Introduction
Since the dawn of Hollywood, Americans have been fascinated by the movie stars that grace the silver screen. Both their on-screen and real-life personas have been endlessly studied. Each of the postcards in this exhibit of their homes represents a part of that fascination, showing the abodes of silent film stars, child actors, suave men, and stars with tragic deaths. While the exact date of many of these postcards remains unknown, they were likely produced in the 1930s or 1940s.
The postcards are sorted by city: Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, and other California locations.
Bing Crosby
Actor Bing Crosby built this house in 1936. While he was living in the house, he starred in two of his best-known roles, Holiday Inn and Road to Morocco (both released in 1942). In 1941, he recorded Irving Berlin’s song "White Christmas," and the recording is today the world’s best-selling single.
On July 4, 1943, a short circuit lit the Christmas tree on fire, and the house was destroyed. This postcard was mailed around two years later, showing that it took a while for publishers to catch up with stars’ personal lives.
Bob Hope
Crosby’s co-star in the Road to… film series, Bob Hope, lived at this house in North Hollywood. Hope is remembered for his longtime work with the USO. This house of his was built in 1939 and was designed by Robert Finkelhor, and was expanded in the 1950s by John Elgin Woolf. The house is still standing and features a three-hole golf course designed by Hope.
Shirley Temple
Child star Shirley Temple moved into this house in Los Angeles’s Brentwood neighborhood in 1936, when Temple was eight. Temple would later live here with her first husband and moved away in 1950. At around the same time, she retired from acting in film, though she would later have her own television show. This house is still standing but it has been split in two.
Claudette Colbert
Claudette Colbert was born in France and began her acting career on Broadway. Colbert became an early star of talking pictures and eventually ended her film career in the 1950s. Her most notable films include It Happened One Night and Cecil B. DeMille’s Cleopatra. She would continue to act on stage and TV until the 1980s.
Don Ameche
Don Ameche was best known as a leading man of the 1930s and ‘40s, eventually pivoting his career to television. After appearing in the 1983 film Trading Places, he returned to the screen for several roles until his death a decade later.
Ameche purchased this house in the 1930s, around the same time it was rented by W. C. Fields. Ameche moved away in the 1940s, and today the house is said to be haunted by Field’s ghost.
Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper’s career spanned the 1920s to the 1960s, and he was one of Hollywood’s most successful leading men. This house, which was on a three-acre lot, was built by Cooper and his wife Veronica in 1936. Following their separation in 1951, Veronica kept the house, and they decided to sell the home in 1953 after the two reunited.
Loretta Young
This house belonged to actress Loretta Young, best known for her 1947 film The Farmers Daughter, who lived in this house on the iconic Sunset Boulevard. Architect Garrett Van Pelt designed the home, while the interior was designed by Young’s mother, Gladys.
Tyrone Power
Tyrone Power portrayed everyone on screen from Jesse James to Zorro to the Swedish Count Hans Axel von Fersen the Younger. His career was cut short by a fatal heart attack in 1958 at the age of 44.
The home above was designed by noted African American architect Paul Williams in 1937 for a singer. It was sold shortly after its construction to Power. The second Tyrone Power house, shown below and located in Bel-Air, was also designed by Paul Williams and was commissioned by Power in 1947.
Jane Withers
Jane Withers, who started her career on an Atlanta radio program, moved to Hollywood in 1932 at the age of six. She was famous for her role opposite Shirley Temple in the 1934 film Bright Eyes, and like Temple retired from film acting in her 20s. Later in life, she appeared on television, did some voice work, and became known as an avid doll collector. She passed away in 2021.
Information about this house is hard to find, but it is clear that a second story was added sometime during Wither’s ownership of the home.
Fredric March
Fredric March was in several classic roles, including Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from the 1931 adaptation of the story and Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. He also appeared in the 1937 version of A Star is Born. Architect Wallace Neff designed this home for March and his wife, Florence. More recent owners of the home are Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston, who significantly expanded the house. It is one of several houses designed by Neff included in this exhibit.
