilling equipment firm holdings, relocated from Dallas to Bel-Air in the Spring of 1983, along with his two sons, 20-year-old Henry Harrison Kyle II, aka “Ricky,” and 19-year-old Scott, in order to begin a new job as the head of Four Star International Inc. television production company. At the time of his arrival, he purchased Bow’s former Mediterranean-style manse. He did not live there long. In the pre-dawn hours of July 22nd, 1983, Ricky woke his father up and informed him that there was a prowler in the house. Henry grabbed a gun and walked downstairs to the dining room, where Ricky, who also had a gun, subsequently shot him in the back at point-blank range. Henry returned fire, hitting his son in the arm. It was too late, though. When police arrived later that morning, they discovered Henry’s 6’4” nude body sprawled on the dining room floor. The Texan, who was often described as a real-life J.R. Ewing, was dead at the age of 60. (Ironically enough, according to a 1983 The Pittsburg Press article, upon moving, Kyle rented out his Texas residence to none other than Larry Hagman, who was in the Lone Star State to film Dallas. Hagman subsequently vacated the property shortly after Henry was killed.)

Ricky was arrested five weeks later. Foreshadowing the eerily similar Menendez murders in 1989, Ricky originally said that an intruder had killed the senior Kyle and that he had been shot in the crossfire, but then later copped to the crime saying that his father, who had supposedly been abusing him both physically and emotionally for years, had fired at him and that Ricky had fired back strictly in self defense. Prosecutors contended that Ricky, who was a frequent drug abuser, killed his father to gain access to his vast inheritance. The first trial resulted in a hung jury. In the second trial, Ricky was convicted of involuntary manslaughter (huh?), sentenced to five years in prison, and subsequently served three. Who says our justice system doesn’t work?

Kyle’s former manse was last sold in August 2011 for $6.375 million. According to the real estate listing, the abode boasts 6 bedrooms, 7.5 baths, 8,900 square feet of living space, a chef’s kitchen, a formal dining room, a master suite with two bathrooms, an enclosed sleeping porch, a ballroom, a rooftop deck, a 0.70-acre plot of land, a pool, a sundeck, a motor court, a 3-car garage, and a newly-built detached guest house. The entire property encompasses a total of 9,450 square feet. Unfortunately, as you can see below, virtually none of it is visible from the street.

But, as I’ve said before, that’s why God created real estate listings, which is where I got the photographs pictured below.

As you can see, the interior of the residence is really quite spectacular. You can check out some more interior pics of the pad here.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Henry Kyle’s former house is located at 110 Stone Canyon Road in Bel-Air.

October 21, 2013September 29, 2017

Angeles Abbey Memorial Park from “Alias”

Today’s locale is one of my favorite Haunted Hollywood locations ever! Way back in January 2012, fellow stalker Gilles from France sent me an email asking for some help in tracking down a mosque-like structure that stood in for a Moroccan airport in the Season 1 episode of Alias titled “A Broken Heart.” Gilles included some screen captures in his email and, upon first glance, I guessed that the place was most likely a cemetery. So I did a quick Google search for a mosque-like graveyard in Los Angeles and the first result to be kicked back was Angeles Abbey Memorial Park in Compton. Sure enough, it was the right place. And while I was pretty much drooling upon looking at pictures of the site, because of its location, I avoided stalking it. Then, feeling brave this summer after finally visiting the spot where the Black Dahlia’s body was found, I bit the bullet and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there. And I am very happy to report that it is not located in a dangerous area at all.

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Angeles Abbey Memorial Park was originally established in 1923 by a shipbuilder named George Clegg. The Long Beach native reportedly sent two architects to India for inspiration and, upon their return, had them build a 1,000-crypt mausoleum resembling the Taj Mahal. The Moorish-style structure featured imported Italian marble, intricate tile work, and stained-glass windows and ceilings. Sadly though, as you can see below, the building’s façade is currently blocked by large trees and most of its beauty hidden.

The rear of the structure is visible to passersby, though, and pretty darn amazing in and of itself. And don’t even get me started on the interior! We, unfortunately, did not venture inside any of the mausoleums while stalking Angeles Abbey, but I came upon these stunning photographs while doing research for this post and am now absolutely kicking myself! The interiors are nothing short of stunning! Uh-ma-zing!

