All over Hollywood are known and unknown places filled with haunted history. The Hollywood sign has starred in more movies and television shows than most actors. The sign, built by Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler, was erected in 1923. It was originally a billboard to advertise his Hollywoodland real estate development. It was supposed to be only for a year or so, but the sign remained standing for another eighty-odd years. People come from all over the world just to see the sign and hike up to take pictures next to it.
The iconic sign has long been associated with a particular ghost that is said to appear to joggers, tourists, and even park rangers alike. High up in the hills above the city of Los Angeles near Griffith Park Observatory sits the sign where, on the night of September 16, 1932, a despairing film starlet named Peg Entwistle jumped to her death from the letter H in the sign. She would be nicknamed by tabloids as “The Hollywood Sign Girl” and unfortunately get the fame in her death she never did in life.
Peg was a starry-eyed actress with big dreams that never quite came true, and the stress and rejection she faced all got to her so much that she ended her life at the one place that most stood for the business she so desired to break into. According to “Is the Hollywood Sign Haunted?” in the October 2014 edition of Vanity Fair, writer Valerie Tejeda states that a suicide note was found beside her body and items of her clothing that said, “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 letter H would later fall over in the 1940s, leading some to believe it was Peg who pushed it. As the years progressed, witnesses would see a “disoriented blonde woman” along the jogging path and smell the scent of gardenias, which was Peg Entwistle’s favorite perfume. Even the Griffith Park rangers report seeing her ghost near the sign on foggy nights.
HAUNTED HOLLYWOOD HOTELS
Throughout Hollywood and Los Angeles are hotels said to house the spirits of famous ghosts. In the last chapter, we looked at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the most spook-filled of the bunch according to those who dare enter its doors. Located on Hollywood Boulevard, the hotel was named after Theodore Roosevelt and opened its doors to the public on May 15, 1927. It cost $2.5 million, which was a huge amount back then, and quickly became the central point of glamour and glitz for the rich and famous.
The 1929 Academy Awards took place in the hotel’s Blossom Room, and the hotel hosted some of the biggest soirees in the entertainment industry. The ghosts of Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift still walk the halls of the renovated hotel. People staying on the ninth floor have often called the front desk to complain about the “trumpet player” in Room 928 or the feel of cold hands on them when no one was around. The ghost of Clift is also reported running his lines in the hallway just outside Room 928.
The comedian and actor John Belushi passed away in Hollywood’s iconic Chateau Marmont hotel, and his spirit is said to have been spotted there, even once entertaining a child.
Built in 1929, the Chateau Marmont also claimed iconic Hollywood status to the many stars who stayed there, including Clark Gable, John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe, Greta Garbo, and others. It was the place many Hollywood stars came to have love affairs, drawn to its studding, castlelike appearance and location above the Sunset Strip. It was here in 1982 that comedic actor John Belushi died of an overdose, and his spirit is one of many ghosts that haunt the rooms and hallways. It was originally an apartment building when it opened in 1927. It was seven stories tall and shaped like an L, styled after a Gothic chateau. Belushi died in Bungalow 3, and visitors have reported seeing his ghost and, according to a story in Tom Ogden’s 2009 book Haunted Hollywood, a young boy staying there heard giggling and when asked why, he said he was laughing at the “funny man” no one else could see. The same boy later saw a picture of Belushi and said that he was the funny man he saw! Other ghostly activity includes windows and doors opening and shutting, cold spots, mysterious voices when no one is around, and footsteps. A few witnesses report seeing disembodied heads floating around and a ghostly woman who floats above a bed!
The Knickerbocker Hotel was built in 1925 and was first a luxury apartment building before becoming a hotel. Located on Ivar Avenue in Hollywood, the hotel was home to dozens of huge stars of yesteryear, and today, witnesses report it is haunted by the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Rudy Valentino. Monroe’s ghost is said to favor the ladies’ room off the lobby bar, where witnesses have reported seeing a beautiful, blonde ghost with translucent skin looking in the mirror and fixing her makeup. Valentino favors standing in an upper-story window or petting horses in the eight-acre stable. Since the 1970s, the hotel has been a senior residence apartment building, and because it is restricted to tenants, not a lot of ghost sightings have surfaced since.
High above Sunset Boulevard sits the majestic Beverly Hills Hotel. Since it was built and opened in 1912, the hotel hosted royalty, world leaders, and legends in the entertainment industry. Today, the hotel’s bungalows are home to the ghosts of Harpo Marx and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Downtown Los Angeles is home to two of its own haunted hotels. The Figueroa Hotel on South Figueroa Street was a former YWCA residence building in 1925 and in 2015 began many renovations to bring back its original Spanish Colonial splendor. Those who stay there claim to hear strange sounds at night. The elevator will move up and down floors of its own accord without any passengers in it, and lights and televisions in rooms turn on and off.
On Spring Street, the Alexandria Hotel sits. Opened in 1906, it hosted many luminaries from the entertainment industry who often used the hotel as a meeting place. It also hosted Winston Churchill, King Edward VIII, and three presidents—William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, and Theodore Roosevelt. Those who stay there today claim the “lady in black” haunts the halls. She may have been a former resident who died in her room of a broken heart and wears a black veil and hat. Guests Nancy Malone and Lisa Mitchell have seen her walking the hallway and describe her as “gliding” across the floor. They also claim she is not solid but not entirely see-through, according to their account in Hollywood Haunted: A Ghostly Tour of Filmland by Laurie Jacobson and Marc Wanamaker.