Warner Baxter
Actor Warner Baxter managed to make the transition from silent to talking films and was best known for portraying the Cisco Kid in 1928’s In Old Arizona. He also played Jay Gatsby in the now-lost 1926 adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald disliked the film). Baxter built this house in 1932 and sold it in the 1940s. The inventor of the Barbie doll later owned the now-demolished home.
Pat O'Brien
Pat O’Brien was the descendant of Irish immigrants and often played Irish characters on screen. He worked with actor James Cagney on several films, including the gangster film Angels with Dirty Faces and Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot. His most famous role is football coach Knute Rockne in Knute Rockne, All American, where he acted alongside Ronald Reagan.
Joan Crawford
This house was purchased by Joan Crawford in 1928, and at the time it was brand-new. A year later, she married Douglas Fairbanks Jr., the son of famous actor Douglas Fairbanks Sr. (whose Beverly Hills house is featured later). Following their divorce in 1933, this house was majorly remodeled by Crawford. She continued improving and adding to the home until it was sold in 1960. It was remodeled again in 2003.
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow was one of the most successful actresses in Hollywood before the Hays Code in 1934. Her rise to stardom came in the film Hell’s Angels, directed by Howard Hughes. While filming the movie Saratoga with Clark Gable, she was killed and suffered kidney failure. She was 26, and at the time was dating William Powell. Saratoga would become her highest-grossing film after her tragic death.
This house was known, at one time, as “The Whitest House in Hollywood,” a moniker that played off of Harlow’s famous platinum blonde hair. She moved in around 1934.
Spencer Tracy
Hollywood legend Spencer Tracy’s career took off after MGM hired him in 1935, and he stayed in Hollywood for the next twenty years. In the 1940s, he began a life-long relationship with Katherine Hepburn. It is a bit unclear what house this postcard depicts, but it is likely his twelve-acre estate in the Encino neighborhood.
Deanna Durbin
Deanna Durbin began working in Hollywood as a child star in 1936, and she retired after a twelve-year career. Among Durbin’s fans was Anne Frank, and to this day a picture of Durbin can be found in Frank’s bedroom inside the Secret Annex. Durbin disappeared from the public eye in 1949 and only gave one interview before her death in France in 2013.
Wallace Reid
Wallace Reid appeared only in silent films during his relatively short career. He appeared as Dorian Gray in a 1913 film adaption of Oscar Wilde’s novel and appeared in director D. W. Griffith’s two most controversial films, Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. A morphine addiction caused his death in 1923, and his widow later became known for her drug awareness advocacy. This house of Reid’s was built in the 1920s, near the end of his life, and was demolished in the 1960s so a motel could be built.
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne debuted in Hollywood in 1930, and as the decade went on she became known for her screwball comedies. She starred opposite Cary Grant in several of these films. Though she retired from the screen in 1952, she became known for her philanthropy and work with the United Stations. She also volunteered for the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, and the Red Cross. She passed away in 1990.
This house of Dunne’s was built in 1936 and designed by Sumner Spalding. It has since been demolished.
Ann Harding
One of the earliest stars of talking pictures, Ann Harding would act until her retirement in 1965. One of her notable roles is Mary, the mother in the 1947 Christmas film It Happened on Fifth Avenue. This house of Harding’s was built by her and her first husband around 1930. Later owners included signer Rudy Vallée and comedian Arsenio Hall. It was demolished by Hall in the 1990s.
Judy Garland
The Wizard of Oz star Judy Garland had this house built in 1938, a year before her most iconic film was released. It was designed by Wallace Neff, who also designed the home of Fredric March and helped design the house of celebrity couple Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. Garland lived here for about ten years, and according to Hollywood Reporter, later residents include Quincy Jones and Marvin Gaye. The house is still standing.
John Boles
While John Boles acted opposite countless major stars, including Irene Dunne, Barbara Stanwyck, Shirley Temple, and Gloria Swanson, he is best remembered for his role as Victor Moritz, a friend of Dr. Frankenstein, in the 1931 film featuring Boris Karloff.
