The Home of: GEORGETTE BAUERDORF, et. al.

El Palacio Apts

8191, 8193, 8195 & 8197 Fountain Ave., West Hollywood, CA

If any Hollywood abode ought to be haunted it would be this sprawling series of luxury apartments just off La Cienega Blvd. in today's West Hollywood and once belonging to British film star James Mason and his then-wife Pamela. Suicidal Italian import Pier Angeli lived at the El Palacio when she first came to Hollywood in the very early 1950s, around the same time, in fact, that Marilyn Monroe briefly shared an apartment here with her lesbian acting coach Natasha Lytess.  In 1965 the complex became the scene of an actual suicide when the beautiful African-American star Dorothy Dandridge killed herself in her apartment, and in 2007, the equally troubled starlet Lindsay Lohan purchased Natasha Lytess' former abode, apartment F, for a reported $2 million+.

But El Palacios most notorious inhabitant is undoubtedly oil heiress Georgette Bauerdorf, whose October 12, 1944 murder here remains unsolved. Miss Bauerdorf, who dreamed of a career in motion pictures, worked at the famous Hollywood Canteen at 1451 Cahuenga Blvd. where she and other beauties in and out of the acting profession danced with visiting GIs just before the latter were shipped overseas. Returning home after a long evening of jitterbugging, Georgette was apparently retiring for bed when surprised by an intruder who strangled her, raped her just before or just after she died, and dumped her half-dressed body in the bathtub. Considering the amount of untouched jewelry and even cash in the apartment, a robbery scenario seemed unlikely, and it was speculated that the victim may indeed have known her killer. In more recent years, several authors have sought to connect the slaying of Georgette Bauerdorf with the equally unsolved butchering in 1947 of Elizabeth Short, aka the Black Dahlia. Not all too convincingly I might add.

Georgette Bauerdorf

                           

The Home of: "PHYLLIS DIETRICHSON"

6301 Quebec Dr., Los Angeles, CA

This home on a quiet street in Beachwood Canyon above Hollywood is where Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) planned to kill her husband (Tom Powers) and collect on his life insurance policy written up by the luckless Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), in the seminal film noir Double Indemnity (1944). 

Phyllis, Walter and Dietrichson supposedly inside the home but, of course, in reality on a sound stage at Paramount Pictures.

The Home of "JOE GILLIS"

The Alto Nido

1851 N. Ivar St., Hollywood, CA

This apartment building on the corner of Ivar and Franklin and today overlooking the Hollywood Freeway was the home of struggling writer Joe Gillis (William Holden) in Billy Wilder's cynical paean to Old Hollywood, Sunset Blvd. (1950). Gillis, we all remember, swapped his crummy little room here for Norma Desmond's gothic pile on the eponymous thoroughfare (albeit the mansion used for filming was actually located at 641 S. Irving and sadly now demolished) complete with monkey funerals and creepy butler.

Blithely ignorant of a life changing meeting about to take place, Joe Gillis leaves the Alto Nido

 

The Home of RUDOLPH VALENTINO

FALCON'S LAIR

1436 Bella Dr., Beverly Hills, CA

The visible part of famous Falcon's Lair, the final home of silent screen icon Rudolph Valentino (1895-1926), who moved in here after his split from Natacha Rambova. Their equally famous home at Whitley Heights above Hollywood was erased to make room for a ramp for the Hollywood Freeway. Falcon's Lair, meanwhile, was later occupied by the Harry Careys and, later still former RKO star Ann Harding and her conductor husband Werner Jansen. In the 1970s, the estate famously belonged to tobacco heiress Doris Duke.

                               

The Home of ANITA STEWART

7425 Franklin Ave., Hollywood, CA

Once the palatial mansion belonging to Anita Stewart, the silent screen star whom neophyte producer Louis B. Mayer lured away from the Vitagraph Company - in breach of her contract, as it turned out - this empty and dilapidated shell of a building remains an eyesore in a neighborhood that has seen better days. And hopefully shall again.