HAUNTED THEATERS
Hollywood is filled with theaters that host ghosts. The Pantages Theater was once owned by eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, who purchased the theater in 1949 and is said to haunt the second floor of the building, where he once had offices. Located at the fabled intersection of Hollywood and Vine, this theater was designed by architect B. Marcus Priteca and built by vaudeville impresario Alexander Pantages. By the way, Alexander Pantages has not been reported to haunt the famous theater he built! Most of the ghostly activity occurs in the former offices of Howard Hughes, where people report everything from doorknobs turning, lights going on and off, filing cabinet drawers opening and closing, the sense of a presence in the room, cold breezes when there was no ventilation system running, and the smell of cigars in the smoke-free offices. A tall man wearing a business suit whom many believe is Hughes has also been seen on the premises.
The former owner of the historic Pantages Theater in Hollywood, Howard Hughes, has reportedly been spotted on the building’s second floor.
The former base for RKO, the theater is now home to big Broadway plays and musicals right in the heart of Hollywood. The building sports a wonderful Art Deco design and once was home to vaudeville performers before becoming a movie house during the Great Depression. Between 1949 and 1959, the Pantages Theater was home to the Oscar Awards, and it officially closed as a movie theater in 1977 before reopening as a stage show theater. The ghost of a woman can often be heard singing there and may have been a patron of the theater from 1932 who died in the mezzanine section during a show. Some believe she was herself an aspiring singer who is now living out her dream in death of being a famous performer at the glorious Pantages.
The Avalon Theater was built in 1927 and has been called the Hollywood Playhouse and Palace Theater over the years. Once the host to old-time radio shows and theater revues, the three-floor building on Vine Street is all old Hollywood glamour and also served as a television production studio to such shows as The Lawrence Welk Show, The Dating Game, The Jerry Lewis Telethon, and This Is Your Life before becoming a popular nightclub. It also played host to the show The Hollywood Palace, which was the first to host the U.S. television debut of the Rolling Stones and the first national network appearance of The Jackson Five.
Over the years, witnesses at the Avalon have reported a male ghost dressed in a tuxedo who may have been a former master of ceremonies and appears in the main theater and several female spirits that some suggest were once performers at the theater. Many of the spirits are said to be most active early in the morning and have appeared before security guards working before the theater opened. In the 1990s, a security guard named Dwayne Soto reported several encounters with ghosts while making his rounds. One was thought to be a male playing jazz on a piano in the comedy room, but when Dwayne went to investigate, the room was empty.
One night after locking up the theater, Dwayne encountered a female presence in the second-floor lobby. He felt as though a breeze were blowing on him and smelled perfume; then, as he headed for the stairs, someone tapped on his shoulder. When he turned to see who, there was no one there. He also witnessed the male ghost in the tuxedo, and his dog reacted to the spirit as well while in the first-floor main theater. The dog ran after the apparition, which vanished on the spot, and the dog sniffed the exact spot on the floor where it disappeared. Dwayne has also seen an older couple dressed in 1930s-style clothing on the theater’s main dance floor. He looked up to the balcony and saw this couple talking to one another. He shouted at them, thinking they were people who had gotten into the theater, but the couple ignored him, disappearing only when he went upstairs to the balcony to confront them.
Other Avalon/Palace spirits include a little girl who can be heard crying in a stall in the women’s restroom and a playful spirit that loves to tap people on the shoulders. A male ghost wearing a hat has been known to wander the hallway to the basement, and shimmering, blue orbs are seen all over the theater as well as dark, indistinct shapes that float about the club.
The Hollywood Pacific Theater was built in 1927 and also went by the name Warner Pacific Theater, named after the Warner brothers, who built it. It is the largest theater in Hollywood, and some believe one of the brothers haunts the place, namely Sam Warner, who died of a brain hemorrhage during the making of The Jazz Singer in 1927. The theater opened to the public a year later, and Sam’s ghost was witnessed by many attendees who saw him moving back and forth from the theater to his upstairs offices. He has also been spotted pacing in the lobby, as he was known to do in life. Sam’s ghost has even been reported to press elevator buttons and get into and out of elevators to get to his offices instead of the usual ghost method of traveling between walls. People in the theater during quieter times claim they can hear him working up in his office.
Some people say the place was cursed by Sam, who was so angry at not having construction done on the theater in time for the premiere of The Jazz Singer in 1928. The security company that watches the building claims the elevator continues to operate of its own volition to this day. The actual theater is supposed to be restored and turned into The Hollywood Entertainment Museum, featuring motion picture, television, radio, and recording arts.