Other equally-impressive mausoleums were built in the late 1920s and today, Angeles Abbey Memorial Park is the final resting place for over 35,000 souls.

Sadly though, as Compton began to change in the 1960s, the cemetery fell into disrepair. In 2001, the site was grappling with graffiti, vandalism and gang activity. It appears to be in a bit better shape today, though, thankfully, aside from the acres of dead grass.

Stepping onto the grounds of Angeles Abbey is like stepping into another world. Standing there, I had to remind myself that I was still in L.A. and not in some exotic, far-off locale. It is no wonder the place has so often graced movie and television screens.

Ironically enough, though, Angeles Abbey has rarely appeared onscreen as a cemetery. For having such decidedly unique and ornate architecture, the place is truly a blank canvass – one that production designers have turned into everything from a jail to a palace to a courthouse to an airport. As I mentioned above, the exterior of Abbey Memorial stood in for an airport in Morocco in the Season 1 episode of Alias titled “A Broken Heart.”

In that same episode, the interior of the main mausoleum masqueraded as a a bustling Moroccan marketplace.

It is absolutely amazing to me that production designers were able to so completely transform a freaking mausoleum into a Middle Eastern bazaar! That speaks to both their talent and the beauty of the site.

The cemetery popped up again in the Season 4 episode of Alias titled “Ice.” In the episode, the exteriors . . .

. . . and interiors of Angeles Abbey stood in for the Arabian souk where Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) tried to purchase a deadly bio-weapon.

Angeles Abbey was used extensively in the Season 1 episode of JAG titled “Scimitar,” which originally aired in 1995. In the episode, one of the mausoleums masqueraded as Al Mataha Prison in Basra, Iraq where Corporal David Anderson (Ron Livingston – aka Sex and the City’s Berger!) was held.

The interior of one of the mausoleums was also used as the interior of the prison courthouse in “Scimitar.”

In that same episode, Angeles Abbey’s main mausoleum stood in for Al Ba’Ran, one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces.

The interior of the main mausoleum was also utilized as the interior of the palace in the episode.

Thanks to the Phantasm Archives website, I learned that Abbey Memorial Park appeared in Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead. Unfortunately, I could not find a copy of the 1994 horror flick anywhere, but I did manage to make the screen captures pictured below from the trailer, which I found on YouTube.

Thanks again to the Phantasm Archives website, I also learned that the cemetery was used briefly for the mausoleum scenes in Phantasm IV: Oblivion.

In the 2005 movie Constantine, the interior of Abbey Memorial Park’s main mausoleum masqueraded as the underground storage room belonging to Midnite (Djimon Hounsou), where John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) revisited Hell by electrocuting himself in an electric chair from Sing Sing.

And while a 2001 Los Angeles Times article states that the cemetery appeared in 1987’s The Untouchables, I scanned through the movie and did not see it pop up anywhere.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Gilles for challenging me to find this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Angeles Abbey Memorial Park, from the “A Broken Heart” episode of Alias, is located at 1515 East Compton Boulevard in Compton.

October 18, 2013September 29, 2017

Karyn Kupcinet’s Former Apartment

Back in June, while reading Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard’s fabulous book Killing Kennedy, I was reminded of an unsolved death tied to the former president that took place in November 1963 in West Hollywood – the murder of 22-year-old actress Karyn Kupcinet in her Monterey Village apartment on North Sweetzer Avenue. Figuring that the place would fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme, I ran right out to stalk it shortly thereafter.

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Karyn Kupcinet was born Roberta Lynn Kupcinet on March 6th, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois. The only daughter of Chicago Sun-Times gossip columnist Irv Kupcinet and his wife, Essee, Karyn lived a life of privilege. There were cracks in the surface, though. Essee, a perennial stage-mom, started molding Karyn to be a star from the get-go. The youngster landed her first role at the age of 13. It was around that same time that Essee began encouraging Karyn to take diet pills. (Nice woman.) It was a habit she would continue for the rest of her life. Karyn eventually headed east to New York to try her hand at Broadway. While living in the Big Apple, she underwent several plastic surgery procedures and began abusing prescription drugs. In 1960, she moved to Hollywood (initially to an apartment on Hollywood Boulevard and then to the one at Monterey Village, where fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, tells me Cary Grant and Randolph Scott once lived) and landed her first onscreen appearance in the Jerry Lewis film The Ladies Man. She went on to win more bit roles in The Donna Reed Show, Hawaiian Eye, Perry Mason, and The Wide Country. It was during the filming of The Wide Country that Karyn met and began a relationship with actor Andrew Prine. When Prine broke things off in July 1963, the raven-haired starlet went a little cray and began spying on him and his new girlfriend. She also sent him threatening notes constructed from words and letters that she had cut out of magazines.

