The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals (24 page)

Just nine months later, Ross Alexander shocked the public and media alike when he announced his swift marriage to actress Anne Nagel, whom he claimed to have started dating only three months before. Moviegoers could not believe it: first, he was rumoured to have been unfaithful to his wife during their marriage; then his wife’s father believed he may have had something to do with her death. Now here he was, less than a year later, taking another wife without – it would seem – any concern for the memory of Aleta whatsoever.

But if the rumours and speculation over their relationship worried Alexander and Nagel, they certainly did not show it. Instead, the couple departed by plane to be married in Yuma, before returning to Los Angeles and setting up home on a ranch situated at 17221 Ventura Boulevard.

However, while the public believed that Alexander had moved on from his former wife far too quickly, it would seem that they were wrong, as the marriage between the actor and his new wife was not an easy one. It had still been less than a year since the suicide and the thought of how life had changed in such a short space of time disturbed him. He was continuously haunted by the memory of his former wife, the way she had died and the troubles they had endured, and he could not shake the feeling of despair no matter how hard he tried.

On the evening of 7 December 1936, just a day after the first anniversary of Aleta’s death, Ross Alexander became intoxicated and told his visiting father that he wanted to go outside and shoot sparrows. Knowing full well that it had been a year since the bereavement and highly sceptical that he could possibly be planning to shoot birds in the dark, the actor’s alarmed father called the butler and together they talked Alexander into staying inside. However, just days after New Year, everything took a tragic turn . . .

The day had started in what seemed to be a fun fashion, with a game of badminton between Ross and Anne, followed by the taking down of their first marital Christmas tree. Afterwards, the actor sang and played guitar for his wife, who later reported that her husband had been in a good mood all day. “He was happier than ever before,” she later told the coroner, though if this was the case, it would seem the happiness came from knowing what he had planned for himself, rather than anything to do with their marriage.

After spending the day together, the couple relaxed in their front room, where Anne was crocheting and Ross was – rather disturbingly – toying with a pistol. If Anne had known of his father’s concern over the “shooting sparrows” quote, she chose not to show it, and later told the coroner that after Ross had removed the cartridges, they both started playing around with the gun. Shortly afterwards, Ross disappeared upstairs to do something more conventional – write poetry – before reappearing to tell his wife that he was going out to the barn to shoot a duck for dinner.

During the later police investigation, Vivian Jones, the gardener, said that on two occasions that day Alexander had appeared at the barn, and climbed the ladder to the loft for no reason that he could think of. Then, after Jones had caught a duck for dinner, Alexander appeared with his gun and asked if he could shoot the creature. “I told him not to, it would be better to chop its head off,” said Jones. The gardener killed the bird, which prompted Ross to turn away, grimacing that he did not like the sight of blood.

Since it had been his intention – he said – to shoot the duck, it was somewhat odd that Alexander now claimed to dislike the sight of blood. Still, he had been thwarted by Jones in any case, so instead he returned to the house. Just a short time later, however, the cook, Elta Stevenson, saw him heading back towards the barn and mentioned it to Jones. He in turn told her of his experience at the barn with Ross, and together they wondered what he could possibly be doing out there, but decided it was none of their business to enquire.

At 7.10 p.m. Jones left for the day and had only been home a short time when he turned on the radio to catch up with the day’s news. The headline that greeted him, however, was not what he expected to hear at all: the announcement that his boss, Ross Alexander, had shot himself dead. Jones immediately grabbed his car keys and drove straight back to the house. “I wish I had gone to the barn before I left,” he told police. “Maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”

Ross Alexander’s new wife was absolutely devastated at the loss of her husband. She had been married for less than four months and could not understand why he had chosen to take his own life – particularly as she had not seen anything out of the ordinary all day. It later surfaced, however, that Warner Brothers had recently told him they were scaling down his roles, concerned that Alexander’s personal life was not allowing him to focus on his career. Worried about his job, his finances and with the tragic death of his first wife still very much on his mind, Alexander was in too much pain to carry on.