                        

The Home of the REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE

7925 Franklin Ave., Hollywood, CA

This pleasant colonnaded home above Hollywood Blvd. provided the setting for the opening sequence of Nicholas Ray's juvenile delinquency classic Rebel Without a Cause (1954). Here, in the middle of the street, James Dean, as a drunken Jim Stark, plays with a little windup toy while declaring "You're killing me" in his best rich kid rebelling mode.

The Home of JOAN CRAWFORD

621 N. Bristol Ave., Brentwood, CA

"No... wire... hangers. What's wire hangers doing in this closet when I told you: no wire hangers EVER? I work and work 'till I'm half-dead, and I hear people saying, 'She's getting old.'And what do I get? A daughter... who cares as much about the beautiful dresses I give her... as she cares about me. What's wire hangers doing in this closet? Answer me. I buy you beautiful dresses, and you treat them like they were some dishrag. You do. Three hundred dollar dress on a wire hanger. We'll see how many you've got if they're hidden somewhere. We'll see... we'll see. Get out of that bed. All of this is coming out. Out. Out. Out. Out. Out. Out. You've got any more? We're gonna see how many wire hangers you've got in your closet. Wire hangers, why? Why? Christina, get out of that bed. Get out of that bed. You live in the most beautiful house in Brentwood and you don't care if your clothes are stretched out from wire hangers. And your room looks like some two-dollar-a-week furnished room in some two-bit back street town in Okalahoma. Get up. Get up. Clean up this mess!"

Screeches Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford (1905-1977) in Mommie Dearest (1981), the hilariously over-the-top screen version of Christina Crawford's tell-all autobiography, a film that in retrospect sank Miss Dunaway's career. Joan Crawford moved into the mansion with her first husband Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and remained there long after their divorce until 1955. This was indeed where she famously accepted her 1945 Oscar for Mildred Pierce in her bedroom, having taken to her bed in fear that she wouldn't actually get the award.

                        

The Home of FRANK ELLIS

6140 Simpson Ave., North Hollywood, CA.

Frank Ellis (1897-1969) was the 2nd or 3rd henchman through the door and one of the first to bite the bullet in the final shootout. Ellis appeared in more than 400 Westerns and serials and lived for a while in this little bungalow in the Valley, close to the studios where he plied his trade, Republic Pictures and Universal.

                         

The Home of CHARLES STEVENS

3931 Berry Dr., Studio City, CA

The term "half-breed," conjuring up a shifty and untrustworthy person with no allegiance to anybody but himself, has gone out of fashion, and quite rightly so. But in the heyday of the B Western and action serial, this character popped up with regularity, rarely if ever surviving the final reel and more often than not portrayed by one Charles Stevens (1893-1964) who, his publicity claimed, was a grandson of the Apache chief Geronimo. In reality, Stevens was out of a well-connected Mexican-American family with political influence in Arizona, where Charles was born (in Solomonville). Little more than a bit player in movies, Stevens lived in this nondescript Valley home south of Ventura Blvd. and close to both Republic Puctures and Universal City where he spent most of his working hours.

As mean a bunch of cut throats as there ever was. From left to right: Guy Teague, Nacho Galindo, Yakima Canutt, William Steele, Jim "Jock Ewing" Davis, Rhys Williams and Charles Stevens.

The Home of THEDA BARA, et al.

649 West Adams Blvd., Los Angeles, CA

This faux Tudor mansion near USC remains one of the most renowned in filmdom. It was built for Tuleta Wilcox, daughter of the actual founders of Hollywood itself, Horace and Doneida Wilcox. The younger Wilcox sold the property to film entrepreneur William Fox who, much to the staid neighborhood's horror, installed his infamous Vamp, Theda Bara (nèe Goodman) in the place, reportedly now decorated with tiger skins and incense. Miss Bara, who in real life was rather dowdy, left the company in 1919 and Fox, again to the neighbors' grave concern, sold the home to slapstick comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, who remained here during his infamous manslaughter trials in 1921 and '22. In disgrace, Arbuckle leased the property to director Raoul Walsh and his wife, early screen star Miriam Cooper, but their occupancy would be short lived and the mansion instead went to another Hollywood power couple, producer Joseph Schenk and Norma Talmadge. It later became a home for Catholic priests (Theda's tiger rugs presumably long gone) but just barely survived the 1992 Rodney King riots.

