(Photo illustration by Kay Scanlon / Los Angeles Times; photographs from Adobe Stock, Associated Press, Getty Images, AaronP / Bauer-Griffin / GC Images)
There’s always been something haunting about Hollywood. The handprints and signatures of the living and dead trapped in concrete outside the Chinese Theatre; the “Halloween” house, the Bradbury Building, John Marshall High School and all the everyday locations that instantly conjure visions of the cinematic stories that they helped tell. Faded photos of famous faces hang in local diners, dry cleaners, bars and fine restaurants. We map the homes of long-dead celebrities, lay flowers on their stars on Hollywood Boulevard, see their names on buildings, cocktail menus and street signs — George Burns and Gracie Allen, intersecting forever within the maze of Cedars-Sinai.
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But some of the hauntings are more tangible, and traditional. Not all of Hollywood’s best ghost stories can be found on a screen; some live in its landmarks and lore. Here are a few of the most notorious.
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Culver Studios
Culver City Movie Studio
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(Rick Meyer / Los Angeles Times)
The iconic Culver Studios, with its Mount Vernon-inspired administration building, was built in 1918 by silent film producer Thomas Ince. In 1924, Ince died under mysterious circumstances after celebrating his 44th birthday aboard William Randolph Hearst’s yacht. Those “circumstances” were reported at the time to be heart disease exacerbated by indigestion, but rumors soon began flying that Ince had been shot by Hearst when he mistook him for Charlie Chaplin, who Hearst believed was having an affair with his mistress Marion Davies. (This version was later fictionalized in Peter Bogdanovich’s 2001 film, “The Cat’s Meow.”) Over the years, many studio workers reported seeing Ince’s ghost walking the halls of the “mansion” as if he were keeping an eye on things.
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Brain Dead Studios
Beverly Grove Movie Theater
(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)
In 1942, silent film devotee and preservationist John Hampton opened the Silent Movie Theatre, which soon became popular with celebrities wanting to revisit their earlier films. After Hampton died in 1990, of cancer believed to be caused by the toxic chemicals involved in restoring old film, his longtime friend Lawrence Austin purchased the theater. During the renovation process, he became romantically involved with James Van Sickle, who in 1997 hired a man to murder Austin during a movie showing. Both Hampton and Austin are said to haunt the theater where visitors have reported the feeling of being watched, the smell of burning film and glimpses of Austin’s ghost.
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The Comedy Store
West Hollywood Comedy Club
(AaronP / Bauer-Griffin / GC Images)
Once home to Ciro’s, a famous nightclub frequented in the 1940s and ’50s by stars and mobsters, the space is rumored to hold multiple spirits, including “Gus,” a doorman/mafia hit man who was killed there, and women who died during illegal abortions performed in its basement. Multiple comedians, including Joe Rogan, Sam Kinison, Leslie Jones and Bobby Lee have reported ghostly figures, moving furniture and general weird sensations. Times news and culture critic Lorraine Ali visited the venue with Zak Bagans, host of the Travel Channel series “Ghost Adventures,” in 2022 and saw nothing, though her phone did capture an unexplained light and she later called the vibe in the main room “creepy.”
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Warner/Hollywood Pacific Theatre
Hollywood Movie Theater
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(Underwood Archives / Getty Images)
The third of the four original Warner brothers, Sam Warner, championed the advent of sound in motion pictures and oversaw production of the industry-changing film “The Jazz Singer.” Legend has it that when he learned that the company’s new Hollywood theater would not be finished in time for the premiere, he cursed the place only to die in L.A. at age 40 of pneumonia, after surgeries to remove a brain infection, on Oct. 5, 1927 — the day before “The Jazz Singer” premiered in New York. His ghost has reportedly haunted the now-shuttered Warner/Hollywood Pacific Theatre ever since.
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Avalon Hollywood
Hollywood Bar/Nightclub
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Opened in 1927 as the Hollywood Playhouse, the theater on Vine has had many names — the El Capitan Theatre, the Jerry Lewis Theatre, the WPA Federal Theatre — and many roles — as a live theater venue, a TV studio and now a nightclub. So it’s not surprising that its ghosts are numerous and anonymous. A spectral piano player, a man in a tuxedo, a sobbing woman in the bathroom and a mischievous electrician have all been reported as well as assorted cold spots, mysterious figures, spontaneous music and the occasional scream.
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The Palace Theatre
Downtown L.A. Theater
(Mario Tama / Getty Images)
The theater is best known for being where Michael Jackson and Ola Ray are watching a film in the famous “Thriller” music video, but it has its own ghostly reputation as well: A woman in white has allegedly been seen pacing the stage as well as shadowy figures murmuring and moving about in its balconies.
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George Reeves house
Beverly Hills Residence
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(Hulton Archive / Getty Images)
On June 16, 1959, the actor best known for playing the lead in the 1950s series “Adventures of Superman,” died in his Benedict Canyon home of a gunshot wound to the head. Though ruled a suicide, many people believed Reeves was murdered by MGM studio executive Eddie Mannix after Mannix discovered Reeves was having an affair with his wife. In the years since, mysterious sounds, wrecked rooms and even the sight of a ghostly figure have been reported by residents and visitors.
