Spooky Madison's Haunted Places

The most famous haunted hotel in Hollywood is, without a doubt, the Hollywood Roosevelt. Today, the hotel has been refurbished and remodeled to capture the spirit of its early days but the new furnishings and decor don’t stop the stories of the old spirits from being told!

The Hollywood Roosevelt was opened in 1927 and was, from the beginning, designed to serve the new movie industry as a luxury hotel. The most prestigious movie stars of the day, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, helped to bring the hotel to life and the grand opening hosted the biggest celebrities of the day like Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo, Will Rogers and Clara Bow, among others. The hotel remained popular for many years and then in 1984, underwent a restoration. Since that time, the ghosts, they say, have been putting in frequent appearances.

The first strange event took place in December 1985, about two weeks before the grand opening. Alan Russell, the pesonal assisant to the General Manager, was in the Blossom Room, where the first Academy Awards banquet was held in 1929. He was sweeping the floor when he noticed an extremely cold spot in one part of the room. He and the other employees who were present were perplexed to find there were no drafts or air conditioners to explain away the chill. Psychics who have investigated the hotel believe there is a man in black clothing who haunts this roon, although who he may be, no one knows.

On that same day, another employee named Suzanne Leonard was dusting a mirror in the manager’s office. She looked into the glass and saw the reflection of a blond woman there. She turned quickly around but there was no one behind her, although the reflection remained for some time before fading away. So, who was this mysterious figure? It was later learned that the mirror once hung in Suite 1200 of the hotel, a suite that was frequently used by Marilyn Monroe. Could she still be lingering behind at the Roosevelt?

Marilyn Monroe was born as Norma Jeaane Mortenson in 1926. Thanks to the fact that she never knew her father and her mother was considered mentally unstable, she lived in a foster home and then later, an orphanage during her early years. As time passed, she also stayed infrequently with her mother and during one of these periods in 1942, she met Jim Doughtery, whom she married on June 19.

Jim was sent overseas during the war and Norma Jean worked in a factory, inspecting parachutes. In 1944, she was photographed by the Army as a promotion to show women on the assembly line contributing to the war effort. One of the photographers asked to take further pictures of her and by the following Spring, she had appeared on 33 covers of national magazines. In July of 1946, she signed a contract with Fox and selected a new name for herself, Marilyn Monroe. She also had a minor part in the movie Scudda-Hoo and by that Fall, was granted her first divorce.

In 1949, she met agent Johnny Hyde of the William Morris Agency and he became her mentor and lover. She also agreed to pose nude for a calendar that year and her career was on its way. Her first major role came in 1950 in The Asphalt Jungle and she received favorable reviews and that was followed by her leading part in Don’t Bother to Knock in 1952. It was in that same year that she baseball legend Joe DiMaggio. They soon fell in love. She also began filming Niagara with Joseph Cotten, a film that would establish her stardom, although Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with Jane Russell would make her a legend.

On January 14, 1954, Marilyn and DiMaggio were married. The wedding made headlines all over the world, but the “dream romance” was never meant to last. Joe was a jealous type who was looking for a housewife, something that Marilyn was never destined to be. In the fall of 1954, they separated and were later divorced. Despite this personal crisis, Marilyn’s stardom continued to skyrocket as she filmed her classic role in the Seven Year Itch.

In early 1955, Marilyn went to New York and joined the Actors Studio, intent on becoming known as a serious actress. Here, she renewed her acquaintance with playwright Arthur Miller and the two of them began an affair that would later lead to marriage. To Marilyn, Miller represented the serious theater and a bright intellect that she found very attractive. Marilyn returned to Hollywood in February 1956, after over a years absence, to film Bus Stop. After completing the film she returned to New York in June. She and Arthur Miller were married on June 29. This marriage was also doomed to fail and after many separations, they divorced in 1961.

