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Seeing Stars in Hollywood
A list of Hollywood locations of famous celebrity deaths,
crimes, murders, & suicides.
The 1960's
The 2010's - The 2000's - The 1990's - The
1980's - The 1970's -
The
1960's - The 1950's - The 1940's
- The 1930's - The
1920's
12305
Fifth Helena Drive, Brentwood: the house
where actress Marilyn Monroe
died of an overdose on the evening of August 4, 1962.
 9137
S. Figueroa Street, in south-central Los Angeles: site
of the former Hacienda Motel (now called the Star Motel),
where popular singer Sam Cooke
("You Send Me," "Wonderful World," "Another Saturday
Night") was shot to death in December of 1964 by a motel manager
armed with a .22 pistol.
Cooke had
taken a woman to the seedy motel, and after the shooting she claimed that
he had tried to rape her. However, evidence suggests that she may have
been a prostitute who might have tried to rob Cooke, leading to the chase.
When Cooke broke down the door of the manager's office, where he mistakenly
believed the woman had gone, the shocked manager shot him. *
3400
Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles: the
Ambassador Hotel, where Presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy
was assassinated (in the hotel pantry) after he won the 1968 California
Primary.
 10050
Cielo Drive (now changed to 10066), Beverly Hills:
the house where the Manson
Family cult slaughtered actress Sharon Tate
and five others (including her unborn child, Paul Richard Polanski) on
August 9, 1969.
The murders were the basis of the 1976 movie, "Helter
Skelter." Before the murders, this house had been the home of
Henry Fonda
and was the site where Cary Grant
& Dyan Cannon
honeymooned in 1965.
(Since new buyers were reluctant to live there, in
1994, the owners tore down the original home and built a new 17,000 square
foot Mediterranean villa on the same site.)
 off
Santa Susana Pass Road west of Topanga Canyon Road, Chatsworth, CA:
the Spahn Movie Ranch, a deserted former studio ranch (in the rocky
hills of the northwest San Fernando Valley) where
Charles Manson and his "family"
lived before the Sharon Tate
murders.
Years earlier, Tom Mix movie Westerns were shot there. The remaining
ranch buildings burned back in 1970, during the Manson trial.
The main buildings
of the movie ranch were roughly where the map says "Santa Susana
Pass Road". Between Santa Susana Pass Road and Stagecoach Road, the
land dips down into a bowl that stretches across to the main ranch area.
The Church of Rocky Peak was bought the property,
where they built a church and Christian day-care center.
(map
approximate) *
8787 Shoreham Drive,
West Hollywood (near the Sunset Strip,
at Horn, just above Spago), :
the sixth floor apartment from which Art
Linkletter's daughter, Dianne,
jumped to her death in 1969. Her family has insisted that she had been
on drugs (LSD) at the time, but an autopsy showed no evidence of drugs
in her system.
3110 Laurel Canyon Drive, Los Angeles:
the Hollywood Hills home where silent screen actor Ramon
Novarro ("Ben-Hur") was
found murdered on Halloween night of1968. Two young thieves, looking for
hidden money (which didn't exist), tortured the 69-year-old actor in his
home, and eventually beat him to death. It is said that his ghost still
haunts the house.
 2126
El Roble Lane, West Los Angeles: the home
where Nick Adams
(star of TV's "The Rebel") died of an apparent overdose
in 1968. However, there were no open pill bottles, needles, or any other
drug-related items found at the scene, so his death remains something of
a mystery.
 8825
W. Hollywood Boulevard, West Hollywood:
the home of controversial stand-up comic Lenny
Bruce, where he killed himself with an
overdose of drugs in 1966.
His story was told in the 1974 movie "Lenny,"
starring Dustin Hoffman.
 Hollywood
Blvd and Ivar Avenue: the corner where
actor William Frawley
dropped dead on the street of a heart attack in 1966. Frawley, who had
played neighbor 'Fred Mertz' in the classic TV show "I Love Lucy"
(and 'Bub' on "My Three Sons") had been out to see a movie,
and collapsed on his way back. A nurse dragged him into the lobby of the
Knickerbocker Hotel,
but he was DOA. Ironically, his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located
just a half block away, on the south side of the street.
 1032 W. 18th Street, Los Angeles: It was here, on Sept. 21, 1964, that actor Percy Kilbride and
a friend were both killed when they were struck by a car while crossing
this residential street. The friend died immediately; Mr Kilbride was
hospitalized and died on December 11.
Percy Kilbride was best known to movie viewers as Pa Kettle in the Ma & Pa Kettle film series of the 1940s & 50s.
Pa was a slow-talking, shiftless, dirt-poor farmer who shared a
dilapidated farm and a dozen rambunctious children with his cantankerous
wife Ma (Marjorie Main). The couple starred in a very popular comedy
film series; seven movies with titles such as Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm and Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki.
 1776
N. Sycamore Avenue (above Hollywood Blvd.), Hollywood:
the apartment of Bobby Fuller,
the singer who (as lead singer of 'The Bobby Fuller Four') gave us "I Fought
The Law (And The Law Won)." In 1966, just five months after
that song hit the Top Ten, Fuller died mysteriously from gasoline
asphyxiation in his car (at age 22), while parked outside his apartment,
just around the corner from Grauman's
Chinese Theatre. Police labeled it a suicide, but the possibility of
foul play has also been mentioned. According to his road manager at the
time, "Bobby was found in his mother's car on the vacant lot
north of the building, where there is now a small park - about 50' from
Franklin & about 50' from Sycamore and about 50' from the apartment
house."
 The
corner of Beverly Glen Blvd and Santa Monica Blvd:
the intersection where comic genius Ernie
Kovacs died on the morning of Jan 12,
1962. He was heading home from a party for Milton Berle, driving his white
Corvair south on Beverly Glen, when he tried to negotiate a left turn onto
Santa Monica Blvd at 50 mph. He may have been trying to light one of his
trademark cigars at the time, since one was found next to his body. Whatever,
he lost control of the car on the rain-wet street and the driver's side
of the car smashed into a utility pole, killing him instantly.
* locations marked by an asterisk could be located in a
high-crime district. Exercise reasonable caution.
The 2020's - The 2010's - The 2000's - The 1990's - The
1980's - The 1970's
The
1960's - The 1950's - The
1940's - The 1930's - The
1920's
ALSO SEE: CELEBRITY SCANDALS
A list Hollywood locations of famous
celebrity crimes,
sex scandals, arrests, misbehavior... and occasional celebrity heroics.
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