Buster Keaton’s Ghost

Keaton on stage with his parents.

Joseph Frank Keaton earned the name “Buster” after a family friend watched the 6-month-old child tumble down a flight of stairs in a boardinghouse and escape unscathed.

Joining his parents on stage at the age of 3, Buster spent the next 15 years performing—he attended school just once for one day—during these years.

In 1917 he joined his mentor Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle in making two-reelers—these films are classics today. More information about Arbuckle is located here.

Arbuckle and Keaton

Starting in 1921 Buster produced his own films. He had become one of the greatest comedic actors of the silent film era. His comedy and wild stunts are still watched today with appreciation.

In his film Sherlock Jr. in 1924 when he walks up to a projected image in a movie house and walks into the image on the screen it became one of Hollywood's memorable film moments.

He was a genius when it came to creating gags that involved mechanics. He always did his own stunts.

His most famous stunt—was standing deadpan as a hinged 3-story house front fell around him as he stood in a window gap –there was only an inch and half clearance between this frame and his unprotected body.

In another stunt, he broke his leg during the filming of The Electric House in 1922.

In a stunt, he did for Sherlock Jr. as he dropped from a rope he was blown off train tracks by water rushing out of a railroad refill tank. It wasn’t until later he learned his neck was broken.

Both these stunts are highlighted in the video below.

Like many comedians, Keaton also had a darker side. He was known to drink too much, like his father before him.

It was supposedly a “drunken incident” with Louis B. Mayer in the early 1930s that led to Keaton’s dismissal from a contract, he had with MGM.

This sent him on a downward spiral that ended his film career —another factor was the invention of talkies.

In the 1960s he returned to film appearing in a series of “beach party” movies. Even though this was thought to highlight how far he had fallen Keaton himself stated he enjoyed this work.

In 1960 the Academy Awards gave Buster Keaton an honorary Oscar for his film achievements.

Buster Keaton's villa.

At the height of his career in 1925, Keaton had a 30-room Italian villa built on Pamela Drive in Beverly Hills. This home was surrounded by ten acres.

His gardens had remote-controlled streams stocked with trout. The front of the house had a sixty step marble staircase lined with statues that led to a 50-foot Romanesque marble pool.

To make grand entrances for his friends Keaton rigged his living room drapes so he could swing down from a second-floor balcony.

Keaton had this home built for his wife Natalie Talmadge and two sons who moved into the house with Natalie’s mother.

Buster with Natalie

After the birth of her second son, Natalie decided she didn’t want any more children, so she moved into a separate bedroom. The marriage ended in 1932 in a bitter divorce. Partly became of Keaton’s drinking and party because of his extramarital affairs.

Natalie changed their son’s last names to “Talmadge” and didn’t let them have any further contact with their father. She never remarried and died an alcoholic.

Keaton also lost his beloved home in 1933 after their divorce.

After Keaton’s death in 1966, the subsequent owners of the villa felt Keaton’s ghost haunted this property. His ghost became a “slightly annoying presence” for these owners—for his spirit is playful.

Pamela Mason divorced the English actor James Mason in the mid-1960s. She was one of the first high profile clients of Marvin Mitchelson, the divorce lawyer who pioneered the right to palimony.

Pamela before and after divorce.

Pamela like her husband was an actor. She starred with her husband in a television series called The James Mason Show.

Mason lived in Keaton’s former house for 25 years. During this time she was plagued by the lights mysteriously turning off and on and the telephone wires malfunctioning.

Buster’s ghost also fiddled with the water faucets, doors, wall hangings and any other object he could move to gain her attention.

Pamela Mason had a fatal heart attack in this house in 1996. Some believe her ghost has joined Keaton’s in haunting the property.

This villa has ironically been used in recent years as a “Haunted House” attraction during the Halloween season.

The following short video is a compilation of Keaton’s best film stunts.

Haunted Greystone Park

This haunting involves the death of a male heir in the wealthiest family in Los Angeles in the late 1920s --the Dohenys. 

At the time of Ned Doheny Jr.’s death in November of 1929, at the age of 36, he and his father were involved in the “Teapot Dome” bribery scandal along with President Warren G. Harding. These two factors have made it one of California’s most enduring ghost stories. 

Part of the fascination with this story is that Ned's murder was never really solved. His death and the murder or suicide of his personal assistant and close friend Hugh Plunkett * is the reason many feel Greystone Park is haunted today.