649 West Adams when Theda Bara was in residence.

                                 

The Home of KIT GUARD

532 N. Plymouth Blvd., Hollywood, CA

This apartment complex, a stone's throw from Paramount Pictures, was the home of Kit Guard (1894-1961), the Danish-born supporting player ( nè Klitgaard) who almost always found himself cast as comedic gangsters and usually at Columbia Pictures rather than Paramount. Guard, who spent his declining years as a nightclub doorman, passed away at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA.

                       

The Home of - well, nearly everybody!

6531 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, CA

A true Tinseltown landmark building smack dap on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (Notice the tourists trying to decipher who on earth "Clyde Cook" was.) In alphabetical order the onetime Hillview Hotel Apts. was the home of: Joan Blondell, Viola Dana, Oliver Hardy, Barbara LaMarr, Lottie Pickford, and Mack Sennett. In fact, it was reportedly here Sennett's intended, the star comedienne Mabel Normand, found him in flagrande delicto with Mae Busch with more than bruised egos as a result. Famous murder victim Elizabeth Short, aka Black Dahlia, who seems to have haunted every rooming house in town at one time or another, a la George Washington, reputedly stayed here as well. But since I'm in that mood, I'm featuring early Danish-American screen comedian "Smiling Billy" Mason (1889-1941), who called the Hillview home in 1930.

"Smiling Billy" in Why Husbands Flirt, a surviving Christie comedy from 1918. Below one of those inter titles that are unintentionally humorous today.

The Home of OTTO MATIESEN

2130 Vista del Mar Ave., Hollywood, CA

This building dating from 1912 was the home of the Krotona Institute of Theosophy and a host of famous Angelenos stayed there until the institute relocated to the desert at Ojai in 1926, including sugar cane heiress Annie Sullivan Knudsen and silent screen icons Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin. Albeit not together, we hasten to add. The property later became an apartment building and was in 1929 the home of noted documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty. Also living there at that time was the intense Danish thespian Otto Matiesen (1893-1932) and his wife, actress Isabel la Mal. Tragically, it was from this home that Matiesen set out for New York and stage work in an automobile shared with fellow screen actor Duncan Renaldo. The couple suffered an accident just outside Flagstaff, AZ, and while Renaldo survived to play Hollywood Latinos for the next three decades, including The Cisco Kid, Matiesen was killed on the spot. (NOTE: it is MATIESEN, not "Matieson" as most sources claim. The actor was Danish and not Swedish and actually speaks in his native tongue in his most memorable screen role, that of the mysterious Joel Cairo in the first version of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon from 1931). 

Otto Matiesen in General Crack (1930)

                                

The Home of ANDERS RANDOLF

609 N. Canon Dr., Beverly Hills, CA

This Beverly Hills mansion belonged in 1930 to imposing Danish-born character star Anders Randolf (nè Randrup). The property was later the home of Danny Kaye and his wife Sylvia Fine, and later still, perennial "Other Man" star Ralph Bellamy.

                                      

At the time of his sudden death at 59 in the summer of 1930 following a kidney operation, Randolf had been actively pursuing a return to his native lands and had even purchased an apartment in Østerbro (see below), an upscale part of Copenhagen, Denmark. His wife and daughter did in fact relocate to Copenhagen, where Anders Randolf was later interred.

This photo depicting Anders Randolf's daughter Karen Kristine and pet was given to me by a family friend. It clearly depicts a Southern California home but not the N. Canon Dr. mansion. If anyone happens to recognize the property, please send me a note. 

