Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel

Financed by Hollywood’s royalty--Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, the Roosevelt Hotel, opened its doors in 1927. 

This hotel’s ballroom called The Blossom Room hosted the first two Academy Awards ceremonies in 1929-30. During Hollywood’s Golden era the Roosevelt became the playground for many famous Hollywood stars.

When hauntings are mentioned in connection to this hotel located on Hollywood Boulevard what comes to mind first is the infamous mirror that once hung in Suite 1200, where Marilyn Monroe stayed when she was at the hotel.

This mirror, after Monroe’s death, was moved to the hotel manager’s office. An employee while dusting it spotted what she described as “a sad blonde lady” reflected as well as her own image. 

She turned around only to find she was the only one in the room. When she turned back to the mirror, the sad lady was still there. Today this mirror hangs near an elevator foyer in the lobby.

Unsuspecting guests who stop to straighten their hair, or check their make-up sometimes get a glimpse of this sad lady.

Another famous star that has been seen at the Roosevelt is Montgomery Clift. While making From Here to Eternity Clift stayed in Room 928. To this day, this room and the hallway around it are considered haunted. 

Maids state that they often feel as if they are being watched while on the 9^th floor. Clift’s apparition has been seen pacing outside this room in the hallway, and some have even reported hearing him playing “ a bugle.” This is the instrument his character played in the film.

Inside Room 928, one maid was shoved into a closet by unseen hands. 

One couple who stayed in this room was reading in bed as her husband slept beside her. She felt a gentle tapping on her shoulder and turned to say goodnight to her husband only to discover he was sound asleep.

Peter James, a psychic who investigated the hotel in the 1990s, stayed in this room and reported afterward that he felt angry energy in the room. 

At one point in the middle of the night, as he lay in bed, he spotted Clift’s apparition sitting on a corner chair. This apparition watched him for thirty minutes and then got up and headed for the bathroom at which point it disappeared.

It is stated that Carole Lombard haunts the hotel’s 12^th floor. It was on this floor. where she and Clark Gable stayed when at the Roosevelt.

The ballroom at the hotel is considered haunted as well. There is a distinct large cold spot in this room that remains in the same area and is always at least ten degrees cooler than the rest of the room.

Blossom Room

One ghost connected to this ballroom is a man who wears a tuxedo. One psychic who investigated this area stated this ghost gives off a very anxious vibe. 

Because of this, some speculate this ghost is probably the spirit of a person who attended the first Academy Awards ceremonies held in this room.

Another couple staying at the Roosevelt one evening, heard piano music coming from the ballroom. They approached a balcony that overlooks the room and saw a man standing near the piano wearing a white suit. When they spoke to him, he didn’t respond. They were then shocked to see him just vanish where he stood.

Hotel security guards, on their security cameras, have seen both in the early morning and late at night, a ghost swimming in the pool. When they go to investigate no one is in the pool or near it. 

On one occasion, one guard stayed to monitor the screen, and the other went to the pool. The guard at the pool waved to the camera indicating he saw no one but the other guard saw his waving hands on the monitor pass right through the ghosts’ head.

A front desk receptionist, working the graveyard shift was surprised to see a female child singing and skipping around the hotel lobby’s fountain in the middle of the night. This very young girl was wearing a pink jacket and had her hair tied back in a ponytail. This child then just vanished as the female employee watched.

Peter James, during his investigation at the Roosevelt, claimed to talk to this same little girl. She told him her name is Caroline and that she is sad because she cannot find her mother.

In the early 1980s, this hotel was given a 12 million dollar facelift. This renovation stirred up the ghostly activity. 

The Ghost of Sonja Henie

“I want to do with skates what Fred Astaire is doing with dancing (in the movies).”

                                                           --Sonja Henie

Sonja Henie was born in Kistiania--now known as Oslo, Norway. She skated in her first Winter Olympic Games in 1924 at the young age of eleven. She went on to receive gold medals for figure skating in 1928, 1932, and 1936.

Sonja Henie was the world’s first figure skating superstar.

Retiring from competition in 1936 Henie moved to the United States where she became a film star. Most of the films she performed in were tailor-made to highlight her skating ability. 

Sonja also toured in her own ice show called, Hollywood Ice Revue. By the 1940s she had hung up her skates and stopped touring. Sonja officially retired in 1960.

She was married three times. Her one regret in life was she not able to have children. In 1969, Henie died from complications due to leukemia at the age of fifty-seven. Her third husband, Niels Onstad at her request left their considerable art collection in a public trust. *

Sonja Henie and Neils Onstad

At the height of her fame, Henie had her dream home designed by Paul Williams and built in 1937. 

