Haunted Pickfair, Part l

Pickford, Fairbanks wedding.

When Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. met, they fell madly in love, but there was one snag, they both were married. This meant their courtship had to be done in secrecy for they were both silent-screen film stars at the time.

Mary Pickford became a stage actress at the age of five. She grew up in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. As a teen, she conquered Broadway and then Hollywood as “America’s Sweetheart” on the silver screen. Pickford was beloved for both her beauty and charm.

Mary Pickford

In just one year, 1909, she performed in 40 short silent films for D.W. Griffith’s Biograph Company. She often betrayed very young girls even though by this time she was an adult.

Pickford not only was a stage and film actress she also produced films and wrote screenplays. She co-founded United Artists with Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks Sr., whom she married in 1920.

The two film stars became Hollywood’s first super couple—adored by fans and the film industry elite.

Fairbanks born in Denver, Colorado, starred on Broadway and then made his first film with D.W. Griffith in 1915. He later produced and directed several of the movies in which he starred.

Fairbanks as Robin Hood

He became known for a swashbuckler, physically demanding roles, such as Robin Hood and Zorro—where he is credited for inventing the slashed “Z” for the character. Over his twenty-year film career, he also starred in many comedies—he had great comedic timing.

Fairbanks purchased a large mansion in Beverly Hills, originally a hunting lodge from Lee A. Phillips. He bought this 16-acre property, in 1919 before Pickford’s divorce from her first husband was finalized.

Fairbanks and Pickford had the architect Wallace Neff renovate the estate. It took five years.

Their home now was four stories with twenty-five rooms. Stables, tennis courts, servant quarters, a large guest wing and garages surrounded this Tudor style mansion.

It even had Beverly Hill’s first in-ground pool.

It wasn’t long before the press dubbed the newlyweds new home Pickfair—a play on both their names.

Pickfair

Their estate became legendary for the parties that Pickford and Fairbanks hosted. Life Magazine stated that Pickfair was “a gathering place only slightly less important than the White House . . . but much more fun.”

Besides all of Hollywood’s stars, their guest list included: George Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, H. G. Wells, Lord Mountbatten, Amelia Earhart, F. Scott Fitzgerald, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Eleanor Roosevelt, Pearl S. Buck, Thomas Edison, Arthur Conan Doyle, the King of Queen of Siam . . . This is just a brief sampling.

The two actors only starred in one film together, The Taming of the Shrew in 1929, nine years after they married.

With the advent of talking pictures, both Pickford’s and Fairbank’s acting careers declined. The two stars were intensely jealous lovers and with rumors swirling about Fairbanks' womanizing and Pickford's drinking they separated in 1933 and then divorced in 1936.

Mary lived at Pickfair with her third husband Buddy Rodgers until her death in 1979. Douglas retired from acting in 1936, he died of a heart attack in 1939.

In Haunted Pickfair, Part ll here information is shared about the ghost seen at this estate for many years.

Here is a short video about Pickford and Fairbanks.

Haunted Pickfair, Part ll

In Part I, I share information about Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Sr.’s illustrious silent film careers and the Beverly Hills mansion they made their own.

Pickford and Fairbanks

At the time Fairbanks and Pickford purchased this large estate located in San Ysidro Canyon in Beverly Hills, California they both knew that the 16-acre property had a reputation, people believed it was haunted.

They had heard the stories that a ghost resided in the home’s attic. Annoying banging sounds and disembodied footsteps were reported.

In 1920, they married and moved into the mansion that the press nicknamed “Pickfair.”

Pickfair in the 1920s

Twelve years later, in 1932, Fairbanks, stated the following during an interview.

“I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe Pickfair is haunted, though Mary is sure of it; I’m sure there is some explanation if we could find it, of the sounds we hear there.”

Mary, unlike her husband, was firmly convinced that Pickfair was haunted. She often spoke to friends about the home’s ghost.

Besides loud noises, an apparition was also seen at Pickfair. In 1935, a columnist, Lee Frank interviewed Mary about the ghost.

Pickford mentioned she heard the attic ghost on three different occasions; in each encounter, it became louder.

“I am a sound sleeper, but I could not sleep under these noises which sounded like the tramping of heavy feet. I sat up in bed and addressed myself to the ghost.”

‘I wouldn’t treat you this way,’ I said; ‘It isn’t ladylike. I don’t expect you to treat me in this manner.“

Pickford then said, “The noises ceased.”

She made the point that she was not the only one who heard the noises. Douglas also heard them. She never herself saw the ghost but a staff member and a visiting friend did.

“One day our cook, a practical, unemotional Swedish woman, ran out of the kitchen in terror, brandishing a knife, she declared she was pursuing a strange, dark woman whom she had seen in the kitchen.”

Later a friend of hers, an author, who stayed at Pickfair, came downstairs with strange news.

She asked Mary, “Have you had your second floor changed?”

I told her yes, we had. She then explained,

I just saw a strange tall, dark woman in the hallway up there. She was looking at the alcove up there. Her eyes wandered about in a puzzled way as she looked from side to side, as if to say—something has changed here. At first, I thought she was Theresa, your maid; then I saw she was a stranger. I went to speak to her. She vanished.”

Pickford went on to muse that the ghost probably at one time had lived in the house. She stayed because she liked it or maybe because “Some great joy or sorrow had befallen her there.”

Years later, an elderly man approached Mary in New York City and asked her for the location of Pickfair, she told him, he then asked is that near the old Philips house—that place was haunted.

She replied, “It IS the old Phillips house.”

As mentioned in Part l here she and Douglas had bought the house from Lee A. Phillips.

One final note:

Pia Zodora

Pia Zodora, and her husband bought Pickfair in 1988. They promised to maintain the property but instead in 1990 they had it demolished. Originally, in response to the public outcries that this historical house should not have been torn down, Zodora stated it had termites, therefore, it was necessary.

She told a different story in 2012 when she appeared on, “Celebrity Ghost Stories.”

She states that there was a female ghost in the attic that she claimed had an affair with Douglas Fairbanks Sr. Both she and her children saw this ghost, dressed in 1920s attire. It would enter the children’s bedrooms at night and laugh while standing at the end of their beds, which frightened them.

One night as they all slept together in Zodora’s bedroom the ghost appeared once more. They all ran out of the home as the ghost followed them laughing.

She mentioned she brought in an exorcist to get rid of the ghost but it did not work. She then defended her and her husband’s decision by stating that they had no choice—tearing down the house was the only way to get rid of this entity.

The story she told on this show indicated the ghost had died in the home.

None of her claims about this ghost have been proven. Zodora quietly sold the estate in 2011, before her television appearance.

She probably did see a ghost, but from what is known, the ghost she encountered lived and died years before Pickford and Fairbanks owned the home.