On November 27th, Karyn had dinner at the Beverly Hills home of actor Mark Goddard and his wife, Marcia Rogers Goddard, who were close with her parents. After the meal, Karyn returned to her apartment (you can see her exact unit on the Find a Death website here) and was visited by her friends Edward Rubin and Robert Hathaway. Robert was one of Prine’s roommates. (I know, sounds suspect, right?) At some point, Karyn went to sleep in her bedroom and Robert and Edward continued to watch TV. They left about 11:15 p.m., locking the door behind them.

On November 30th, the Goddards, worried that they hadn’t heard from Karyn for several days, went to her place to check on her. They discovered the starlet lying nude on her living room couch, dead. Several prescription bottles were found inside the apartment, as well as an odd note that reportedly read, “I’m no good. I’m not really that pretty. My figure’s fat and will never be the way my mother wants it. I won’t let it be what she wants. . . . What happens to me – or my Andy? Why doesn’t he want me?” And while Mark and Marcia initially assumed that Karyn had overdosed, her passing was officially ruled a homicide. Due to the broken hyoid bone in her throat, the coroner listed the cause of death as strangulation. And here’s where things get really strange.

President Kennedy had been assassinated the week prior and around that same time an AP news story was published stating that on November 22nd, a woman most likely in the Oxnard-Camarillo area had dialed a telephone operator and proclaimed that JFK was about to be shot. Twenty minutes later, he was. While police investigated, the woman was never found. Then, in the 1967 book Forgive my Grief II, author Penn Jones claimed that the caller was Karyn. Irv had ties to several mafia figures including Jack Ruby and Penn believed that Jack had told Irv about the assassination prior to it happening. Irv then told Karen and Karen called not the police, but a random telephone operator. Penn asserts that Karyn was killed by the mob a few days later in retaliation for that phone call. Yeah, sounds pretty far-fetched to me, too.

There are also those who believe that Karyn’s death was the result of a much less sinister occurrence. Prolific crime fiction writer James Ellroy is one of them. In a February 2011 Pittsburg Post-Gazette article, he is quoted as saying, “People love to think something is inherently more dramatic, more secret, crazier, uglier, more vicious and vile. People love the inside scoop and will deny all the facts even when they are hit directly over the head with them. It’s a very, very, very common phenomenon to ascribe more intrigue to a prosaic event than the prosaic event truly demands.” Ellroy maintains that Karyn fell down and hit her neck on a coffee table while “dancing around, bombed out of her mind.” Scott Michaels, of the Find a Death website, disagrees with that assertion, saying, “Another theory held by exactly one individual, writer James Ellroy, is that Karyn was stoned to the gills, danced alone naked in the apartment, fell or hit her neck on an object and fell face down on the couch and died. He bases his theory on the fact that a book on the benefits of naked dancing was found in the apartment and the coroner may have been a drunk prone to mistakes. Thanks for playing Ellroy – we have some lovely parting gifts for all of our contestants . . . “ LOL Whatever the true story may be, Karyn’s death remains unsolved and the L.A.P.D. considers it an open case to this day.

On a side-note – I would like to wish my friend Melissa a big CONGRATULATIONS on her upcoming nuptials! She is getting married tomorrow and is having a movie-themed wedding. The event is even being held in a theatre – a woman after my own heart, I swear! As part of the décor, Melissa and her betrothed re-created several movie posters that are going to be hung on the walls. How incredibly cute is that? Pictured below are a few of their poster re-creations. LOVE IT!

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Karyn Kupcinet’s former apartment is located at 1227 1/2 North Sweetzer Avenue, in the Monterey Village complex, in West Hollywood.