This old-style 3-story elegant Hollywood mansion is located across the street from Sunset Boulevard. It sits on 5 acres and has a sweeping circular drive, grand staircase, swimming pool, and tennis courts.

One unique item Henie had built in the home was an ice rink upstairs in the home’s attic.

In the early 1970s, singer-actress Connie Stevens bought this home from Onstad. He stated at the time that the house was built for children. 

She paid only $250,000, which was a low-price for this elegant Hollywood mansion. She moved in with her two daughters that she had with her ex-husband Eddie Fisher.

Connie Stevens lived in the home for many years. ** 

She has occasionally rented it out, and it was used in the Mike Nichols’ film, Postcards From the Edge. 

Over the years, both Stevens and her daughters' experienced encounters with what they feel is Sonja Henie’s ghost.

Connie's story was highlighted in one season finale on Biography’s Celebrity Ghost Stories.

Most of the strange activity that occurs is centered in the attic room, where Henie’s rink was. The Stevens' family often hears loud footsteps and music coming from this area, as well as Windows being slammed shut.

Items on a dressing table, in one bedroom in the home, were found missing or moved. Stevens awoke one night to see Henie’s ghost standing near her bed. The activity has continued to this day.

Stevens stated that the lights turn on in the attic whenever someone new is in the home.

Neils Onstad never told his wife about her leukemia diagnosis, he instead told her that her “tiredness” was from anemia. 

Some state this is a possible reason why Sonja Henie haunts her beloved home. Others point out that it was the presence of Stevens’ daughters that kept her in the house.

* Sonja Henie had an estate worth over a hundred million dollars at her death, part of this fortune she inherited from her Norwegian father’s fur trade business, part of it she earned. Neils Onstad was a Billionaire shipping magnate when they married.

** In 1992 Stevens put the home on the market to sell.

Here is a link to the Biography Channel video, The Haunting of Connie Stevens. This is the best picture quality one I could find. The "Long Island Medium" does a reading of the house.

Rudolph Valentino’s Ghost and Cursed Ring

“What the average man calls death; I believe to be merely the beginning of life itself. We simply live beyond the shell. We emerge from out of its narrow confines like a chrysalis. Why call it death? Or, if we give it the name death, why surround it with dark fears and sick imaginings? I am not afraid of the unknown.”

                                                             --Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino was the most popular film star of the 1920s silent era. Millions of women idolized him as America’s first sex symbol. 

He was born in 1895, to a French mother and an Italian father. He grew up in Italy. When he immigrated to New York, his godfather helped him get his first job. He was a taxi dancer, which was a person who danced with a variety of partners in a café for ten cents a dance. 

Valentino being an above average dancer began to perform for New York society. Later it was Valentino who introduced the Argentine Tango to America when he played it in his first film “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” in 1921.

Valentino once said, “Women are not in love with me but with the picture of me on the screen. I am merely the canvas upon which the women paint their dreams.” 

On-screen Valentino was known for his deep penetrating gaze, in real life, Valentino was never lucky in his marriages or love affairs. 

He left New York and followed his godfather to San Francisco because he had become infatuated with a married New York socialite by the name of Blanca de Saulles. 

During her divorce trial, he testified on her behalf. Her husband, a prominent businessman, was not pleased, so he had Valentino arrested on vice charges. It was never made clear what vice Valentino was guilty of, but his record was wiped clean of these charges in the 1920s. 

Blanca shot her ex-husband, Valentino wishing to avoid further scandal left New York.

When Valentino first began acting, he was in a string of B movies. It was during this time his mother died, and he fell in love with an unknown actress by the name of Jean Acker. 

Acker was a lesbian, but Valentino was not aware of this, so he proposed. Acker accepted thinking it might be an excellent way to avoid scandal in her own life. 

But on their wedding night, Acker locked Valentino out, so their marriage was never consummated. Valentino still not understanding begged for Acker’s forgiveness “for whatever he had done.” 

He moved on when he discovered the truth. It is the shortest marriage in Hollywood history. It lasted only six hours.

Valentino worked with an artistic director by the name of Natacha Rambova while filming “Camille.” The two fell in love and moved into together. 

Valentino obtained a divorce from Acker. It was during this time (1921) that he was cast in his most famous role, “The Sheik." 

To Valentino’s chagrin, this role became the image that most people associated him with. Tragically, just a short five years later while promoting the sequel to this film, “Son of Sheik” he became ill, collapsed and died at the age of 31.

Valentino married Rambova in 1923, but their relationship was doomed--one reason being that each movie they starred in together flopped. 

