Another tidbit from the "early-days-of-Hollywood" file.
While admiring a circa 1939 postcard of Hollywood's Hotel Brevoort "and tropical gardens" on Lexington Avenue near Vine (Vine and Santa Monica vicinity), I came across another forgotten name from the Silent Era: Monroe Salisbury.
Hotel Brevoort, circa 1939/1940
https://i1.wp.com/www.martinturnbull...7/brevoort.jpg
Monroe Salisbury
wikimedia
Salisbury, born "Orange Cash" (!), was an East Coast "matinee idol" who started appearing in movies in 1914, did well enough at Universal Studios to purchase a citrus ranch near Hemet, and around 1920 was living with his mother at The Mountain View Inn on Hollywood Blvd. The Mountain View was located between Gower and Bronson, next to a small thoroughfare called Brokaw Place, which no longer exists.
The Mountain View Inn, Hollywood Blvd. about 1930
lacurbed.com
His movie career over by 1930, he was a resident at the Warner-Kelton Hotel (called in one newspaper article the Walton-Kelton), built in 1927 at 6326 Lexington Avenue, owned by comedic actress Pert Kelton (unable to find where the "Warner" or "Walton" comes in), which became the Brevoort sometime in the 1930's. Many actors, mostly small-time, lived at the hotel. One example from 1928 was George Chandler, who became one of the most recognizable character actors of the 1940's through the 70's, usually playing "kindly-or-crusty uncle" types. 50's TV Star Robert "Bob" Cummings lived there for a time in 1944 (his marriage was ending). The hotel had a rear garden and wishing well. Legend has it that the wishing well may have inspired a delightful 1936 Rogers and Hart song, "There's a Small Hotel, With a Wishing Well," although other sources site small hotels with wishing wells in New Jersey and Montecito, Ca. as being the song's inspiration.
George Chandler
ebay/historicimages
Pert Kelton, about 1942
wikipedia
In the summer of 1935, Monroe Salisbury, occupation listed as "hotel clerk," was admitted to Patton State Hospital, a mental institution near San Bernardino. One month later he had a "bad fall" (possibly suspicious?) and died of a fractured skull. Salisbury was buried alongside his mother at Rosedale Cemetery on Washington Blvd. Rest in peace, Monroe.
The Hotel Brevoort is also known as one of the first of several addresses where Elizabeth Short, "The Black Dahlia," lived during her time in Hollywood. She stayed there with a boyfriend, Gordon Fickling, for approximately a week in 1946. The author of the exhaustively-researched "The Black Dahlia in Hollywood" website says that Beth Short stayed at the Sunset Motel before her appearance at The Brevoort. Could this be the Sunset Auto Court, shown here in NLA a couple of years ago?
Elizabeth Short
blackdahliainhollywood.com
Sunset Auto Court, 5154 Sunset, 1940's
noirishlosangeles/foundimage
(Sorry, couldn't find source of this photo I saved...please let me know)
Recent photos show the run-down looking Brevoort still with its "hotel" sign out front, although I don't find references to it online as a working hotel or apartment building. Perhaps someone here knows the answer. It is listed at a City of Los Angeles site as "rooming house/apartment hotel/transient lodging." On a facebook blog discussing the hotel, a writer says (paraphrased) "I lived here for a few months around 2000...incredible energy...dripping with the past...it was full of vagabonds and being run by a ...very old, angry, forgotten film actor from the 40's or 50's."
Hotel Brevoort today
apartments.com
View from 2nd floor balcony, Hotel Brevoort
flickr.com
Robert Cummings & Betty Field (wearing eerie mask) in "Flesh And Fantasy" 1943
ebay
Robert Cummings and co-star Priscilla Lane in Hitchcock's "Saboteur," 1942
pinterest