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1960 – Actor William Talman, the district attorney of the Perry Mason TV show was among eight persons arrested and jailed on March 13, 1960 when sheriff's deputies raided what was called a wild Marijuana party in the apartment of Richard Reibold at 1136 N. Curson. TV producer James H. Baker, 39, actress Lola DeWitt, 31, and Reibold, 31, were booked on the same charges. Talman, 45, of 15426 Valley Vista Blvd in Sherman Oaks, was booked in the County Jail for possession of marijuana and vagrant, lewd conduct. "What can I say, This is going to ruin me," said Talman. Gail Patrick Jackson, executive producer of the Perry Mason series said she agreed and fired him. Talman played District Attorney Hamilton Berger on the show. Baker was the producer of the former Bobby Troup Stars of Jazz Show. Raiding officers said they found one marijuana cigarette stub, several unsmoked marijuana cigarettes, and a quantity of loose marijuana in bedroom closets, the bathroom medicine chest and elsewhere in the apartment. Talman was later reinstated on the Perry Mason Show and appeared as the D.A. for another six years.
Where is He Now? Talman died of lung cancer in Encino at age 53 in 1968. He is buried in Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills in the Court of Liberty, lot 833.

1931 – How George Bray, wealthy real estate operator, with the aid of ocean liners and seaplanes played a game of hide and seek with his wife, Margaret, and his mother-in-law. Mrs. iMaud Peck, to prevent them from seeing their two small children, was related on September 24, 1931 at an alimony hearing in court where Bray was to show cause why he should not pay his wife $720 a month for support of his children. He admitted that he had taken the children to his island estate in Vancouver, Canada, and that when his wife and her mother later arrived on the island, he put the children in a launch and sped out toward the open sea, where they were picked up, through prearrangement, by a seaplane, and brought to Los Angeles.

Bray also told of a beating administered to him by Mrs. Peck when he called at her home at 613 North Gardner Street in West Hollywood to see his children. He stated she picked up a stick and beat him over the head and body until the stick was broken. In her suit for divorce, Mrs. Bray sets forth that her husband has been intoxicated most of the time, has taken several cures to no avail, and that when he is under the influence of liquor treats her in a cruel manner. She also described the police siren and flood lights at their home, both operated through a switch in Bray's bedroom. Several times in the middle of the night she asserts he would turn on both the siren and, the lights and on one occasion fired his automatic pistol.

1934 – On the night of October 4, 1934, less than a week after his 26-year-old actress wife, Virginia Cherrill left him after an argument, Grant started drinking while alone in their apartment #11 at 1408 N. Havenhurst Drive in West Hollywood. . About two o’clock in the morning, he telephoned Virginia and asked her to come back to him. She refused. “This will ruin me,” he told her before hanging up. Worried, she called back. When the houseboy answered, she asked him to go into the bedroom and check on Cary. The servant found him lying unconscious across the bed, wearing only his shorts, a bottle of pills marked POISON was on the table next to the bed. An ambulance was called. At the Hollywood Hospital, Grant’s stomach was pumped but it was reported that no poison was found. He told police that he been drinking all day and night and had just passed out. Newspapers reported that Grant had indeed tried to kill himself.
Where Are They Now? Grant died in Davenport, Iowa, of a heart attack in 1986 at age 82. His ashes are scattered somewhere over California. Miss Cherrill, who starred in the 1931 silent films "City Lights" with Charlie Chaplin where she played the blind flower girl, divorced Grant in 1935. She went on to marry five more times. She died in Santa Barbara in 1996 at age 88. She is buried in the Santa Barbara California Cemetery, in the Chapel, Bay A, Niche 5, California

1932 – Actress Patsy Bellamy, 19, of 1232 N. Flores St. was arrested in August, 1932, and booked on a charge of being drunk when police discovered her trying to make her car climb a tree in the 1500 block of Queens Road. Miss Bellamy told police that "something went wrong with her car when she started it, and it backed right into a tree." She was treated for minor bruises at the Hollywood Receiving Hospital.