October 17, 2013September 29, 2017

Evergreen Memorial Park & Crematory

A couple of months ago, while doing research on locations for my Haunted Hollywood postings, I came across some online images of Evergreen Memorial Park & Crematory in Boyle Heights and practically started drooling over the place’s fabulously haunting chapel. Then when I learned that the cemetery had been featured in the 1980 horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street, I decided that I just had to stalk it and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there.

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Evergreen Memorial Park was originally established on August 23rd, 1877. It was Los Angeles’ first private cemetery and is one of the oldest surviving and largest graveyards in the city. During its early years, the property was a beautiful site and boasted meandering pathways, sprawling lawns and over 2,000 trees, with varieties including palm, wisteria, willow, and pine.

The 67-acre cemetery is home to over 300,000 departed souls, many of whom figured prominently in the City of Angels’ founding. Just a few of the notables buried at Evergreen include oil baron Charles Canfield, Ralphs founder George Ralph, Our Gang’s Matthew Beard, Church of Christ founder Charles Price Jones, former slave-turned-entrepreneur Bridget “Biddy” Mason, Robinsons-May department store founder Joe Winchester Robinson, the Penguin’s Jesse Belvin (who co-wrote the song “Earth Angel”), the Coasters’ Bobby Nunn, and Isaac Lankershim and his son-in-law, Isaac Newton Van Nuys, who together founded both the cities of Van Nuys and North Hollywood. The gravesite of Susanna Lankershim, Isaac’s wife, is pictured below.

Evergreen Memorial Park is also notable for never having banned African Americans from being buried there.

As you can see below, the site is, unfortunately, in a rather sad state today, marred by acres of dead grass;

churned-up dirt;

and toppled headstones. According to this website, several grave markers have even gone missing over the years.

The place does boast some pretty nice views of downtown Los Angeles, though.

And the Gothic-style chapel, which was originally constructed by architects Declez and Gilbert in 1882, is still eerily enchanting.

Especially with those vines creeping up the side of the entrance.

Evergreen Memorial Park & Crematory has been used in several productions over the years, but its most notable appearance was in A Nightmare on Elm Street, in which it was the funeral site for Rod Lane (Jsu Garcia).

Rod’s gravesite in the movie was situated in Section I of Evergreen, behind the real life graves of Louise Minier and Belle Kuster.

In the 1985 drama Mask, Evergreen was both where Red (Harry Carey Jr.) was buried (with his motorcycle!) . . .

. . . and where Roy L. ‘Rocky’ Dennis (Eric Stoltz) was laid to rest.

In the Season 4 episode of Criminal Minds titled “Brothers in Arms,” Evergreen was where Officer Mark Cunningham (Shane Conrad) was buried.

Some websites have claimed that Evergreen Memorial Park was where Hector Lopez (Wilfredo Hernandez) lived in the 1986 flick 8 Million Ways to Die, but I believe that to be incorrect. Not much of the cemetery is shown in the flick, but what is shown does not resemble Evergreen.

According to IMDB, Evergreen appeared in the Season 2 episode of Criminal Minds titled “Sex, Birth, Death,” but I scanned through the episode and did not see the cemetery pop up anywhere. IMDB also states that the graveyard was featured in the Season 3 episode of Baretta titled “The Ninja,” 1983’s Mausoleum, 1992’s Samurai Vampire Bikes from Hell (and yes, that is a real movie!), and 1993’s Blood In, Blood Out, but I was unfortunately not able to find copies of those productions with which to verify that.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Evergreen Memorial Park & Crematory is located at 204 North Evergreen Avenue in Boyle Heights. The gravesite that was used in A Nightmare on Elm Street can be found in Section I behind the real life graves of Louise Minier and Belle Kuster, and is denoted with an orange X in the aerial view below.

October 16, 2013September 29, 2017

The Former Site of Mulholland Farm

Another locale that fellow stalker E.J., of The Movieland Directory, mentioned in Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites was the spot where Mulholland Farm – the former home of actor Errol Flynn – once stood. And while I knew next to nothing about Flynn at the time I read the book, the blurb caught my eye due to a macabre practical joke that was allegedly played at the property involving John Barrymore (grandfather of Drew), which I thought would interest my friend Ashley, of The Drewseum website. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place way back in mid-February while the two of us were in L.A. for a weekend visit.