After going to London with Arthur, Marilyn did not return to Hollywood until 1958 to make Some Like It Hot with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. It was around this time when her health began to deteriorate thanks to her increased dependency on drugs, especially sleeping pills. She was often late arriving on the set and was unable to remember her lines. In 1960, she began seeing Dr. Ralph Greenson, the so-called “psychoanalyst to the stars”. As was common during this time, he relied heavily on prescribing barbiturates and tranquilizers to accompany his therapy.

July 1960 marked the start of filming The Misfits. The movie was based on a short story by Arthur Miller but while on location, he and Marilyn lived in separate quarters and were hardly speaking. Drugs were flown in for Marilyn from her doctor but somehow she managed to give an exceptional performance. The shoot would be marked with tragedy though. On the day after filming was completed, co-star Clark Gable would suffer a serious heart attack and die. Marilyn felt a tremendous amount of guilt over his death, further aggravating her depression.

In 1961 Marilyn purchased a house in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. At the urging of her doctor, she hired Eunice Murray as housekeeper. Murray, calling herself a nurse, had neither the training or credentials. Strangely, it is believed that Murray was essentially a “spy” for Dr. Greenson, who continued to have more and more control over her life. He saw her almost daily when she was in Hollywood. Also in 1961, Marilyn began her alleged affair with President John F. Kennedy and she was also reported to have had an affair with his brother, Robert Kennedy, in the days just before her death.

Marilyn began production on Something’s Got to Give in April 1962 and frequent illnesses kept her from working on may days of shooting. No one at the studio was very happy, especially in light of the dept that had been created for the studio by the schedule and overruns of Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. It is believed that if Fox cancelled Marilyn’s film, with a lower budget and fewer actors, they could be reimbursed by their insurance company for losses due to a star's illness, and recoup monies spent. Fox fired Marilyn on June 7.

Around this same time, Marilyn had been seeing Joe DiMaggio again and had finally agreed to remarry him. The wedding date was set for August 8. Fox rehired her on August 1 to complete Something’s Got to Give ... but of course, the wedding and the film would never come to pass. Marilyn died on August 5, 1962 and since that time, there has been much speculation about the events surrounding her death and who exactly was involved in it. Most believe that a suicide seems unlikely though and it has even been suggested that her drug overdose was administered by someone other than Marilyn herself. Could this be why her ghost is rumored to linger behind?

The “haunted” mirror is still hanging on the wall at the Roosevelt and can now be found in the lower level elevator landing. It is said that some visitors still catch a glimpse of a beautiful blond in the glass as some believe that Marilyn’s sad life has been permanently impressed in the glass.

As guests began to arrive at the refurbished hotel, the staff was told of other encounters. They frequently heard complaints about loud talking in nearby rooms and of voices in hallways.... rooms and corridors that would prove to be empty. Phones were lifted from receivers in empty suites... lights turned on in empty, locked rooms ... a maid was inexplicably pushed into a supply closet ... a typewriter began typing in the middle of the night in an empty, locked office .... a man in a white suit (who was seen by three different people on two different days) walked through a door and vanished ... extra bedspreads that were hung on a rod in the basement began moving on their own... a little girl was seen playing in the lobby and then vanished before the eyes of a startled staff member... and much more.

Some employees also reported strange shadows on the Ninth floor, prompting many of them to refuse to work on that level. Strange things were especially connected to Room 928. Here, housekeepers have reported cold spots that brush by them and others have felt a strong presence watching them or walking beside them. One night in 1992, a female guest reported that a man’s hand patted her on the shoulder while she was reading. She turned, thinking that it was her husband, only to find him sound asleep.

The Knickerbocker Hotel was built in 1925 and thoughout the tumultuos decade of the 1920's, it played a key role at the heart of Hollywood. It first opened as a luxury apartment building and becamea hotel later on in it's history. One of the attractions of the place was the Renaissance Revival bar, which payed host to the cream of Hollywood crop. One frequent guest was Rudolph Valentino, the silent screen star, who reportedly loved to dance the tango to the live music performed in the saloon. The hotel would serve many guests and be home to many scandals over the years.  