The Silent Movie Theater was built in 1942 and celebrates the history of silent films. But the theater has a long history of hauntings. Actor Lawrence Austin, a former owner of the building, was murdered here by his boyfriend James Van Sickle, who was a projectionist. Van Sickle hired a nineteen-year-old man named Christian Rodriguez to kill Austin on January 17, 1997. A concession counter worker was also shot in that event and told the police what she knew. Employee witnesses claim Austin’s ghost roams the place at night after the theater is closed searching for the girl who was there and saw the murder, maybe to thank her. The ghost of the original owner of the theater, John Hampton, has been seen walking on the second floor where he once lived. Hampton died of cancer in 1990, which may have been attributed to the toxic chemicals he was constantly exposed to preserving old films in the bathroom tub of his home above the theater and various film labs around the area.
The Vogue Theater on Hollywood Boulevard opened in 1936. Before that, it was the Prospect Elementary School, where a tragic fire burned it to the ground in 1901, killing twenty-five children and one teacher. The theater then closed until 1992, and a textile factory went up in its place. The factory also burned to the ground a few years later. The Vogue Theater was built on the same site in 1936 as a more modest alternative to the lavish Grauman’s Chinese and Egyptian Theaters located further down Hollywood Boulevard.
A paranormal group, the International Society for Paranormal Research, led by parapsychologist Dr. Larry Montz, took over the property. The ISPR, a Los Angeles group founded in 1972, investigated the paranormal activity in the Vogue Theater. Apparently, there were nine resident ghosts, including six children and three adults.
The children were obviously those who died in the fire, and the adults included the teacher, a projectionist who worked in the theater for forty years, and a maintenance engineer who also worked there on occasion. The ISPR team cleared the place of ghosts in 2001 and claim it is no longer haunted. Or is it?
One of the most recognizable and famous theaters in the world, TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood has a forecourt with stars’ handprints and footprints as well as the ghost of actor Victor Killian.
Tourists flock to the famed TCL Chinese Theater (formerly Grauman’s Chinese Theater and Mann’s Chinese Theater). Named after founder Sid Grauman, who opened the theater in 1927, the place served as a Hollywood hot spot where big stars came for premieres and thousands of fans lined the streets hoping to catch a glimpse of their favorites. The theater was decorated with artifacts that Sid Grauman imported from China, and the forecourt boasts the concrete handprints and footprints of the Hollywood elite. Often, tourists take photos with their own hands in the handprints and never even go inside the actual theater.
Actor Victor Killian’s ghost haunts the forecourt area, pacing back and forth as if looking for someone, although he was murdered at a different location. His killer was never found, and those who have seen his dark figure walking the forecourt suggest he might be restless from trying to find the perpetrator. The theater does have its own resident ghost, a man named Fritz who worked at the theater and hanged himself behind the movie screen. His ghost has been witnessed by many people in the theater, but everyone knows him, and he doesn’t frighten anyone. Other ghosts that haunt the theater have been reported to move around and make strange noises behind the stage curtains when no one is around except night employees.
HAUNTED TOURIST HOT SPOTS
The Hollywood Wax Museum on Hollywood Boulevard is frightening enough with its waxy renditions of celebrities. Some don’t look much at all like the stars they portray, but others appear ready to jump out and grab you, as they are so realistic. The museum opened in 1965 and has been in operation for decades, with thousands of annual visitors who come to walk the narrow halls and see their favorite movie stars and musicians—well, the waxy kind, anyway. There is even a Horror Chamber room devoted to the figures of great films such as Dracula and Frankenstein.
Local legend has it that there are also ghosts that walk the halls, which some witnesses claim they’ve contacted via séances held there, or in photographs that show milky, fuzzy images of something spectral. According to an interview with L.A. Tourist, the general manager, Taj Sundher, stated that a reporter with the National Enquirer once stayed there overnight on a bit of a dare, only to be found the next day pale and shaking, waiting by the door!
Employees have seen a woman sitting on a bench praying near The Last Supper display, and she vanishes whenever a security guard tries to confront her. No one knows who she is or why she is haunting the wax museum in particular.
The name Wonderland Avenue might sound like a typically glamorous Hollywood locale, but it is the home where famous porn star John Holmes committed four murders. He used a lead pipe to kill four drug dealers in what has become known as the “Four on the Floor” murders, which occurred at 8763 Wonderland Avenue in Los Angeles on July 1, 1981. The victims were drug dealers called “The Wonderland Gang” set up by an organized crime mob boss named Eddie Nash who, along with Holmes, was later tried and acquitted for what LAPD detectives stated was such a brutal, bloody crime, it was considered more gruesome than the Charles Manson-directed Tate–LaBianca murders back in 1969.
Wonderland Avenue is located in Laurel Canyon, an area noted for its many notorious homes and locations, many of which are said to be haunted. Visitors to the Wonderland murder house report being pulled and pushed, having their hair tugged, and witnessing televisions in the home acting strangely. Most of the activity, of course, is at night, even though the actual murders occurred around 8:00 A.M.
Beverly Hills Bermuda Triangle
By Claire Weaver
There’s an area in Los Angeles dubbed “The Beverly Hills Bermuda Triangle” that attracts a disproportionately high number of strange events, accidents, and murders.