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The Tasmanian-born Flynn, who became an overnight sensation and Hollywood’s original bad boy after playing a swashbuckler in 1935’s Captain Blood, purchased an 11. 5-acre plot of land hidden away at the top of a ravine off of Mulholland Drive in 1941 and proceeded to build a two-story, country-style home there. He dubbed the $125,000 property, which he helped design, “Mulholland Farm.” The residence was a virtual den of iniquity, boasting a black marble pool, a tennis court, a barn, circular stables, a casino, a master bedroom with a mirrored ceiling, an obscene mural involving fish genitalia that ran behind a set of humongous fish tanks that lined the walls of his den, and a bar that covered a secret passageway leading to a hidden viewing area overlooking the women’s guest bathroom. The estate became a popular party pad (for obvious reasons) and such luminaries as Charlie Chaplin, Jack Warner, Mickey Rooney, Tyrone Power, and Flynn’s longtime friend and drinking buddy John Barrymore all hung out on the premises. There were also plenty of female visitors. Just a few of the starlets Flynn “entertained” at the home include Hedy Lamarr, Ann Sheridan, Linda Christian, Ida Lupino, Faith Domergue, and Dorothy Lamour. It should come as no surprise that the phrase “In like Flynn” came about thanks to the actor and his propensity for getting women into bed.

Flynn loved practical jokes and legend has it that, on May 29th, 1942, several of his drinking buddies pulled a whopper on him at the Farm. As the story goes, on the night that John Barrymore passed away, Flynn’s friends bribed a mortuary worker to let them “borrow” the corpse for a few hours. They drove it to Flynn’s house where they propped Barrymore up in a chair with a cocktail in his hand. When Errol returned to the Farm later that night after several hours spent drinking, he walked in to find the dead actor sitting in his living room. Of the event, Flynn wrote in his autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, “My God, the light went on and I stared into the face of Barrymore! His eyes were closed, and he looked puffed, white, bloodless. They hadn’t embalmed him yet. I let out a delirious scream.” With friends like that, who needs enemies? Flynn took the experience in stride, though, offering the pranksters a drink and cordially refusing to help them return the body to the funeral home. And while several sources claim that the Barrymore anecdote is pure fiction, it sure makes for one heck of a story!

In 1953, Flynn left Mulholland Farm and moved to Europe in order to avoid paying back taxes to the government and alimony to two ex-wives. At some point thereafter, he lost the property to his first wife, Lili Damita. She sold off some of the acreage, on which new homes were eventually built (one of which, at 7740 Mulholland Drive, is the dwelling featured in the photographs that appear in this post, but more on that later). In 1959, Errol’s former residence and the surrounding 7.5 acres of land were purchased by gospel singer Stuart Hamblen and his wife, Suzy. They lived there for the next twenty years. And while the couple reported no strange goings-on, when pop star Ricky Nelson purchased the site in 1980, his family witnessed all sorts of odd behavior, leading them to believe that the pad was haunted by Errol. I’d venture to guess, though, that it was Barrymore’s ghost who had come back to terrorize the place. Sadly, in 1988, Mulholland Farm was sold to a real estate developer who bulldozed Errol’s former residence and subdivided the remaining land. Helen Hunt purchased one of the parcels (at 3100 Torreyson Place) in 1997 and proceeded to build a mansion on it. She never lived there, though, and in 2002 sold the estate to none other than Justin Timberlake for $8.2 million.

The address of Mulholland Farm during Flynn’s tenure there was 7740 Mulholland Drive, as you can see in this 1942 newspaper article. At the time, his was the only house in the vicinity. (The 11.5 acres that comprised the Farm are roughly denoted by the orange circle below.)

Today, there are seven different residences located on those 11.5 acres. The house which now stands at 7740 Mulholland Drive, on what looks to have been some sort of horse riding arena in Flynn’s day, was built in 1967 on a parcel of land that had been sold off by Lili Damita.

You can watch a video about Mulholland Farm by clicking below. And you can click here to purchase a book written about the property titled Errol Flynn Slept Here.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to E.J., of The Movieland Directory, for writing about this location in his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Mulholland Farm, Errol Flynn’s one-time home, was formerly located at 7740 Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills.