The hotel lobby features a huge crystal chandelier, which cost over $120,000 in 1925, and it was under this chandelier that epic film director D.W. Griffith died of a stroke in 1948. At the time of his death, Griffith, who was a pioneer in the Hollywood film industry, had been largely forgotten by his peers. He now eked out a painful and lonely existence at the Knickerbocker, spending most of his time in the hotel bar, talking to anyone who was sad enough to listen to him. His dismissal by Hollywood was as great a tragedy as his death and it would not be until years later that he would be regarded as the genius that he undoubtedly was.
 

As her professional career soared, her personal life began falling apart. After a failed marriage and a string of disastrous relationships, she turned to alcohol and began taking amphetamines to help her control her weight. In January 1943, she starred in the film No Escape but her drinking and erratic behavior began causing problems on the set. She got into a fight and was arrested at the Knickerbocker. When the police arrived, she was taken from her room and dragged half-naked through the hotel lobby. In court the following morning was placed under the care of a psychiatrist. He stated that she was suffering from “manic-depressive psychosis”. The following day, she was sent to the screen actor’s sanitarium in La Crescenta. For the next seven years, she became trapped in the “dark world” of psychiatric treatment and the abuse she suffered would strip her of both her sanity and her talent.

In the asylum, Frances was subjected to insulin treatments that caused her to go into shock. She suffered from brain damage and she was unable to concentrate or learn her lines. Convinced that she would be destroyed if she remained in the hospital, Frances escaped but was recaptured in March 1944. She was then admitted to the Western Washington State Hospital, where she endured electroshock treatments and ice water baths. She was eventually released but in May 1945, she was hospitalized again, this time for five years.

Conditions in the hospital were worse than barbaric. Criminals, patients and mentally retarded people were housed together and their meals were thrown on the floors for them to fight over. Frances was again subjected to regular electroshock “treatments” and in addition, she was prostituted to soldiers from the local military base and repeatedly raped and abused by hospital orderlies. The hospital stay spiraled downward even further and ended with Frances being given a lobotomy. Although eventually freed from the hospital, she was never the same again. The once-beautiful star died at the age of only 57, penniless, alone and broken forever.

Tragedy and legends continued to be born at the Knickerbocker as time went by. The stories say that author William Faulkner and Meta Carpenter, a script girl from the Fox studios, began their lengthy affair at the Knickerbocker. Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio honeymooned here in 1954. Elvis Presley often stayed at the Knickerbocker and in 1956, when he was filming Love Me Tender, he posed for Heartbreak Hotel photos in one of the rooms. Other stars who lived and stayed at the Knickerbocker included rocker Jerry Lee Lewis, Mae West, Lana Turner, Cecil B. DeMille, Frank Sinatra, Laurel and Hardy and many others.

Actor William Frawley, who played Fred Mertz on the I Love Lucy show, lived at the hotel for decades. In March of 1966, he was walking into the Knickerbocker when he dropped dead of a heart attack on the sidewalk outside. His nurse carried him into the lobby and attempted to revive him, but it was too late.

Undoubtedly, the first thing of a supernatural nature to occur at the Knickerbocker was the anniversary séance to contact the spirit of magician Harry Houdini. During his life, Houdini had been an opponent of the Spiritualist movement but made a pact with his wife and friends that should contact be possible from the other side, he would attempt it. For ten years after his death, his wife, Bess Houdini, continued to hold séances in hopes of communicating with her late husband. The last "official" Houdini séance was held on Halloween night of 1936.  A group of friends, fellow magicians and Bess Houdini herself gathered in Hollywood, on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel. They attempted to contact the elusive magician for over an house before finally giving up. At the moment they did, a tremendously violent thunderstorm broke out, , drenching the seance participants and terrifying them with the horrific lightening and thunder. They would later learn that this mysterious storm did not occur anywhere else in Hollywood...only above the Knickerbocker Hotel! Some specualted that perhaps Houdini did come through after all, as the flamboyant performer just might have made his presence known by the spectacular effects of the thunderstorm.