In fact, their collaboration efforts made Valentino box office poison for a while. The papers at the time always blamed Rambova for these failures. 

Another contentious issue for the couple was Valentino desperately wanted children and Rambova didn’t. The marriage finally was over when Rambova had an affair with her cameraman. 

Valentino despondent contemplated suicide. The two divorced in 1926.

Valentino’s life became reckless after this, he carried on affairs with several women at the same time, and he took unnecessary risks. 

More than once, he almost killed himself in car accidents, and when he became ill, he refused to see a doctor. While promoting “Son of Sheik,” Valentino was sick, so he was transferred to a hospital in New York. 

The doctors discovered he had bleeding ulcers. They performed an operation, which they deemed a success but a few days later Valentino took a turn for the worse and died from an infection caused by the surgery.

Unlucky in love, Valentino also, in a way considered himself unlucky in the roles he played. Some of his most successful films he resented because of the reputation it gave him. 

In fact, during the time he was promoting “Son of Sheik” a writer at the Chicago Tribune wrote an editorial blaming Rudolph Valentino for causing the “feminization of the American male.” This editorial called him a “pink powder puff.” 

Valentino’s response to this was to challenge the writer to a boxing match. The writer of the piece refused, but the paper did send another writer whom they considered “a ringer.” Valentino beat him easily. This was during the time he was in great pain from bleeding ulcers. 

In his final hours, he asked his doctors, "and now do I act like a pink powder puff?" His doctors told him he had more courage than most men.

Valentino’s business manager George Ullman arranged to have a public viewing of Valentino’s body in New York. 80,000 hysterical women showed up almost causing a riot, Ullman had to abandon his idea. 

When Valentino’s body was carried by train to Los Angeles for a second funeral, several distraught women committed suicide. At the time of his death, Valentino was 3 million dollars in debt—so there was no money to handle his estate or his burial. 

A friend, June Mathis owned several crypts in Hollywood Forever Cemetery, so she offered to loan one to Valentino. His body still lies in this crypt because soon after his death, the depression hit, so plans to raise funds to pay for a memorial for his final resting place was set aside.

Valentino’s ghost is often seen in places that he had connections to while alive. Many witnesses have spotted him at his Beverly Hills mansion, Falcon’s Lair. 

Soon after his death, an overnight guest saw doors open and close. 

Rudy and Brownie Valentino’s Great Danes, seemed to know it was their former master and they didn’t react to when his ghost was active. 

Harry Carey in subsequent years owned the mansion. He reported encountering Valentino’s ghost in his old bedroom, and Carey saw Valentino petting an imaginary horse in the mansion’s stables. Valentino, while alive, kept a most beloved horse in this stable. 

The actress Millicent Rodgers also reported seeing Valentino while staying at Falcon’s Lair. Other witnesses reported seeing what appeared to be Valentino standing at a window staring down at the people below.

Valentino has also made appearances at Valentino Place, which was a speakeasy that he often visited. 

His ghost has been spotted at his beach house in Oxnard, where he stayed while filming “The Sheik.” He is seen pacing the veranda. 

Valentino also haunts suite 210 at the Santa Maria Inn. Guests feel a weight on the bed and hear odd sounds. 

At Paramount Studios he is seen walking through the front gate and walking through walls.

One young actress had an unusual encounter with his ghost while filming a scene. She reported that she felt a person climb into bed with her. She felt an amorous body press up against hers, and she felt someone’s breath on her neck. 

When she turned, she recognized Valentino and then supposedly fainted.

A Cursed Ring

A side note to the Valentino story is about a legend of a silver ring that he bought that is cursed. 

The jeweler he bought it from told him that all the former owners of the ring had terrible luck. He wore the ring while making “The Young Rajah” which flopped so badly he did not work for two years. 

Freaked out Valentino didn’t wear the ring again until he went on his promotional tour of the “Son of Sheik.” Within two weeks of wearing it, he died.

The ring was passed on to the actress Pola Negri who was dating Valentino when he died. Immediately, her health failed, which almost ended her film career. She gave the ring to a singer named Russ Columbo, who had an uncanny resemblance to Valentino. 

Columbo died in a mysterious shooting accident that is unsolved to this day. 

Columbo’s cousin then gave the ring to Columbo’s friend, Joe Casino, who knew the backstory of the ring but he threw caution to the wind and wore the ring and was run over by a truck. 

More recently, a young actor wore the ring while performing in a screen test for a film about Valentino’s life, ten days after the screen test he died at the age of 21 from a rare blood disease.