October 15, 2013September 29, 2017

The Spot Where the Black Dahlia’s Body Was Found

One Haunted Hollywood locale that I had wanted to stalk pretty much ever since first moving to Southern California in 2000 was the spot where the dismembered body of Elizabeth Short, aka the “Black Dahlia,” was found on the morning of January 15th, 1947. Over six decades later and the case is still one of the most well-known, talked-about and sinister unsolved murders in the history of the City of Angels. I avoided the location for over thirteen years, though, because, for some reason, I had it in my head that the area was dangerous (which, as it turns out, could not have been further from the truth). But when I saw the site detailed in the The Crime Issue of Los Angeles magazine this past July, I decided that I had to bite the bullet and finally dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there just a few days later.

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Elizabeth Short was born in Hyde Park, Massachusetts on July 29th, 1924. In 1946, after years spent adrift in the Bay State, as well as Illinois and Florida, Beth, as she liked to be called, headed west to California to make a go of it in Hollywood. Her tenure there, which not much is known about, was not successful or long, and Elizabeth spent most of her time waiting tables and moving from boarding house to boarding house. As I mentioned in my July 2008 post about the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, the wanna-be starlet was last seen by a doorman on January 9th, 1947 as she walked out of the property’s east doors and made her way south down Olive Avenue. Six days later, her naked body, which had been cut in two, was spotted lying face-up in a vacant field by a housewife named Betty Bersinger. At first, Betty thought the lifeless figure was a broken store mannequin. When she realized the form was actually a dead body, she rushed to a nearby residence and called the police.

The responding detectives were shocked at the heinousness of the crime. Elizabeth’s body had been severed at the waist, then thoroughly cleaned and all of her blood drained. There were three-inch gashes on each side of her mouth, one breast was slashed open, rope marks marred her wrists and ankles, and a section of flesh had been removed from her thigh and then inserted into her body. No blood or other evidence was found at the scene, though, leading police to believe that she was killed and mutilated elsewhere. Newspaper reporters helped obtain Short’s fingerprints, which were then sent to the FBI in Washington, D.C., and thanks to an underage drinking arrest in Santa Barbara and an army base mailroom job application, she was identified quickly. When a photograph of the 22-year-old beauty was released to the press, Short became a media sensation. Her exotic nickname – which she was given thanks to her raven-colored hair and penchant for wearing black – only fueled the frenzy.

Upon seeing her picture in the paper, an acquaintance named Robert “Red” Manley came forward saying that, on January 9th, Elizabeth had asked him to take her to the Biltmore to meet her sister from Berkeley, whom she was going to move in with. Walter first helped her check her luggage at a bus station and then drove her to the hotel. He left her in the Biltmore lobby at 6:30 p.m. According to hotel employees, Elizabeth subsequently paced the lobby for several hours before departing. What happened from that time to when her body was found six days later is a mystery. (Walter was initially considered a suspect in the murder, but was absolved after passing a lie detector test.) In a very odd twist, on January 24th, a package was mailed to the Los Angeles Examiner containing several of Short’s belongings, including photographs, her birth certificate , her social security card, and her address book. Gasoline had been used to wipe the package clean of any identifying fingerprints. Then, the following day, Elizabeth’s purse and one high heel were found in a dumpster a few miles from where her body was dropped. According to the TruTV website, the killer later sent 13 letters to the police and the media. And while more than thirty people supposedly confessed to the crime, it was never solved. The case of the Black Dahlia murder remains open to this day.

The vacant lot where Elizabeth’s body was found is now a jarringly normal neighborhood of one-story tract homes. And while there seems to be quite a bit of confusion online as to the exact spot where Short was dropped, according to the coroner’s inquest, the site was 54 feet north of the fire hydrant located in front of 3831 South Norton Avenue.

I counted off 54 feet north from the fire hydrant and wound up at the spot pictured below. Elizabeth’s body was found on the patch of grass behind me, in what is now the front yard of the house located at 3825 South Norton Avenue.

The exact spot, denoted with an orange X in the image below, is situated on private property, which is why I did not pose there. You can check out a picture taken of the crime scene on the day that Elizabeth’s body was discovered as compared with a current photo of the area on Flickr here.