The Home of: MARIE PREVOST & KENNETH HARLAN

810 N. Camden Dr., Beverly Hills, CA

The lovely home of silent screen stars Marie Prevost & Kenneth Harlan (1895-1967) from 1924 until their divorce in 1929.

                               

The Camden Drive home as it appeared during the Prevost-Harlan occupancy:

                            

Marie Prevost, like Harlan, saw her screen career decline rapidly in sound films and a weight problem didn't make things any easier for the former Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty, whose sad and lonely demise in January of 1937 at the age of 38 remains one of Hollywood's most tragic.

6230 Afton Pl., Hollywood, CA

Marie Prevost died from acute alcoholism and malnutrition in what was then something of a downtrodden building but which after an extensive remodeling in recent years remains a Hollywood landmark. According to lore, Marie's desperate dachshund attempted to awaken his fallen mistress for several days and it was his mournful howling that finally drew attention to the tragedy.

                                    

The Home of: VILMA BANKY & ROD LaROCQUE

719 Foothill Rd., Beverly Hills, CA

Silent screen stars Vilma Banky (1898-1991) and Rod LaRocque (1898-1969) lived here in the 1940s and '50s, she having shed her actress skin long ago to become a near-pro golfer. The home was later purchased by actor-director Richard Benedict and his wife, actress Paula Prentiss.

                           

The Home of: MONTE BLUE

309 S. La Peer Dr., Beverly Hills, CA

A silent star of some magnitude, Monte Blue (1887-1963) was reduced to bit parts by the 1940s when he and his wife, Tove, resided in this pleasant Beverly Hills home. Mrs. Blue was the daughter of Danish actress Bodil Rosing and it was reportedly due to her prompting that the otherwise retired Mrs. Rosing embarked on a late-in-life Hollywood career.

                         

Cook Bodil Rosing is enamored by handsome chauffeur John Gilbert in Downstairs (1932).

The Home of: ANTHONY WARDE

3942 Clayton Ave., Los Angeles, CA

A faux Tudor bungalow in Silverlake is perhaps not what you'd expect of serial villain Anthony Warde (1908-1975), who usually sneered his lines rather than spoke them. Warde lived here in the 1940s but seems to have spent most of his time being beaten up by chapter play heroes on the other side of the Hollywood Hills at Republuc Pictures in Studio City.

                               

The Home of: LINDA STIRLING

3760 Wrightwood Dr., Studio City, CA

This corner home in the hills above Universal Studios belonged to everybody's favorite Republic Pictures serial queen, The Tiger Woman herself, Linda Stirling (1921-1997), who lived here with her screenwriter husband Sloan Nibley (d. 1990). The home is just a short ride down Ventura Blvd. from CBS Studio City, formerly Republic Pictures, where Linda would report each morning at dawn for costume and makeup before the long trek out to the Iverson Movie Ranch at the opposite end of the San Fernando Valley in Chatsworth, CA. There, The Tiger Woman, Zorro's Black Whip, and all the series Western heroines she would play filmed all day until the final rays of sunshine with only a box lunch for comfort and the prospect of having to do what comes only natural behind the nearest rock or foliage. Ah, the glamour of Hollywood stardom in the 1940s!

The Tiger Woman and her hero, Allan Lane, at Iverson in 1944.

The Iverson Movie Ranch today, now an exclusive condeminium estate.

The Home of: BERNARD GORCEY

242 S. Sycamore Ave., Hollywood, CA

This pleasant house was the home of ex-vaudevillian Bernard Gorcey, who memorably played sweet shop owner Louie Dombrowski in The Bowery Boys movies starring his real life son Leo Gorcey. Bernard lived here when when crashing his automobile into a bus in the nearby intersection of 4th St. and La Brea. He died from his injuries the following week, September 11, 1955. Bernard Gorcey was 69.