Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel

The Knickerbocker Hotel opened in 1929 as a glamorous hotspot for Golden Age Hollywood celebrities. D.W. Griffith, the legendary film director, lived out his final year here before suffering a fatal stroke in 1948. The hotel was the site of Harry Houdini's widow Bess's final seance on Halloween 1936, attempting to contact her husband who had died exactly ten years earlier. The grand hotel was converted to senior housing in 1970.

The Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel opened in the summer of 1929 as a 500-room luxury establishment that would become known as "the Hotel of the Stars" and "Home of the Famous." Built for $1.5 million, its guest list read like a who's who of Golden Age Hollywood: Bette Davis, Cecil B. DeMille, Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Frank Sinatra, Lana Turner, Mae West, Judy Garland, Orson Welles, and Errol Flynn all passed through its doors. Elvis Presley stayed in Room 1016 while filming "Love Me Tender" and recording his first album, even posing for "Heartbreak Hotel" photos in its rooms. Marilyn Monroe would sneak through the kitchen to the hotel bar for secret rendezvous with baseball legend Joe DiMaggio—they allegedly honeymooned there after their January 1954 wedding.

But glamour and tragedy walked hand in hand at the Knickerbocker, and its history is stained with death. On July 23, 1948, legendary silent film director D.W. Griffith—once the most powerful name in Hollywood, reduced to a forgotten figure who wandered Hollywood Boulevard unrecognized—collapsed in the lobby and died of a massive stroke. He had spent his final years living in self-imposed exile at the hotel, not having made a film since 1931. Screenwriter Frances Marion recalled spotting him at a handprint ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theater, "hovering at the edge of the crowd"—the man who invented modern cinema had never been asked for his handprints.

On November 15, 1962, celebrated costume designer Irene Lentz checked into a room under a false name. Devastated by her husband's recent stroke, financial troubles, and the death of her unrequited love Gary Cooper, she proceeded to get very drunk. Her suicide note read: "Sorry I had to drink so much to get the courage to do this." At 3:20 PM, after slitting her wrists, she jumped from an 11th-floor window. Her body landed on the roof of the hotel lobby.

The Knickerbocker's brush with the supernatural began before any of these deaths. On Halloween 1936, Harry Houdini's widow Bess held her tenth and final seance on the hotel's rooftop, attempting to contact her husband who had died exactly ten years earlier. Before his death, the couple had made a pact: the first to die would try to reach the survivor using the secret code "Rosabelle" followed by "answer – tell – pray – answer – look – tell – answer – answer – tell"—which spelled "Believe." At 8 PM, approximately 300 invited guests sat in bleachers while Judge Charles Fricke of California's High Court, journalists, and spiritualist practitioners watched Edward Saint conduct the ceremony. Two oversized chairs flanked a shrine containing Houdini's photograph; locked handcuffs rested on a silk pillow alongside a trumpet and tambourine. The Hollywood sign glowed behind them. Some witnesses claimed a thunderstorm soaked only the Knickerbocker during the ritual. Houdini never appeared. "Houdini did not come through," Bess declared. "My last hope is gone... spirit communication in any form is impossible."

Despite Bess's verdict, the Knickerbocker's ghosts have been anything but silent. D.W. Griffith's spirit is frequently seen in the lobby, sitting under the chandelier—an elderly man in old-fashioned clothing, swinging a cane and humming quietly to himself. Long-time employees dismiss the sightings with a shrug: "That's just old Mr. Griffith." Others report unexplained footsteps when no one is present and a heavy pressure in the air, as if the forgotten director still watches over his final home.

Marilyn Monroe's ghost appears in the ladies' room. A cleaning woman once saw a blonde woman's face reflecting in the mirror she was cleaning, only to turn around and find no one there. Others report seeing Monroe seated at the bar, lipstick smudged on a phantom glass.

Irene Lentz's spirit lingers near her fatal window. Visitors report an eerie chill in her room and an inexplicable urge to jump when passing by. Some witnesses have seen a disheveled woman standing in the windowsill, only for her to vanish when they rush upstairs. In the most terrifying accounts, her spirit reenacts her final moments—plummeting from the window before disappearing mid-fall.

One of the hotel's most charming ghosts is Shep, an English Setter belonging to hotel manager Jack Matthews. Matthews taught Shep impeccable elevator etiquette: the dog could press the buzzer with his paw, and if ladies were waiting, he'd let them board first. If not, he'd ride alone to his floor like any other guest. After Shep's death, staff and residents began reporting a flash of white fur rounding corners and soft paws padding down hallway carpets.

The Knickerbocker closed as a hotel in 1970 and was converted to senior housing, but the ghosts remain. Doors slam on their own. Anonymous figures in period clothing are glimpsed in hallways. And in a final ironic twist, the ghost of Rudolph Valentino is sometimes reported—despite the fact that the silent film star died three years before the hotel even opened.