When the Doheny Mansion was built in 1928--today the area is called Greystone Park--the cost was 3 million dollars making it the most expensive home in California up until that time. 

Edward Doheny, an oil tycoon, commissioned the architect Gordon Kaufmann design a home for his son Edward “Ned” Doheny Jr. and his family. Kaufman designed an elegant 46,000 sq. ft. 55-room Tudor style mansion that sat surrounded by 12-acres ** of distinctive English gardens.

1928

Just five months after moving into this Beverly Hills mansion with his wife Lucy and their five children Ned was found dead of a gunshot wound one rainy afternoon. 

The official newspaper reports stated that Ned’s long-time assistant and friend Hugh Plunkett had gone crazy and shot his boss in the head and then turned and shot himself in the head. It was stated that the two men argued over a salary raise for Plunkett. It was also mentioned Plunkett had been “mentally’ stressed out over his recent divorce.

This official cause almost immediately began to be questioned. Rumors ran rampant as to the real reason Ned Doheny was murdered. 

Years later, one of the homicide detectives that responded to the mansion, Leslie T. White raised doubts about the official cause for this murder in his book entitled, Me, Detective. 

White revealed that it took the family several hours before they called the police. When he and other officers arrived, they found that the family and the family’s physician had tampered with the crime scene.

1930

The bodies of the two dead men had been moved, and there had been an attempt to disguise the real time of death. It was also apparent to the police that the mansion’s household staff’s eyewitness accounts had been "rehearsed." 

These manipulations and the family’s claims contradicted the blood and bullet evidence these officers found. White states that a proper investigation of the crime scene was never conducted. He feels this was most likely because of the families’ political influence. 

Many find this case unusual in that it was declared solved the very next day by the District Attorney’s office. Even more curious, the family had both Ned and Plunkett cremated immediately--this was against the Doheny’s families’ religious beliefs.

The following is a popular theory that has been circulated for years as to the real reason these two men ended up dead. 

It is stated that Lucy, Ned’s wife was a very religious woman. Some believe she killed her husband and Plunkett because she discovered they had been carrying on a gay love affair. This theory is supported by several known facts. 

Witnesses earlier on the day the two men died stated they heard an argument in Plunkett’s apartment--doors were heard slamming which actually could have been gunshots. A female voice was heard as well. It is stated that Ned’s gun was the murder weapon, not Hugh Plunkett’s gun.

Where Ned Doheny was buried also leads many to feel that this might have been the actual cause. Even though Ned’s death was a murder, not a suicide his relatives did not bury him in the family plot at the Catholic Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles but instead at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale. 

Curiously, the Doheny family had the remains of their son’s supposed killer, Hugh Plunkett buried nearby Ned. Many still wonder why.

Ned’s widow Lucy continued to live in the mansion until 1955. 

A Chicago Industrialist by the name of Henry Crown then bought the mansion. He started leasing it to film studios. The mansion’s grand staircase has been highlighted in many films. Its formal gardens and manicured grounds have also been used as an ideal backdrop in many films. *** 

When Crown decided to subdivide the property and tear down the mansion in 1965 the city of Beverly Hills bought the property to stop this demolition.

Renovated Greystone Park

In 1971 the grounds were turned into a city park. The estate was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. The American Film Institute leased the mansion from 1964 until 1982. Today the house is maintained by the City of Beverly Hills, which holds several high-profile fund-raisers there each year.

These two murders still remain a mystery. But one item connected to the mansion seems to be agreed upon by many. The Greystone Mansion is haunted. People believe that the deaths of Ned Doheny and Hugh Plunkett in 1929 are the reason why. 

Witnesses have seen paranormal activity for decades. One common sight is that of an apparition of a man walking the hallways near the guest room where supposedly the murders took place. No one knows for sure if this is Doheny’s or Plunkett’s ghost.

Another unusual sight often seen in the mansion is that of a pool of blood. This blood is seen on the floor in the bedroom where again supposedly the murders took place. This sight always confounds witnesses because it disappears as soon as it is seen. Many who have seen it wonder what message the ghost or ghosts are trying to convey. Unfortunately, at least one of these two men is not at peace.

* Plunkett was also implicated in the Teapot Dome Scandal.

** With the mansion the the entire estate is over 18 acres.

*** The majority of the TV series Dark Shadows was filmed at Greystone Park.