Although Houdini’s ghost has never been reported to make an appearance at the Knickerbocker, the place has long been considered to be haunted. The most “spirited” spot was always thought to be the hotel bar, so not surprisingly, when the Knickerbocker closed in 1971 and became a senior citizen’s retirement building, the old bar was sealed off. The rooms remained closed and unused for nearly 25 years until the early 1990’s, when it was re-opened as a nostalgic coffee shop called "The All-Star Theatre Café & Speakeasy." The art-deco cafe’ opens at 7:00 in the evening and stays hopping until the early morning hours. Star spotters will be intrigued to know that it frequently attracts studio wrap parties and film shoots, playing host to celebrities like Sandra Bullock and Leonardo DiCaprio.

However, these are not the only stars that have been spotted here. Many believe that celebrities from the past often put in appearances here as well. The ghost of Valentino (once again... Hollywood’s most traveled ghost!) occasionally has been reported, along with the ghost of  Marilyn Monroe, who has been seen in the women’s restroom. Other anonymous spirits sometimes show up as well and staff members are quick to recall instances of lights turning on and off and things moving about on their own. Even after all of these years, the Knickerbocker remains a glamorous, and often mysterious, place.

The Hotel Del Coronado,  was completed in 1888 was and still is a showcase of  opulent.

Located at the western most  periphery of San Diego Bay, its tall spirals and 
stately countenance can make a person take a respite when first viewing it . In the last nine years it  has undergone extensive renovation, which has enhanced it magnificence with the installation of updated  convinces. Even still it hold on to its old world charm, which attracted the only the most noted celebrities the likes of King Edward  VIII, Marilyn Monroe Charles Lindbergh and so many others . 

On a November day during the Thankgiving holidays in 1892, a well dressed woman registered  at the Hotel Del Coronado and was shown up to room 3312. 

Her name was Kate Morgan and she was there to meet her husband. Their marriage was not going will and even so, she had become pregnant  and this meeting at the hotel was an effort on her part to rectify the estrangement between her and her husband, but reconciliation was not to be. Her husband did not meet with her.

Sometime after the time that Kate Morgan had hoped to meet with her husband, she was found dead on the beach which is adjacent to the hotel from a bullet wound to the head. The incidence was declared a suicide by the authorities, but  soon after the rumors started to the contrary and persist to this day.

Alleged to be haunted by Kate Morgan, is room 3312 and room 3205 have been 
over the years associated with paranormal phenomenon. The billowing of the  curtains with the windows closed and unexplained noises have been reported by staff and guests.

The Springville Inn caters to four very special and unique guests. They are
residents who have watched over the Inn for almost 100 years. They are not
demanding or critical, they never offer their opinion on how to run a country inn, they are not malevolent, they do not disturb the quiet of night and their enjoyment is not derived from scaring people.  But, there is a definite presence about them. These bodiless, ethereal and lustrous creatures are The Ghosts of The Springville Inn.

For nearly 100 years, The Springville Inn has been a treasured part of local history and has stood the test of  time as she has lovingly watched over Springville as one of the old guards to the High Sierra - newly proclaimed a National Monument by Presidential order.

Our ghosts predominately inhabit the original 1911 main building formerly known as the Wilkinson Hotel. They have never been seen or their presence felt in the hotel which was added on in 1972. Nor, have there been any experiences with them in the Grill Room which was added on to the main building in 1979. They exist as they have throughout the years in the main building, known as the Wilkinson Hotel in its heyday.

Local historian, Jeff Edwards, has told us that there was no coroner or morgue in Springville, so upon ones untimely demise, their bodies were placed in the upstairs rooms of the hotel on ice to await transport by stagecoach or train to Porterville.

We can only speculate as to the true identity of our four ghosts as historical records are vague and incomplete. We do not know their given names but we refer to them lovingly as the young man who looks to be a handsome logger in his twenties who was likely working in one of the numerous mills of mountain home.