The site is also a filming location. Scott Michaels, of the Find a Death website, took Bridget Marquardt, Holly Madison, and Kendra Wilkinson there – in a purple hearse! – during a private Dearly Departed tour in the Season 2 episode of The Girls Next Door titled “Girls Will Be Ghouls.”

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Elizabeth Short’s, aka the Black Dahlia’s, body was found on South Norton Avenue halfway between West 39th and Coliseum Streets in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles. The exact spot, according to the coroner’s inquest, was 54 feet north and a few feet west of the fire hydrant located in front of the house at 3831 South Norton Avenue, which puts her death site in the northeast corner of the front yard of the house at 3825 South Norton Avenue.

October 14, 2013September 29, 2017

Larry Edmunds’ Former House

Just a few doors north of Peg Entwistle’s former residence (which I blogged about on Friday) is the guesthouse where iconic bookseller Larry Edmunds committed suicide in 1941. I was absolutely shocked to come across the location in Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites, which was written by fellow stalker E.J. of The Movieland Directory, because at the time I was under the impression that Edmunds was still alive. Ever since moving to SoCal, I had been a regular patron of Larry Edmunds Bookshop, which was founded way back in 1938 (yes, I really should have realized its namesake was most likely no longer living Winking smile ). The bookstore/memorabilia boutique is one of my favorite places in L.A. and is the preeminent spot to procure any tome, memento or trinket at all related to Hollywood and its history – stuff like lobby cards, headshots, movie posters, and fan magazine back issues can all be found there. Even Barbara Stanwyck’s The Night Walker script was being sold at Larry’s back in 2011. So I was absolutely gobsmacked to learn that the shop’s founder had not only passed on, but had killed himself over seven decades ago, and I decided right then and there to include his former home in my Haunted Hollywood postings.

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Larry Edmunds was born Lawrence O’Connell Edmunds in North Carolina on March 13th, 1906. He migrated to Hollywood at some point and landed a job working for bookseller Stanley Rose. He then branched out on his own in 1938 and opened his namesake bookshop at 1603 North Cahuenga Boulevard. And while the place did not specialize in movie-related publications at the time, it became a huge hit with the Hollywood set and Larry struck up a friendship with several of his famous patrons, including W.C. Fields, Basil Rathbone, William Faulkner, and John, Ethel and Lionel Barrymore. Rumor has it that he became more than friends with a few starlets, as well, such as Mary Astor, Marlene Dietrich and Paulette Goddard. Sadly, mental illness and alcoholism got ahold of Edmunds and in February 1941, while living in a guest house behind the property pictured below, he stuck his head in his gas stove, killing himself. He was 34.

In Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites, E.J. writes, “His suicide note explained that when he found himself cutting off the heads of the little men that were crawling through the walls to kill him, he realized he was seriously disturbed and had to kill himself.” Ya think? Edmunds willed his store to an employee named Milt Luboviski. It was Milt’s wife, Git, who had the idea to turn the place into the movieland mecca that it is today. The shop has moved twice since then – first to 6658 Hollywood Boulevard in 1955 and then to its current location at 6644 Hollywood Boulevard in 1990. When Git decided to retire in 2007, she sold the site to longtime employee Jeffrey Mantor. He continues to run it today.

According to Zillow, the property where Edmunds last lived consists of two 1925 bungalows on an “over-sized lot.” The front house features two bedrooms, one bath, a living room, a dining room, a fireplace, hardwood flooring, an updated kitchen, an enclosed sun porch, a separate laundry room, an outdoor patio, and a garden. The rear house, where Larry resided, is a one-bedroom, one-bath unit with a living room, a den, and an updated kitchen (thank God!). Sadly, the back dwelling is not visible from the road, but I did manage to dig up the MLS photos pictured below.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to E.J., of The Movieland Directory, for writing about this location in his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Larry Edmunds’ former house is located at 2470 ½ North Beachwood Drive in Hollywood. Peg Entwistle’s former home (which I blogged about here) is located just a few doors south at 2428 North Beachwood. Larry Edmunds Bookshop is located at 6644 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. You can visit the store’s official website here.