The actor’s parents, who had been visiting over the Christmas holiday, were driving back home to Rochester, New York, when the news came through that their son had committed suicide. The devastated couple had just reached Arkansas and had to turn their car around to drive back to Hollywood. They were sad in the knowledge that while he had been talked out of using the gun just weeks earlier, Ross ultimately succeeded in taking his life by using the very same weapon that his wife had employed a little over a year before.

In Hollywood, some scandals revolve around the actors, actresses and wannabes who come looking for fame, fortune or both. But occasionally we stumble across a building that has made so many headlines that it deserves an entry all to itself in this book. The Shelton Apartments, detailed here in “The Suicide Apartments” chapter, is one such building, and the Knickerbocker Hotel is another.

Built in 1925 by E. M. Frasier, the hotel was once a favourite haunt of Rudolph Valentino, Lana Turner, Mae West and Frank Sinatra. Elvis Presley lived in suite 1016 while making
Love Me Tender
, and Marilyn Monroe drove Joe DiMaggio here after their first date in 1952. But while it attracted its fair share of happy Hollywood memories, the hotel also played host to more than a few seedier headlines over the years, before finally evolving into a retirement home for senior citizens.

The first story is more amusing than scandalous, though it certainly made the headlines back in 1936. During his lifetime, magician Harry Houdini often spent time debunking psychics and mediums. He wrote a book,
A Magician Among the Spirits
, which chronicled his efforts to unmask those he deemed frauds and charlatans, and told his wife Bess that if there was such a thing as communication after death, then he would come to her during a séance. The couple agreed that the secret code would be “Rosabelle believe” and that she would try for a total of ten years after his passing to get in touch. Sure enough, on Halloween 1927 – the first anniversary of Houdini’s death – Bess began her yearly tradition of holding a séance for her husband, though disappointingly he never came through for her.

Bess persevered for nine years, and then flew to Hollywood from New York in 1936 and checked herself into the famed Knickerbocker Hotel for one last séance. There she told staff of her plans to conduct the final séance on the rooftop, accompanied by her business manager, Edward Saint. As she prepared for the evening, Bess told reporters that she had received many messages from mediums over the years, all telling her that they had been able to get through to the other side and speak with Houdini. “They mean nothing to me,” she said. “If he were to manifest himself to anyone, it seems it would be to me.”

Unfortunately, it would seem that if the magician was speaking from beyond the grave, it certainly was not to Bess, and that evening’s attempt at contact was – as usual – a disappointing failure. The only thing that could be heard from the roof of the Knickerbocker was the quiet hum of the occasional car heading down Ivar Avenue, and taking the silence as a final hint, Bess finally gave up trying to contact her deceased husband. Still, the lack of correspondence did not deter other mediums, however, and for many years the tradition of holding a séance for Houdini has continued, though the success of the proceedings is somewhat debatable at best.

The first real scandal to hit the famed hotel was in January 1943 when actress Frances Farmer was arrested after violating her probation by drink driving. Farmer was staying in her room and only semi-attired when police arrived at her door with a warrant for her arrest. Once inside there was such a fracas that officers ended up dragging the distraught, half-nude woman out of the room, along the corridor and down into the hotel lobby, where she vocally aired her displeasure at being arrested, much to the shock and scandal of everyone mingling around the front desk.

Her arrest made headlines around the United States. Shortly afterwards she was admitted to hospital and spent the coming years under the care of doctors and psychiatrists. The arrest of Frances Farmer and her treatment by the police as she was taken from the hotel helped make the Knickerbocker become known as a headline-making hotel, and is still talked about to this day.

The first Knickerbocker resident to make headlines by passing away while living there came in 1948 when the “father of the movie industry” D. W. Griffith died after collapsing in his room at the hotel. Griffith had been a pioneering director famous for the 1915 film
The Birth of a Nation
and many other early Hollywood successes. However, as time went on, he became disillusioned with the industry and eventually retired, claiming that he had always found directing to be a chore. “Believe it or not,” he said, “I always considered it a temporary thing, a sort of springboard”, before adding that his ultimate, lifetime ambition was always to be a writer.