1956 – Driving her psychiatrist's sports car at 90 m.p.h. in a 25-mile zone, actress Claire Ann Kelly, 21, of 1013 N. Clark Street, was arrested on March 13, 1956 after a wild chase along Sunset Blvd. and into the Hollywood Hills. When overtaken by a police officer, she said, "I just wanted to see how fast the car would go." Her psychiatrist told police that he had been treating her for a nervous disorder and that speeding served as a release for her pent-up emotional stress. The judge sentenced her to five days in the County Jail. Divorced from comedian George Dewitt, she claimed that he was a fine comic on TV, but he was no laughs around the house. In 1949, she was called "the screen's most exciting discovery since Rita Hayworth." the same year, her ex-husband George DeWitt accused her in court of "adulterous, immoral and scandalous conduct" with Frank Sinatra, band leader Perry Lopez, and hotel chain heir Nicky Hilton.
Where Are They Now? Kelly died in Palm Springs in 1998 at age 64. DeWitt, best known as the emcee of the hit TV show "Name That Tune." died in 1978 at age 56.

1934 – When Mrs. Lillian Fisher came to the house of Lewis Barnard at 1234 S. Burnside Ave. in April, 1934, she was carrying her small dog which she said she wanted it to be friends with Bernard's police dog, "Fellow." When they took their dogs to the front yard, Mrs. Fisher's dog growled and barked at Barnard's dog, causing Barnard's dog to lunge at the smaller dog. Mrs. Fisher turned at the same time, and was bitten by "Fellow" when he missed his objective. Several days later, Mrs. Fisher filed suit in court asking $2000 in damages. Bernard told the court, that his dog did what any self-respecting dog would have done. "Her dog used insulting and abusive language, and my dog was grieved, irked, humiliated and driven to desperation by the audacity of such a little upstart coming into our front yard and addressing him, an aristocrat, in that manner." Bernard also said that the bite did not break the skin, as he and his wife examined it immediately afterward.

1953 – Four women, who said they were actresses, were arrested at 8459 Blackburn Ave. in October, 1953 by the vice squad and charged with running a house of ill repute. The women were entertaining a male guest at the time of the raid. Mrs. Eleanor Gawne, 48, owner of the house, was one of the "actresses" arrested. The stylish vice resort had been under surveillance for three weeks.

1933 – In May 1933, Susan Bailey found a note in her home at 175 Almont Drive from her husband Harry Louis Bailey that read: "Susan I will not be home for dinner." When Harry still hadn't shown up many hours later, she called police and reported him missing. The next day she found a note in a bedroom written on cigarette paper that read "I have gone to the sycamore trees just north of Wilshire Boulevard on Sawtelle Boulevard." She called police who went to the grove of trees located in a large picturesque hollow and there they found Harry dead with a bullet in his heart. An automatic pistol was found near his body. He had killed himself. Bailey, 50, an etcher and commercial artist, often went there with his brush and palette to paint. Funeral arrangements were made for Harry through Price-Daniels mortuary in West Los Angeles.

1932 – Actor Robert Elliott, 51, was arrested in his home at 7062 N. Fountain Ave. on May 1, 1932 for drunkeness. According to police, Elliott disturbed the neighborhood with his loud singing. When neighbors protested, he was reported to have put his hand out of the window and continued to sing even louder. Elliot appeared in over 100 films where he usually played a cop, detective or army officer.
Where is He now? Elliott died in 1951 and is buried in Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood in Block E, Section 5040, Lot 2.

1963 – A manufacturer of risque records and an attractive nude woman were found in their bungalow at 7671 Fountain Ave., where they had been shot by an intruder on November 10, 1963. William H. Door, 46, identified by police as a widely known distributor of pornographic material, was lying fully dressed and face down with his feet bound on the dining room floor. Mrs. Ernestine Ellen Criss, 30, Door's mistress, was sprawled nude on her back in a king-size bed in one of the one of the two bedrooms. A pillow covered her face. Door, was shot twice, once in the back of the head and once in the hand. He had also had received two severe blows to the head, apparently in a struggle with his killer. Mrs. Criss was shot once in the mouth but was not beaten.