The Triangle is bordered by N. Linden Drive, Lomitas Avenue, and Whittier Drive in the prestigious 90210 zip code—all quiet streets lined with huge mansions a stone’s throw away from the exclusive Los Angeles Country Club. Tall palm trees shade the sidewalks, and children can be heard playing in an elementary school down the street. It’s the epitome of an idyllic, upscale neighborhood.…
But the history of this small neighborhood is far from serene.
The Beverly Hills Bermuda Triangle earned its name thanks to a high number of unfortunate incidents that have taken place here. The strange events began in 1946 with film producer Howard Hughes, who made his name with movies such as Two Arabian Knights, which won the first Academy Award for Best Director of a comedy picture, The Racket, and The Front Page. Hughes had always had a penchant for planes, and after producing the aviation-themed Hell’s Angels in 1930, his passion really took off—though his planes had a hard time staying in the sky. Although he set a number of records (the landplane airspeed record in 1935, the transcontinental airspeed record in 1937, and the flight-around-the-world record in 1938), he was involved in several serious crashes.
One such accident happened on July 7, 1946, when Hughes piloted the test flight of a prototype he had designed for the U.S. Army Air Force, the Hughes XF-11. Shortly after takeoff, an oil leak affected the propellers, and the aircraft began to rapidly lose altitude. Hughes attempted to land on the Los Angeles Country Club golf course but couldn’t quite make it and instead smashed into a row of nearby houses.
The XF-11 destroyed three houses—and then the fuel tanks exploded, setting fire to a fourth home at 808 N. Whittier Drive. Hughes miraculously survived, though he suffered substantial injuries, including a crushed collarbone, cracked ribs, a collapsed lung, and third-degree burns.
The following year, the Beverly Hills Bermuda Triangle claimed its first official death: that of the infamous New York gangster Bugsy Siegel.
Siegel was one of the leaders of Murder, Inc. (the enforcement arm of the Jewish mob) and a prominent bootlegger during Prohibition. After making a number of enemies in New York in the late 1930s, the East Coast Mob sent him to California to develop syndicate-sanctioned gambling rackets with L.A. family boss Jack Dragna.
Handsome and charismatic, it didn’t take Siegel long to infiltrate the highest circles in Hollywood, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Clark Gable, Cary Grant, MGM studio executive and partial namesake Louis B. Mayer, and rising star Frank Sinatra.
His enemies soon caught up with him, however, and on the night of June 20, 1947, as Siegel sat in his girlfriend’s Beverly Hills home reading the Los Angeles Times, an assassin shot through the window with a .30 caliber semiautomatic carbine, hitting him twice in the head. He died at 801 N. Linden Drive.
In 1966, the strange forces of the Beverly Hills Bermuda Triangle were responsible for bringing an end to popular rock duo Jan & Dean.
William Jan Berry and Dean Ormsby Torrence were the hugely popular surf rock musicians behind hit songs “Surf City,” “Drag City,” and “Dead Man’s Curve.” The latter, which tells the tale of a deadly car accident, would come to be viewed as an ominously prescient song for Jan Berry.…
On April 12, 1966, Berry was driving his Corvette Stingray down Whittier Drive when he crashed into a parked truck at high speed. His injuries were so severe that first responders initially thought he was dead. He was cut out of the car and rushed to the nearby UCLA Medical Center, where he spent several weeks in a coma with severe injuries to the head and brain.
Eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes had a passion for airplanes. It is said that when he crashed a Hughes XF-11 in the Los Angeles area, it created a kind of “Bermuda Triangle,” where mysterious deaths occurred.
Berry survived the accident but suffered permanent brain damage that left him partially paralyzed and impaired his speech. Thanks to the Beverly Hills Bermuda Triangle, the career of Jan & Dean was over.
On November 16, 2010, at about 12:28 A.M., Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen was shot four times in her car as she waited for the light to change at the intersection of Whittier Drive and Sunset Boulevard. She careened into a street light and died in front of 815 N. Whittier Drive.
No shell casings, live rounds, or weapons were recovered at the intersection, leading many to speculate that this was a professional hit. An article in the New York Post referenced Hollywood rumors that Chasen’s murder was somehow linked to the gambling debts of her brother, Larry Cohen, though the rumors were never confirmed.
Eight months after the shooting, Beverly Hills Police closed the case, concluding that Chasen was killed in a random robbery gone wrong. They’d received a tip-off that an impoverished ex-felon by the name of Harold Smith had bragged about shooting Chasen and “getting $10,000 for it.” Smith committed suicide when confronted by police.
In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter reviewed the Beverly Hills Police Department case files, concluding there is overwhelming reason to doubt the investigation’s core findings. The case, however, was never reopened.
Chasen’s death added to the ongoing legacy of one of the most eerie and sinister locations in Los Angeles. Many locals wonder, when will the Beverly Hills Bermuda Triangle strike again?
Another terrifying house sits at 11547 Braddock Drive in Culver City to the south of L.A. Known as the “Entity House,” this was the home of Doris Bither, the victim of a very violent ghost or poltergeist that would throw objects, physically attack her, and even follow her and her family when they tried to get away from the home. The activity later inspired a terrifying movie called The Entity in 1981, with Barbara Hershey as the victimized homeowner.