During his last year, Griffith lived a simple life at the Knickerbocker Hotel, where he read his large collection of books, and wrote plays and short skits. In the evening he would leave his room and quietly stroll along the boulevard, where he would swing his trademark cane and anonymously take in the sights and sounds of his beloved Hollywood.

On 22 July 1948, Griffith collapsed in his room at the hotel, and was immediately examined by Dr Edward Skaletar. Suspecting a stroke, he rushed Griffith to Temple Hospital but his life could not be saved and sadly he passed away on 23 July. Friends and colleagues lined up to pay tribute to their mentor, and movie executive Samuel Goldwyn summed up the feelings of Hollywood when he said: “All of us in the motion picture industry owe to him and to his memory more than we will ever be able to repay.”

The next famous Knickerbocker death actually took place in the hotel itself and was the most dramatic in its history so far. This happened in 1962 when famed dress designer Irene Lentz Gibbons (better known simply as Irene) ended her life in dramatic fashion right in the middle of the building.

Irene had been a costume designer at MGM for many years, making famed clothes for the likes of Rosalind Russell, Carole Lombard, Joan Crawford and June Allyson. She was extremely successful and respected in the industry, and when she finally decided to retire from movies in 1949, her popularity ensured that she went on designing clothes for various stars over the course of many years to come.

But by 1962, the now sixty-year-old Irene was living in Beverly Hills and spending much of her time worrying about her husband, Eliot, who had recently suffered a stroke. A high point had come when she had shown her latest designs at a nearby fashion show, but worries were never far from her mind and she seemed to be constantly beset by financial troubles and concerns. Finally, on 15 November she decided she no longer wished to be burdened by the stresses that came with her life and checked into room 1129 of the Knickerbocker Hotel.

Once installed in her room, Irene began drinking excessively, gearing herself up for what she intended to do during the hours ahead. She wrote several notes, in one saying she was sorry to be taking her life in such a manner. “Please see that Eliot is taken care of,” she said, before going on to ask her friends to “get someone very good to design and be happy”. She ended by declaring, “I love you all. Irene.” Somewhat bizarrely, the designer also apologized in a note to fellow hotel guests which said simply, “Neighbours: Sorry I had to drink so much to get courage to do this.”

Finally, having drunk herself into intoxication, Irene gathered up enough courage to end her life. Newspapers reported that she had tried to cut her wrists, though if she had, it was not mentioned on the death certificate. What we do know for sure is that during the afternoon, the respected dress designer staggered to her eleventh-floor window, opened it as wide as it would go, and at 3.20 p.m. jumped to her death, landing on the roof of the hotel lobby.

It has been rumoured that, tragically, her body lay on the roof for many days before someone finally discovered it. This was not the case, however, as the sound made by the crash was extreme enough to have everyone wondering what on earth had just fallen from above. Her body was found quickly and an ambulance was called, though it was too late for anything to be done for Irene and the death certificate listed the cause of death as “Multiple fractures of all extremities with severe internal crushing injuries”. It also listed “acute alcohol intoxication” as another significant condition; a result of the copious amount of drink she had gulped to gain the courage to make her leap.

Irene’s funeral was held at Forest Lawn, cemetery to the stars, and was attended by clients, friends and family. Her life may have been full of amazing designs and costumes, but sadly for Irene – just like many others before and since – it was her death that went down in history due to the gruesome way she decided to conduct it.

The final famous death to come to the Knickerbocker was in 1966, when actor William Frawley passed away in the lobby of the hotel. Frawley was most famous for co-starring in the hugely successful TV series
I Love Lucy
, but after leaving the show he had also achieved further fame in the Fred MacMurray show,
My Three Sons
. Unfortunately bad health had besieged the aging actor and in 1965 he was written out of the show after undergoing prostate surgery.