Around the time Boles appeared in Frankenstein, he lived at this home on Los Angeles’s Canyon Drive. His Beverly Hills home is featured later.
Charles "Buddy" Rogers
Known as “America’s Boyfriend,” Charles Rogers began his career at the end of the silent era. He starred in the 1927 film Wings alongside Clara Bow and Richard Arlen. The film, which tells the story of World War I pilots, won the first Oscar for best picture.
Richard Arlen
Richard Arlen was the other male lead in Wings, and like Charles Rogers was a star at the end of the silent era. Arlen later served as a flight instructor in World War II and appeared on television in a variety of Westerns. He continued to act until his death in 1976.
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney began as a child star at the age of six. He was the first teenager ever nominated for an Academy Award. During his early career, Rooney lived in this Encino home with his parents. His best-known work includes the movie Pete’s Dragon, and the classic comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. He continued to act until his death in 2014, after a film career of eighty-eight years.
Pickfair (Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford)
Considered the greatest of the Hollywood houses, Pickfair was owned by celebrity couple Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford from 1919 until their divorce in 1936. Pickford owned the house afterward and lived here with her third husband, Wings star Charles Rogers. The list of visitors to the home includes everyone from George Bernard Shaw to Charlie Chaplin and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The home was purchased by Pia Zadora in 1988, who controversially demolished the legendary home, later claiming it was because the house was haunted.
Clark Gable
Gone with the Wind star Clark Gable moved into this house in 1931 with his second wife, Maria Langham. Gable moved out in 1935, four years before his divorce from Maria. The house, which has since been demolished, was located in Beverly Hills, despite this postcard saying it was in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood Heights.
Dorothy Lamour
Earlier in this exhibit, the Road to… film series with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby was mentioned. Lamour starred in six of the seven films and had a cameo in the final movie. She was also known as a singer and was often cast as characters from far-off lands.
Eddie Cantor
Comedian Eddie Cantor was born Isidore Itzkowitz, and he began his career in vaudeville acts. He acted in the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway, and became a radio and movie performer in the 1930s. Notably, he was almost the lead in The Jazz Singer, the first “talkie.” Because of his unique appearance, he was often parodied in animated shorts.
As the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was looking create a memorable campaign in the 1930s, Cantor offered a suggestion inspired by The March of Time, a popular newsreel. Today, the March of Dimes is recognized globally for its efforts to end polio.
Cantor lived inside this house from the 1930s until 1950.
Wallace Beery
Wallace Beery was at one time the world’s highest-paid film actor (by $1). Among his many roles was Long John Silver in the 1934 film version of Stevenson’s Treasure Island, and Pancho Villa. He began his film career in 1913, and his final film was released several days before his death in 1949. He was married for a short time to actress Gloria Swanson.
William Powell
Actor William Powell starred the screwball comedy My Man Godfrey, but is now remembered for his role opposite Myrna Loy in The Thin Man series. Powell and Loy played Nick and Nora Charles, two witty detectives created by Dashiell Hammett.
Powell was married three times, most famously to Carole Lombard. He was dating Jean Harlow at the time of her tragic death in 1937.
Myrna Loy
William Powell’s frequent co-star, Myrna Loy, also had a Beverly Hills home. She appeared in fourteen films with Powell, stared opposite Cary Grant several times, including in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, and was in the original Cheaper by the Dozen.
Harold Lloyd
Silent film comedian Harold Lloyd’s best-known film was Safety Last!, which featured Lloyd hanging off a clock tower. The scene was later referenced in Back to the Future and remains one of the most iconic stunts of the silent era. Lloyd, with his trademark glasses, lived in this house from 1928 till his death in 1971. The house has been preserved, but the estate and gardens were broken up and sold.
This particular garden, featuring cascading fountains, represented Roman World in the classic science fiction film Westworld.