Another potential paranormal triangle, although it’s more like just a corner, is located about a mile away from the Hollywood business district in a residential area off Sierra Bonita Avenue. Known as Nichols Canyon, those who live there have reported dozens of sightings of Native American ghosts, even a covered wagon, crossing the street intersection. Sometimes, the Native American ghosts appear in their living rooms! One man encountered several Native Americans in war paint in 1968 while driving on Hollywood Boulevard. They were on horseback, and he had to swerve his car to avoid hitting them, causing him to hit a tree instead.
BORIS AND BELLA
Two of the biggest legends in Hollywood have a ghostly association of their own. Boris Karloff, who played Frankenstein, and Bela Lugosi, known for his portrayal of Dracula, live on in the form of ghosts at their respective homes. Boris Karloff loved to garden, and his gardens were so gorgeous friends often asked to have their ashes spread among the roses. Boris was all for it, and now, his gardens are said to be haunted by the presence of those same friends, according to tourists and visitors to the location. Bela Lugosi loved cigars, and after he died of a heart attack in 1956, his spirit decided to give a little performance for mourning fans when the hearse carrying his casket began driving itself as it passed by Bela’s apartment. The driver didn’t gain control back until the self-driving hearse passed by Lugosi’s favorite cigar shop, a place he haunted in life on numerous occasions.
The Hollywood Tower Hotel in Disneyland is modeled after the real hotel in Hollywood, California, where celebrity ghosts are said to roam the rooms and hallways.
TOWER OF TERROR
If you’ve ridden the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, you may not be aware that the ride is based on a real location—the Hollywood Tower Hotel. Built in the 1930s within view of the Hollywood sign, this twelve-story tower boasted bold designs, a top-notch restaurant, a dance hall, and a famous lounge. It wasn’t until one fateful night when five people got into an elevator that everything changed.
It was Halloween night in 1939 and all the main elevators were not working when the five hotel guests got on the maintenance elevator in the Tip-Top Lounge. While the elevator was descending floors, lightning struck the hotel and hit the elevator shaft area, plunging the elevator car down out of control and killing all five occupants on impact. The owner of the hotel, Dewey Todd Sr., closed the hotel doors immediately afterward and to this day, witnesses report the place is haunted by those very same five elevator passengers who dropped to their deaths that night.
The tower did reopen later, and people have been living there for decades. The same hotel has been home to many movie stars, including Humphrey Bogart and Errol Flynn, and Carmen Miranda held her wedding in the hotel’s lobby. In the late Seventies and into the Eighties, the hotel was overrun with drug users and went into decline. There were a host of murders and suicides and Mafia activity resulting in bodies being thrown off the top of the building, adding to the cadre of ghosts said to have haunted the hotel’s rooms and hallways, including a spectral figure on the fourth floor and a male apparition in Thirties-era clothing on the seventh floor who has been spotted staring out at the Hollywood Hills in the distance.
FOREVER CEMETERY
Hollywood Forever Cemetery could be called the final home of many famous celebrities. Buried on the grounds are some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry of the past. The owner of the still active cemetery was featured recently on television’s Six Feet Under. Buried there are such luminaries as Douglas Fairbanks, Peter Lorre, Tyrone Power, Charlie Chaplin, and even punk guitarist Johnny Ramone. Director Cecil B. DeMille has a large tomb there with stone sarcophagi reminiscent of the Egyptian sets he created for The Ten Commandments.
The man who donated Griffith Park, Griffith J. Griffith, is buried there as well as mobster Bugsy Siegel, who was murdered at his girlfriend’s mansion in the Beverly Hills Triangle!
Visitors to the grounds report numerous ghosts roaming around and often moving between the cemetery and adjoining entrance to Paramount Studios on the Lemon Grove side, especially Rudolph Valentino, who died at the age of thirty-one and was buried there. But many people also report seeing the ghost of a mysterious woman in black, who leaves flowers at his grave on the anniversary of his death.
Clifton Webb’s ghost has been seen around the Abbey of the Psalms mausoleum, sometimes wearing a suit. People report seeing strange lights nearby, smelling strong men’s cologne, and hearing whispers from within the mausoleum. Webb also may haunt a chair! Rumors state his ghost is attached to an old, throne-style chair that was given to his old friend, psychic Kenny Kingston. Kingston reported the chair moved on its own during some of his séances despite being kept behind velvet ropes.
A woman named Virginia Rappe is said to haunt her grave there, and visitors report a distinct, cold chill. Rappe was a young woman who died at the age of twenty-six of mysterious causes and was involved in a scandal with comedian and actor Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, whose career was destroyed by unsubstantiated allegations that he raped Rappe at a party.
Marion Davies, the mistress of William Randolph Hearst, is also buried here, and people have reported seeing Hearst’s ghost roaming near her grave site as if he is looking for her or watching over her. Davies, who died of cancer in 1961, was with Hearst when he lost all his wealth, so perhaps, he feels as loyal to her in death as he may have in life.
The actor who played Alfalfa in the original Our Gang series, Carl Dean Switzer, also haunts the cemetery. He died under mysterious circumstances of a gunshot wound. Also buried here is the legendary Tyrone Power, who was an onscreen swashbuckler and romantic leading man. Sadly, he died in November 1958, hoping to one day have a son. He left behind a pregnant wife, Deborah Ann Montgomery Minardos, who indeed gave birth to his son, Tyrone Power Jr., in January 1959.