Detectives theorized that Door and the dead woman may have been victims of a grudge killing by some of Door's associates in the pornography rackets. Friends said he had made a number of enemies through his rough handling of female models for the films and photographs he reportedly produced. Police believed Criss, who had been living with Door for at least a year, was awakened after retiring for the night and was shot through a pillow being held over her head to muffle her screams. Her killer then probably ambushed Door as he returned home. The bodies may have been in the house for as long as 12 hours before they were found at 8:30 a.m. by the cleaning lady.

Door was said to be the owner of the Crescendo night club building on the Sunset Strip and had been associated in the past with The Garden of Allah, the Sphinx Club, Le Madelon and the Interlude. He was also said to have been a star football player at Temple U and for the Philadelphia Eagles. His brown bungalow, at the corner of Spaulding Ave., was almost hidden by trees, shrubs, and vines. His Thunderbird was parked by a fence in the old Pacific Electric right-of-way which borders the house.

1950 – In the summer of 1950, director Preston Sturges and his wife Louise Sargent, were paid a large sum to sell his 17-room country-style traditional 5,956 square foot home and land at 1917 N. Ivar to make room for the Hollywood Freeway. Instead of tearing the house down, he bought a lot at 7420 Franklin Ave., cut the house in half and moved it to the lot on Franklin Ave. It took two years to adjust the house to its new grounds. Sturges bought the white shingled-house on Ivar from director Lois Weber in 1936. The home was built by Weber in 1921. Weber, who was the highest paid director in the world and the first woman to produce, direct, star in, and co-author a major motion picture, lived in the house with her husband, actor/director Phillips Smalley. Sturges also owned the Players Restaurant on the Sunset Strip. The owner of the house in 2000 told friends that he thought the house was haunted as he has often heard dancing in the ballroom and footsteps walking up the stairs.
Where Are They Now? Sturges died of a heart attack in 1959 in Chicago at age 61. He is buried in.Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum in Hartsdale, New York, in Section Maplewood 4 garden, grave 74. Weber died penniless and forgotten on November 13, 1939 at age 58, in a small apartment in Hollywood. Smalley died on May 2, 1939 at age 74 and is buried in Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills in the Courts of Remembrance section, Lot #60750 The Players Restaurant became the Imperial Gardens and in the 1990s it was the Roxy Club.

1953 – Actress Dorothy Comingore, 40, who rose to stardom almost overnight in 1941 when she played opposite Orson Welles in "Citizen Kane," was jailed on March 19, 1953, on a vice charge. Police arrested her in a parked car at Lexington and Gardner Aves. where she offered to commit a sex act on the officers for $10 "because she was a little short of money." Later she told the Judge she was framed by the two policemen who offered her a ride to her home at 1251 N. Fuller Ave. from a cocktail bar. "Then," she told the court, "they stuck a marked $10 bill in my pocket and drove me downtown to the County Jail." The officers testified that they met her in a bar at 7411 Santa Monica Blvd. and then accompanied her to another bar at 8279 Santa Monica Blvd. where the suggestion was made that she accompany them "to a dark place." They said her appearance was bedraggled and haggard, and she looked much older than her 40 years.

With her emerald eyes and red hair, she was once regarded as one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood, and one of the most promising. She is best known for her portrayal of Susan Alexander in Orson Welles' critically acclaimed movie "Citizen Kane" in 1941. During her appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, she refused to state whether she was or had been a member of the communist party. She was blacklisted by the Hollywood. By 1948, her roles were few and she began to drink heavily. In 1951, she entered a sanatarium for a cure. In late 1952, she lost her two children in a custody case and she began to drink again. In May 1953, now penniless, she suffered a complete nervous breakdown and was committed to the Camarillo State Mental Hospital.
Where is She Now? She died from a pulmonary disease in Stonington, Connecticut at the age of 58 on December 13, 1971. She was cremated.