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Pickfair
Beverly Hills Residence
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(Topical Press Agency / Getty Images)
Mary Pickford long claimed that the home she and Douglas Fairbanks turned into a center of early Hollywood was haunted. They purchased the home, which was designed by a California architect to be a hunting lodge, in 1919 and expanded it into a 22-room mansion with what is believed to be the first residential swimming pool. Though Pickford often told tales of strange noises in the attic and the figure of a dark woman, she lived there until her death in 1979. Lakers owner Jerry Buss, who bought the house after Pickford’s death, shared no such stories, but when Pia Zadora acquired it in 1988, she razed the famous home and built another in its place. At the time, she blamed termites, but she later claimed that a ghost of a woman living in the attic had forced her to do it.
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Harlow/Bern House
Beverly Hills Residence
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(Bettmann / Bettmann Archive)
On Sept. 5, 1932, actor Jean Harlow’s husband, producer Paul Bern, was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head. Mystery initially swirled around the death — the butler who found the body called MGM executive Irving Thalberg who in turn summoned the police; Harlow, who was visiting her mother at the time, had no inkling her husband of two months was suicidal; a neighbor reported hearing a speeding car near the house at the time of Bern’s death — but it was ruled a suicide. Thirty years later, the house was owned by hair stylist Jay Sebring, who was friends with Sharon Tate. After Sebring and Tate’s horrific murder by the Manson family on nearby Cielo Drive, journalist Dick Kleiner claimed that Tate had told him of a frightening encounter she had had in Sebring’s house: She woke to see a strange little man in her bedroom and when she ran out of the room, she saw a figure tied to the staircase, its throat slashed. Kleiner believed it was Bern warning Tate of her terrible future.
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Hollywood Roosevelt
Hollywood Hotel
(Oscars / The Academy via Getty Images)
Built in 1926 and financed by a consortium that included Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Louis B. Mayer and Sid Grauman, the Hollywood Roosevelt was designed as a beacon to the burgeoning film industry; in 1929, it became the site of the first Academy Awards. Since then, no other Hollywood landmark has embraced its haunted reputation more than the Roosevelt. Actor Montgomery Clift is said to prowl the hallways, Marilyn Monroe to peer from a mirror she ordered for her room. Carole Lombard has allegedly been seen on the 12th floor, where she and Clark Gable met during the affair that led to their marriage. And a little girl is said to be on an eternal quest to find her parents.
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Greystone Mansion and Gardens
Beverly Hills Event venue
(Iris Schneider/Los Angeles Times)
The site of one of L.A.’s most notorious murder-suicides, Greystone has been supposedly haunted ever since. In February 1929, owner Ned Doheny, son of oil tycoon Edward Doheny, was shot and killed by his personal secretary and childhood friend Hugh Plunkett who, minutes later, shot himself. The motive for the crime was never discovered, though rumors posited a sexual relationship, a dispute over Plunkett’s salary and, most plausibly, the pair’s involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal. Doheny’s widow lived in the mansion until 1955, after which a series of sales almost led to its demolition, prevented by an 11th-hour purchase by the city of Beverly Hills, which converted the house into an event venue and the grounds into a park. Since then, there have been many reports by workers of mysterious sounds, the smell of rotting flesh and shadowy, spectral figures. That has not stopped it from becoming a favored filming spot for film and television, from “The Amazing Race” to “There Will Be Blood,” and a popular wedding venue.
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Mama Cass House
Hollywood Hills West Residence
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(Express / Getty Images)
In the 1980s, Dan Aykroyd and his then-wife Donna Dixon were living in the Hollywood Hills home that had once belonged to Cass Elliot, who died of a heart attack in London in 1974. (Elliot purchased it from Natalie Wood.) Aykroyd has said that multiple paranormal events, including spinning jewelry, mysterious voices, doors opening and closing and a dark figure at the top of the stairs led him to believe the property was haunted. (English singer Robbie Williams, who rented the house from Aykroyd for a few months, confirmed that it was “completely and utterly haunted.”) As a side note, Aykroyd has long and openly believed in ghosts, which is one reason he co-wrote “Ghostbusters,” which he had originally intended as a vehicle for himself and John Belushi. In 2014, he told Vanity Fair that he was writing a line of dialogue for Belushi when he learned of his friend’s death by overdose at the Chateau Marmont in 1982. According to Al Franken and others, Belushi haunts the site of his death: Bungalow 3.
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Hollywood Knickerbocker Apartments
Hollywood Apartment Building
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(Mel Bouzad / Getty Images)
Harry Houdini’s widow, Bess, famously held seances on the hotel’s roof in an effort to conjure the spirit of her husband. Harry never showed, but this Golden Age hot spot built in 1929 is rumored to be a nexus of Hollywood spirits. Marilyn Monroe, who often met there with future husband Joe DiMaggio, has been spotted in the powder room mirror. Director D.W. Griffith, who suffered a fatal brain hemorrhage there in 1948, has been seen in the lobby and Irene Lentz, an MGM costume designer who jumped from a hotel window in 1962, is said to haunt the hallways.
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