GHOSTLY LOCATIONS AROUND TOWN
Do you remember watching the Aaron Spelling television series Fantasy Island? Ricardo Montalbán played the mysterious Mr. Roarke, who helped make your wishes and dreams come true at his lavish island. The show was filmed at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanical Gardens off of Highway 201 near Pasadena, California. Other shows filmed there include Tarzan, Anaconda, and Jurassic Park.
The 127-acre garden and historical site included an older home that was where Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance committed suicide years before in 1932. Chief Buffalo, who wrote an autobiography in 1928 discussing his Blackfoot heritage, was a reporter who was very outspoken in his criticisms of the U.S. government and its treatment of Native Americans. He even starred in a movie called The Silent Enemy, which portrayed tribal life. But he held a deep, dark secret, one that was exposed while the movie was filming.
Turns out that Chief Buffalo was really Sylvester Clark Long, a man born to former slaves in North Carolina. He didn’t have a drop of Blackfoot Indian in him, and when his secret came out, he began drinking and was abandoned by his friends and colleagues. In 1932, at the home on the property of the Arboretum, he shot himself. But even today, people visiting the gardens, as well as former cast and crewmembers of the Fantasy Island show, insist they’ve seen his ghost. Some claim they even spoke with him and that he could be seen in the crowd in some scenes of the show!
Some scenes from the television show Fantasy Island were shot at Queen Anne Cottage at the Los Angeles Arboretum. The ghost of Chief Buffalo has been seen in the area, according to arboretum visitors and the crew from the TV show.
Another haunted hot spot is located in Laurel Canyon, a place ripe with urban legends. The ghost of the great escape artist haunts his former mansion, known appropriately as “Houdini Mansion,” which sits atop a stone staircase amid overgrown brush. The four-story mansion was built back in 1915, where the home suffered through the Laurel Canyon Fire of 1959, as well as lack of care, even becoming a boardinghouse for actors out of work. The isolated location gave rise to many urban legends at the time, and many witnesses claim he roams the grounds in death. Others claim the man seen wandering the property is a murder victim from long before Houdini was associated with the mansion. Either way, it adds to the haunted flavor of Laurel Canyon and has become a favorite destination for ghost hunters on the prowl for proof of the afterlife.
Ghosts aren’t usually a laughing matter, but the Sunset Strip in Hollywood boasts a haunted comedy club with quite a history. A popular hot spot opened in the 1940s called Ciro’s and later became the famous Comedy Store, where top comedians perform to sold-out crowds. But the ghosts of Ciro’s remain, haunting the Belly Room, a smaller, second-floor venue, and the large showroom, usually after hours, when security guards hear banging on piano keys, moving chairs that slide across the stage, lights turning on and off, and even chairs that pile on top of one another!
Even some of the current waitresses have reported unusual activity, according to 8 Hollywood Haunts That Are Seriously Haunted by Laurie Jacobson for Britannica.com. One waitress would open the Belly Room and arrange the chairs and candles, then she would leave, only to return a few moments later to find the door locked, the candles out, and the lights off. Then she would go back and find everything just as she left it! Security guard Blake Clark often heard piano music coming from upstairs, but when he ran up to see if someone got locked in the club after hours, he would find the room empty.
One of the most intriguing encounters at the Comedy Store occurred in the fall of 1986, when stand-up comic Sam Kinison was performing. According to Haunted Hollywood by Tom Ogden, Kinison was onstage in the Main Room when he heard voices that were not coming from the crowd. Kinison had also experienced light and sound issues while at the Comedy Store, so when he heard the voices, he wasn’t surprised. He stopped the show, and the crowd noticed something was amiss. Kinison then began addressing the voices, telling them they were pissing him off and that if they wanted to play, they needed to reveal themselves to the audience. Then, everything suddenly went black as the lights went out in the entire club. When the lights came back on, many thought it was all part of the act, but Kinison insisted it wasn’t.
Then there is the Pink Palace at 1220 Bel Air Drive, a huge, pink mansion that was once home to the likes of Rudy Vallee, Ringo Starr, Engelbert Humperdinck, and its most famous resident, Jayne Mansfield. According to Haunted Hollywood: Tinseltown Terrors, Filmdom Phantoms and Movieland Mayhem by Tom Ogden, the Spanish Mediterranean-style mansion was built in 1929 in the swanky Holmby Hills section of Beverly Hills and sported forty rooms total as well as rooms for the staff and a guesthouse. Mansfield was a big, buxom, blonde bombshell and a hugely popular star of the era, and she wanted the house and the walls around it to be pink. She even had her initials carved in wrought iron on the huge entry gate.
As her career rose and fell, she continued to make movies and television appearances and went through her fair share of marriages. She met her end in a car crash when the Buick she was in crashed into a truck in a deep fog at a high speed, killing Mansfield, who was in the front-seat, the car’s driver, Ronnie Harrison, and another front seat passenger, Sam Brody. Her three children were in the back seat sleeping and survived the crash with minor injuries.