1954 – Hollywood, which has had more of its share of weird murder mysteries, had a duckacide and a dogacide to add to its list of homicides. As usual, the victims were celebrities. Their names were Pierre and Tana. Pierre, a white duck owned by Byron Lawler, 17, of 1329 N. Spaulding Avenue vanished on March 3, 1954. Lawler followed a trail of feathers two blocks to the backyard of Robert Sharp of 1400 N. Genessee Ave. In the yard lay all that what was left of Pierre – nothing but some feathers. Enraged, Lawler went home, got his 410 shotgun, returned to the Sharp yard and killed Tana, a pedigreed Kerry blue terrier which he felt had killed Pierre. Young Lawler was arrested.

Pierre recently had broken his neck in an accident. The neck was put into splints and Pierre was nursed back to health by hand feeding. Lawler never dreamed that Pierre would end up a duckicide. And Tana recently had been hit by a car. Splints had been removed from her broken front foot only the week before. She too, had recovered. Early on March 3, 1954, she was hobbling around on three legs. Her owners never dreamed that she would die murdered, a dogicide. When Lawler, with his shotgun and his father went to the Sharp's front door, the elder Lawler warned Mrs. Sharp "You had better get your dog in the house because my son is going to shoot it." Before Mrs. Sharp could reach the back yard, the Lawler boy had opened the back gate and shot the dog before the horrified eyes of 10-year-old Janie Sharp.
The Sharps called police and Lawler was arrested. Mrs. Sharp told police that her Japanese caretaker had found the duck dead in their yard where Tana was playing. The duck was cold and had been there for some time, so they put it in the incinerator and cremated it. Only the feathers remained. Pierre's death made a widow of Priscilla, another white duck owned by the Lawler's. Priscilla was an expectant mother. Her ducklings will be fatherless. Tana left four pups without a mother.

1988 – The three-story Spanish house at 1654 N. Doheny Drive once belonged to Hollywood madam Elizabeth "Alex" Adams who ran a house of prostitution in it for several years before she was arrested in 1988. Adams, the bawdy Beverly Hills madam whose lavish and lucrative prostitution network catered to a private world of millionaire businessmen, movie stars and Saudi Arabian sheiks. The house was later rented by actress Shannen Doherty of "Beverly Hills 90210." In 1994. a lawsuit filed by the owner of the house, claimed that Doherty trashed the home and skipped out owing $14,000 in overdue rent
Where is She Now? Adams died in Los Angeles during heart surgery on July 10, 1995 at age 60.

1935 – Mrs. Lillian Braxton Sloane, society woman and voice teacher, of 8241 De Longpre Ave., was granted a divorce from director Paul H. Sloan in December, 1935. She testified that he was rude to her and friends, and often refused to speak to her. He never took me anywhere," she said, "and often told me he wanted to get rid of me." She got the house here, the car, and their 7-year-old son, John Paul.
Where Is He Now? Sloan died on November 15, 1963 of a heart attack at age 76.

1949 – Actress Denise Darcel, 23, pleaded guilty to a charge of cruelty to animals on January 2, 1949 and was fined $10. She was accused of leaving two German shepherd dogs, one a 3-month-old puppy, on an unsheltered balcony of her home at 1510 Forest Knoll Drive throughout the night on December 16 and 17, 1948. "I love those dogs and wouldn't do anything to hurt them," she told the judge.
Whatever Happened to Her? After her movie career ended, she worked as a card dealer in a casino in Las Vegas.

1931 – Miss Margaret Bell, 20, was arrested at 927 Burnside Ave. in July, 1931 while attempting to rob an apartment. She was taken into custody after she out-fought Mrs. J. Wood, whose apartment she was ransacking, and a neighbor woman who had gone to Mrs. Wood's aid. Struggling like three Amazons, the women pulled hair, scratched and kicked, but the girl-bandit broke loose and got to the front door of the apartment building where she ran into the arms of two policemen, who had been called by other neighbors. She later told police that she would leave her hotel room at 729 W. 8th Street in L.A. every morning, take a bus to the Wilshire district where she looked around until she found an apartment where no one was home, then crawl in a window and rob the place.