Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel

Opened in 1927 and hosted the very first Academy Awards in 1929. Marilyn Monroe lived here for two years early in her career, and Montgomery Clift stayed three months while filming From Here to Eternity. Still one of the most iconic hotels in L.A.

In mid-December 1985, two weeks before the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel's grand reopening following a $12 million restoration, staff member Suzanne Leonard was cleaning a full-length mirror in the general manager's office. She saw a reflection that was not her own--"a blonde girl right where her hand was dusting." When Leonard turned around, no one was there. When she looked back at the mirror, the reflection remained. The manager later told her the mirror had come from Marilyn Monroe's former poolside suite. The sightings became so frequent and so disturbing to guests that staff moved the mirror to the lower-level elevator area, where it remains today. Visitors still report seeing Monroe's face gazing back at them from the glass.

The hotel opened on May 15, 1927, financed by a group of Hollywood royalty that included Louis B. Mayer, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Sid Grauman--the man behind the famous Chinese Theatre across the street. The $2.5 million Spanish Colonial Revival building, designed by Fisher, Lake and Traver, was named for President Theodore Roosevelt and immediately became the social center of the film industry. Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Errol Flynn, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Shirley Temple all stayed here. Temple learned to tap dance on the hotel's Spanish-tiled steps under the tutelage of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.

On May 16, 1929, the hotel hosted the first Academy Awards ceremony in its Blossom Ballroom. Just 270 guests attended the intimate dinner, with tickets costing five dollars. Academy president Douglas Fairbanks presented all twelve awards in just fifteen minutes--still the fastest ceremony in Oscar history. The World War I epic Wings took home Best Picture, the only silent film ever to do so. Charlie Chaplin received an honorary award. It was the only Academy Awards ceremony never broadcast on radio or television.

Monroe is the hotel's most famous spectral resident. In the early 1940s, before she was a star, Hollywood executives rented her a second-floor poolside cabana while she pursued her modeling career. She lived there for two years, and it was at the Roosevelt's Tropicana Pool that she did her first professional photo shoot. Beyond the mirror sightings, her ghost has been spotted dancing in the Blossom Ballroom and lounging by the pool where she once sunbathed.

Montgomery Clift occupied Room 928 for three months in 1953 while filming From Here to Eternity, which would earn him his third Academy Award nomination. Playing an Army bugler, Clift practiced his trumpet obsessively in his room, much to the dismay of neighboring guests. He paced the ninth-floor hallway memorizing lines. His life took a tragic turn in 1956 when a devastating car accident left him disfigured and in chronic pain. He turned to alcohol and drugs. He died in 1966 at age 45. But guests in Room 928 still hear the mournful notes of a trumpet through the walls. Many describe an overwhelming sense of being watched, and gentle nudges from something they can't see. Renowned psychic Peter James spent a night in Room 928 during a 1992 investigation and watched Clift's ghost sitting in a chair in the corner of the room for several minutes before it vanished.

The Gable-Lombard Penthouse, a 3,200-square-foot duplex on the twelfth floor with views of the Hollywood Hills and the iconic sign, was the secret love nest of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. They began their affair in 1936, but Gable was still married to his second wife, Ria Langham. The couple rented the penthouse for five dollars a night to carry on the romance away from prying eyes. They eventually married in 1939. Lombard died in a 1942 plane crash while on a war bond tour. Both have been seen separately in the penthouse suite. Hotel staff spend as little time there as possible, well aware of its permanent residents.

A child ghost named Caroline may be the hotel's most poignant haunting. She and her brother allegedly drowned in the pool while their father was out running errands--though no hotel records confirm this. Psychic Peter James first encountered Caroline in 1992 in the Academy Room, later communicating with her in the Penthouse Library, where he found her crying. When he asked what was wrong, she said she was afraid her mother was hurt. Then she vanished. Caroline wears a blue dress and is often seen playing in the hallways, skipping through the lobby, and calling guests from the house phone. She and her brother have been spotted playing in the jacuzzi, leaving no wet footprints when they disappear. Employees and guests frequently mistake her for a living child before she's simply gone.

The Blossom Ballroom harbors its own spirits. A man in a vintage tuxedo is regularly seen wandering the room, apparently searching for his seat at an awards banquet that ended nearly a century ago. Psychics believe he was an Oscar nominee who never moved on from his attachment to his career and dreams. Another ghost--a man in a white suit--plays the piano, but the music stops the moment anyone enters the room. Staff report phantom footsteps across the polished floors, sudden drafts with no source, and lights that flicker when someone enters alone. Some believe the man near the piano is Errol Flynn, who was known for creating his recipe for bootleg gin in the hotel's barbershop tub.

The activity intensified dramatically after the 1984 renovation. By then, the Roosevelt had fallen into disrepair--occupancy was at five percent, graffiti covered the walls, and lawn chairs littered the lobby. The $12 million restoration awakened something. In December 1985, two weeks before reopening, Alan Russell, personal assistant to the general manager, was sweeping the Blossom Ballroom when he walked into a pocket of freezing air that defied explanation--no drafts, no air conditioning. Those icy patches have been documented ever since, along with dark shapes moving through hallways, whispers from empty rooms, and doors that open on their own. When Peter James conducted his comprehensive investigation in 1992, he detected Montgomery Clift in Room 928, encountered Caroline by the pool and in the Penthouse Library, and sensed Monroe's presence at the Tropicana Bar. His findings confirmed what staff and guests had been saying for years: the Hollywood Roosevelt is home to far more than memories.