Later, the Pink Palace became the home of Mama Cass Elliot, then Ringo Starr, who tried to paint over the pink only to find that the pink color could not be covered over! It would bleed back through any color put over it. In 1976, Engelbert Humperdinck, the famous Welsh singer, bought the mansion and restored it to its original pink, then put it on the market in the 1990s. In 2002, he finally sold it to Roland Arnall, a financier who owned a couple of other properties on the cul-de-sac. But it was Humperdinck who reported sensing Jane’s ghost and even smelling her favorite rose petal perfume throughout the mansion. He even saw her ghost in a long, black dress. The mansion is no longer there, but Jayne’s spirit remains.
One of the richest families in the 1920s in Los Angeles was the Doheny family. One of the clan, Ned Doheny Jr., died tragically at the age of thirty-six after he and his father, Ned Doheny Sr., were involved in a bribery scandal called the Teapot Dome Scandal with President Warren G. Harding. Ned Jr. was murdered, and his assistant and close friend, Hugh Plunkett, was also murdered, although some claim he committed suicide. It all took place at the Greystone Park, where the Doheny Mansion was built in 1928, and is now said to be home to the ghosts of the two dead men.
The 46,000-square-foot, fifty-five-room, Tudor-style mansion cost $3 million at the time it was built. Ned Jr. moved in with his wife and five children only a scant five months before he was found dead of a gunshot wound. Hugh Plunkett was blamed for the murder in the local media, which stated Plunkett went nuts, shot his boss, then shot himself, but a homicide detective named Leslie T. White later wrote a book called Me, Detective in which he claimed to have doubted the official story.
He claimed police found the evidence of the crime scene had been tampered with by the family and Ned’s physician and that the bodies had even been moved to cover up the real cause of death. There were contradicting claims by family witnesses and the actual evidence found at the scene, and White thought a real investigation should have taken place before it was declared solved only one day after the crime. Some witnesses claimed to have heard an argument with a female behind closed doors before gunshots rang out, suggesting Lucy was involved. And because Ned’s death was said to be a murder and not a suicide, he was not buried with his family and instead was buried at Forest Lawn in Glendale, California.
Later, a Chicago man named Henry Crown bought the home and leased it out to film studios in the area, and it was used in many films of the time. The grounds became a city park in 1971, and the mansion was listed as a historical place in 1976. For decades, the two murders remained truly an unsolved mystery, and dozens of witnesses claim to have experienced ghostly activity on the grounds, including the apparition of a man walking the hallways near the room where the murders occurred and even a pool of blood that appears and disappears on the floor of the murder room.
Four Oaks Restaurant was originally built in the 1880s as a café and inn catering to cowboys and animal herders heading to market. Later, its upstairs dining area was used as a brothel, while downstairs in the bar, bootlegged booze was served. Now, a lovely restaurant sits where there was once a huge oak tree with four separate trunks, later cut down to make a parking space but remembered in place that bears its name and its ghosts. In their book Hollywood Haunted: A Ghostly Tour of Filmland, authors Laurie Jacobson and Marc Wanamaker tell the haunted history of the restaurant.
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet featured the Nelson family (clockwise from top left: Harriet, David, Ricky, and Ozzie). After Ozzie passed away, the new owners of the Nelson house reported ghostly occurrences there.
In 1989, Peter Roelant bought the place from actor Jack Allen, who had found interesting items buried in the house during a renovation and even uncovered a secret passageway. After the renovation was done, a busboy who was there after hours encountered a large, glowing figure standing on the other side of the room he was in. He quit the very next day! Jack, the owner at the time, didn’t think much of the incident, even staying at an apartment at the restaurant. Big celebrities such as Steve McQueen, Vincent Price, and Elke Sommer were locals who liked to spend time at the café.
But one late evening, something startled Jack. He got out of bed and was about to go check it out when his bedroom door flew open to reveal a glowing figure standing there. Jack screamed for it to go away, and the figure eventually disappeared, never to appear again. Today, the lovely café is free from ghostly endeavors so far.
Jacobson and Wanamaker write about another intriguing haunted location in their book, and it’s not one that might first come to mind when the word “ghost” is mentioned. The clean-cut image of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson apparently went beyond their television show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, in the 1950s, at least when it came to their house. The lovely home they lived in for twenty-five years was a two-story colonial located at the base of the Hollywood Hills. The couple raised their two sons there, and the house was used as a model for the home in the television show, including exterior shots.
After Ozzie’s death in 1975, Harriet sold the house, and the new owners experienced strange activity such as footsteps, lights turning on and off, and doors opening and closing. They contacted Dr. Barry Taff, a parapsychologist, who came to the home to investigate. He learned that the female owner was experiencing sexual activity courtesy of a ghost, who would caress and kiss her at night. She would wake from sleep and find the covers pulled down, but no one was around. Even though Taff told her this was common paranormal activity, she moved out.
A painter working on the home in 1994 heard footsteps and witnessed a ghostly apparition while in the empty house but was unable to identify the ghost.
Beverly Glen, which connects the San Fernando Valley to West Los Angeles, is one of the oldest canyon areas in the city, with its own winding road lined with woods filled with sycamores and oaks. At the top of the glen is the famous Mulholland Drive. During the 1800s, the road boasted small inns and roadhouses. One in particular was converted more recently into apartments and is home to paranormal activity associated with a husband and wife, a killer and his victim.