The little girl who looks to be near eight years of age is appropriately clothed in a turn-of-the-century dress. The woman, beautiful and elegant, with flowing blonde hair in a long dress is seen floating on the balcony surrounding the Penthouse or wandering the second floor hallways in the main building.

The old man, who seems to keep to himself in the kitchen with a watchful eye has the most frequent contact with past and present employees. He generally only appears in the main kitchen of the Inn or the upstairs service kitchen. He is usually seen staring up or down into the dumbwaiter joining the two kitchens. He is not shy as he frequently makes himself seen by our chefs and kitchen staff.

According to sightings throughout the past and present, the young man moves
fluidly with purpose around the bar and up what was the original grand staircase which brought guests from the lobby straight upstairs as you entered the building. He is known to be a flirt with a habit of brushing up against women to make his presence known.

He is said to be a logger who was shot outside the Inn, in the streets of Springville. According to legend, guests carried him into the Hotel where he bled to
death. Occasionally he has been seen walking hand-in hand with the little girl, but not recently or by any current staff members.

Numerous employees and guests of the inn have experienced the ghosts - some
of whom appreciate their wanderings and some whom would rather not have an
encounter with them. A past employee washing dishes in the kitchen quit after witnessing the little girl watching her in the mirror which hung in the dishwashing area. The owners quickly removed the mirror. The little girl has not been seen since.

Do you believe in Ghosts? Spend some time at the inn and you just might meet
one of our eternal guests...

An American tanker named the SS Watertown was heading down the California coast to New Orleans via the Panama Canal in December 1924.  During this voyage, deadly oil fumes in the cargo tank overtook two crewmembers.  The two crewmembers were James Courtney and Michael Meehan.  As is the custom of sailors, the two deceased crewmembers were given a burial at sea off the Mexican coast by Captain Tracy and the remaining crew.   The ship continued on its voyage to New Orleans. 

Just before dusk following the burial, the first mate reported seeing two faces in the waves off the port side of the ship.  These heads continued to appear daily while the ship was in the Pacific.  Sometimes lasting ten seconds before they would fade and then reappear.  However, once the ship arrived in the Atlantic Ocean the neither Courtney or Meehan were seen. 

Upon arrival to their destination, Captain Tracy reported to the shipping office:  The Cities Service Company.  Presumably Capt. Tracy went to the shipping office to report the deaths and to fulfill their reason for going to New Orleans.  

Prior to departing for the return trip to California, the first mate purchased a camera.  The crew members once again appeared once the ship was in the Pacific Ocean.  Captain Tracy took six photographs of the faces.  He then locked the camera and the film in his safe until he could locate a commercial film developer. Captain Tracy delivered the film to a developer who noticed nothing out of the ordinary in the first five photographs, however, the sixth one revealed the faces of Courtney and Meehan clearly.  To further credit the experiences of the crew, Captain Tracy took the photo to a detective agency to examine the negative. The agency confirmed the photo was not a fraud.

The crew continued to see the faces of their dead crewmembers although their appearances became less frequent.  After the third voyage, the crew changed.  There were no other sightings and no other photos taken of the ghostly pair.  

Everyone knows that sailors are a superstitious bunch and have been since the beginning of time.  Is it possible that the sightings were induced by mass hysteria?  Did the two sailors quit their ghostly visits when the crew changed because they were a figment of imagination? Was the ghostly pair just an optical illusion? 

If they were a figment of imagination or result of mass hysteria how is it possible that we have a photograph examined and declared authentic? Optical illusions are not something that can be reproduced time and time again in the outdoors in the ever-changing weather and sunlight.  For optical illusions there would have to be a constant.  There is a constant here – the two crew members sailing daily with their ship, crew, and captain and this alone would not produce a repeated optical illusion.  The ghostly crew of the SS Watertown continued to fulfill their duty even in death!