Norma Shearer
When she began her career, Norma Shearer was a silent film star and initially had a wholesome image. In the years between the introduction of sound and the Hayes Code, which censored many stories, Shearer chose roles that shed this image and made her a feminist icon. She was later in the running to play Scarlet O’Hara. She retired in 1942 and became somewhat reclusive. She passed away in 1983.
Robert Montgomery
Actor Robert Montgomery owned both of these Beverly Hills homes, but their history is unclear. He was known for his range and appeared in comedies and drama during his career. During World War II, he stepped away from Hollywood and served as an ambulance driver for the French and later as an officer in the US Navy. Montgomery was present both at Dunkirk and D-Day. His daughter, Elizabeth Montgomery, was the star of the sitcom Bewitched.
Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn’s Mulholland Farm was built in 1941. Interestingly, it had several secret passages. The home was later owned by Ricky Nelson, son of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson and one of the stars of the long-running sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. The home was demolished in the 1980s.
Jeanette MacDonald
Both an actress and a singer, Jeannette MacDonald is credited with bringing opera to a wider audience through the silver screen. A soprano, three of her records went gold. After retiring from the movies, she pivoted her career to the stage and television. This house of MacDonald’s was designed by its original owner, Catherine Johnson, in 1925 and is still standing in Beverly Hills.
Jack Benny
Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky) was one of the most popular comedians of the last century. Most famously, he hosted the Jack Benny Program on the radio from 1932 to 1955, and it was televised from 1950 to 1965.
Benny and his wife and co-star, Mary Livingstone, lived in this house designed by Carlton Burgess. The home is still standing.
This second home was also owned by Benny, though less information is available about it.
George Burns and Gracie Allen
Another home of famous comedian couple, George Burns and Gracie Allen, was also designed by Carlton Burgess. It was built in 1935. The two would live here until Allen’s death in 1964, and Burns would live in the home until his death at the age of 100.
The colors on this postcard were not lined up correctly, creating a unique (and obvious) printing error.
Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur’s best-known role was in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, where she plays Senator Jefferson Smith’s secretary, Clarissa. The classic film was initially planned to be a sequel to Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, a Gary Cooper movie also starring Arthur. Throughout the 1930s, she was known for her roles in screwball comedies. Her final film was the Western classic Shane. She passed away in 1991.
George Brent
Before becoming an actor, George Brent was in the Irish Republican Army. He was forced to flee, and returned to the United States. He was in countless movies between 1930 and 1953. He then began to work in television and stayed active until he passed away in 1979.
Charlie Chaplin
This house, owned by Charlie Chaplin, was known as the Breakaway House. It was built in 1922 for Chaplin by carpenters from the movie studio. The carpenters were only used to building temporary studio sets, so as soon as Chaplin moved in, the house began to fall apart. Quite surprisingly, the house is still standing.
Robert Taylor
Actor Robert Taylor was known as both an actor and singer and was a close friend of Ronald Reagan. He lived in this house before he married Barbara Stanwyck in 1939. Their ranch house in Fair Oaks is covered later in this exhibit.
Janet Gaynor
Known for her roles in the silent film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, the original A Star is Born, and State Fair, Janet Gaynor’s career stretched from the silent era into the 1980s. In addition to her work on screen and stage, she was an oil painter. Gaynor was forced to retire from acting after she was hit by a taxi in 1982, and the injuries led to her death two years later.
Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck
Celebrity couple Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck owned this home in the Northridge Estates neighborhood of Fair Oaks. Taylor’s Beverly Hills house was covered earlier. Stanwyck was in a variety of films ranging from the noir classic Double Indemnity to the holiday comedy Christmas in Connecticut. She later received three Emmy awards for her television work. Taylor and Stanwyck divorced in 1952.
Archive of the Past
Created by Andrew J. Bramlett
Archive of the Past covers everything historical: books, artifacts, photographs, buildings, art, music, and everything in between. Check out our social media for daily posts, and visit the exhibits page for curated collections.
Credits:
Andrew J. Bramlett Collection