Residents of the apartment building report noises and footsteps running upstairs as well as heavy breathing and cold spots. The appearance of a headless man dressed in yellow has spooked more than one resident. The figure would appear in a yellow cape and glow, with no head to speak of, and would stand by the side of the road visible out the apartment windows.
The building was once divided into three floors when it served as an inn, and, around the turn of the century, a wealthy man arrived with his pretty wife for a night at the theater. They stayed overnight at the inn, and afterward, the wife would often arrive alone. She fell in love with a young man who was known for wearing yellow, and when the husband found out, he charged up the stairs and cut off the young man’s head with a scythe as his wife watched in horror. The man was later executed for the murder.
Some say the headless ghost is the young man standing in wait for his married lover. The sound of someone running up the stairs is clearly the wealthy husband coming to catch his wife and her lover in the throes of passion, a passion that caused them all such tragedy. The stuff ghost stories are made of.
Another popular hot spot is Barney’s Beanery, an eatery on Santa Monica Boulevard that has been a Los Angeles fixture since 1927. A male ghost haunts the place, seen often in a white shirt in the cellar as well as in the rooftop office. Waiters report feeling a sensation of something brushing past them, the sound of beer kegs scraping across the floor, and even knives spinning in the kitchen on their own! Perhaps, these are the ghosts of three men who had been murdered in the bar and restaurant in its early years.
On West Sunset Boulevard, a pub called The Cat & Fiddle reigned as a popular spot until it closed in 2014. Housed inside the Thompson building, this pub offered British fare when it opened in 1984. It had been located in the notoriously haunted Laurel Canyon area for two years prior and, in its earlier years, hosted a number of mobsters, including one who was killed in 1930. Gunfights broke out during a mob party, resulting in one man being shot to death.
These deaths might explain the paranormal shenanigans reported there such as glasses flying around and falling from shelves, lights going on and off, and the saloon doors swinging open and closed as well as the pub’s jukebox turning itself on. A male ghost has been reported smoking a cigarette, leaning against the wall at the front gate, or heading upstairs to the office.
TRAVELING GHOSTS
One interesting thing comes to mind when reading of these celebrity ghost sightings. Many times, the particular star’s ghost is seen in numerous places, often at the same time! The ghost of a dead actor might haunt his former mansion, the theater he loved to perform in, the place where he tragically died, and the cemetery his body is buried at—even his favorite restaurant, to boot. Rarely do we hear about ghosts of average, normal people haunting multiple locations, suggesting that either celebrity ghosts do a lot of traveling in death just as they did in life, or there is something else going on that may have to do with recognition … and fame.
Could it be that we are so enamored and fascinated with these people, even after they leave this Earth, that we imagine them into existence? What might we, the observing fans, have to do with their appearances? Do we expect to see ghosts of famous people where they once lived and worked? Our collective love and often adoration of the rich and famous creates a power all its own that brings about the physical manifestation of our favorite actors, musicians, and performers. It may be a collective endeavor, just as celebrity worship is a collective endeavor that results in the popularity of gossip magazines and television shows.
We see not only what we want to see but what we expect to see, and that includes Elvis in his studio, at Graceland, and even at the local Burger King chowing down on junk food.
FAME, FORTUNE, AND GHOSTS
Billionaire Howard Hughes wasn’t the only tycoon to haunt his favorite place (Pantages Theater) after death. Frank Winfield Woolworth wasn’t an actor or a musician. As the store tycoon and millionaire founder of Woolworth’s five-and-dime stores, he certainly was a household name for many. Those who lived in Glen Cove, a suburb of Long Island, New York, where Woolworth owned a mansion, claim there was more to the man than the public imagined. In fact, residents who knew of the mansion, Winfield Hall, told author Arthur Myers in Ghosts of the Rich and Famous of everything from apparitions to strange, ghostly music to all kinds of paranormal activity.
Many séances were held at the great mansion after Woolworth died of septic poisoning in 1919, only two years after he had Winfield built, including those organized by Fran Tucciardo and Monica Randall, a native of the region, who wrote about them in her 1987 book The Mansions of Long Island’s Gold Coast. During séances led by Fran, the ghost of Woolworth himself would appear, angry that his library was going to be remodeled. Monica learned as a child of the hauntings at Winfield and during her own séances even encountered the ghost of Woolworth’s daughter, Edna, who had taken her own life. Monica also revealed Woolworth’s association with the occult, stating that he filled the house with carvings that represented demons and occult symbolism.
But others, including the official historian of Glen Cove, Dan Russell, believe the occult connection is untrue. Tours of the mansion continued to turn up eyewitness accounts of ghosts and strange activity, even reports by grounds staff, night watchmen, and gardeners. Today, the mansion is owned by the Pall Corporation, a company that makes industrial filters, and uses the home as their headquarters. According to Arthur Myers, the secretaries get a kick out of the secret passageways and interesting angel symbolism on the ceiling!
No word as to whether or not any shoppers at Woolworth stores have ever encountered Frank’s ghost roaming the aisles.