October 11, 2013September 29, 2017

Peg Entwistle’s Former House

Another location that I learned about thanks to the fabulous Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites book, which was penned by fellow stalker E.J. of The Movieland Directory, was the one-time Beachwood Drive home of Peg Entwistle, the tragic blonde actress who only achieved fame after her 1932 suicide, in which she jumped to her death from the Hollywood Sign. And while I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk the residence just a few days after reading about it, I figured it would be the perfect spot to feature in my Haunted Hollywood postings and held off on blogging about it until now.

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Peg was born Lillian Millicent Entwistle across the pond in London, England in 1908. After her mother passed away suddenly when Entwistle was about eight, she and her father, Robert, packed up and moved to New York in the hopes of starting a new life. While there, Robert remarried and had two sons. Tragically, he was killed about six years later by a hit-and-run driver while walking home from work. Peg’s brothers were then sent to California to live with their uncle, Harold Entwistle, while Peg stayed behind to try her turn at acting. She quickly secured a role in a Broadway production of Hamlet and garnered favorable reviews. It was not long before the petite beauty was acting steadily, earning parts in over ten different Broadway productions. Sadly, most were flops. In 1927, Peg met actor Robert Keith and the two were later married. The union was quickly dissolved, though, when Entwistle discovered that Keith had not only been married previously, but had a son (Family Affairs’ Brian Keith, who also later committed suicide, as did his daughter, Daisy).

In 1931, Peg heard Hollywood calling and moved to the West Coast, originally renting a room at the Hollywood Studio Club. She instantly won a role in the short-lived play The Mad Hopes, which also featured Humphrey Bogart and The Wizard of Oz’s Billie Burke. Stardom was almost within reach shortly thereafter when she landed a part in RKO’s Thirteen Women, but, sadly, when the movie premiered in 1932, it was lambasted by critics and the studio subsequently re-edited it, cutting Peg’s role almost entirely. RKO cancelled her contract just a few weeks later and the actress was forced to move into her uncle’s house at 2428 North Beachwood Drive in Hollywood. Peg then made plans to return to New York and the Great White Way, but, unfortunately, could not come up with the necessary train fare. Times were dire.

On the evening of Friday, September 16th, 1932, Peg informed Harold that she was heading to a local drugstore. Instead, she walked a mile and a half up Beachwood Drive to the Hollywood Sign (which then spelled out “Hollywoodland”), climbed up a maintenance ladder to the top of the 50-foot-tall letter H, and jumped to her death. She was 24. The following morning, her clothing and purse were discovered by a hiker. Inside the purse, was a letter that read, “I am afraid I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E.” (The image below is a screen capture taken from an E! Mysteries & Scandals episode about Entwistle. I am unsure if the letter pictured is Peg’s actual letter or a facsimile.) The hiker gathered the clothes and purse and dropped them on the steps of the Hollywood Police Station anonymously. The next day, detectives located Peg’s remains. Investigators were unable to identify her, so they published the suicide note in the Los Angeles Times in the hopes that someone would recognize the handwriting. Harold did, called the police and later identified the body. Peg was cremated and subsequently interred at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Glendale, Ohio.

Supposedly, a letter from the Beverly Hills Playhouse offering Peg the lead part in a play arrived at Harold’s house shortly following her death. The role? A beautiful woman who commits suicide. I am fairly certain that is just Hollywood lore, though – an anecdote dreamed up to make Peg’s story all the more tragic (especially being that, according to Wikipedia, the Beverly Hills Playhouse was not founded until 1954, over two full decades after Entwistle’s suicide).

Harold’s tiny bungalow, which was originally built in 1913, boasts three bedrooms, one bath, 1,650 square feet of living space, and a 0.16-acre plot of land. The property last sold for $35,000 in November 1974. Zillow estimates its worth today at $980,000. Not a bad return on an investment!

Pictured below is the view from the front of Peg’s former home. I cannot tell you how haunting it was to be standing in front of the residence with the Hollywood Sign looming over us.

You can watch the E! Mysteries & Scandals episode about Peg by clicking below.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to E.J., of The Movieland Directory, for writing about this location in his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Peg Entwistle’s former home is located at 2428 North Beachwood Drive in Hollywood.