The neighborhood reeks of Old Hollywood. At the end, F. Scott Fitzgerald lived a few doors down the street – he was writing The Last Tycoon and had his heart attack at Schwab's Drug Store, which used to be on the corner. Bette Davis lived in a penthouse apartment one block west, on Havenhurst. And one block further west, on Harper Avenue, Norma Talmadge and Gilbert Roland, and Joe E. Brown, lived here. And Marlene Dietrich broke up the marriage of Josef and Riza Von Sternberg when they all lived in this building on Harper.
It was the late twenties and early thirties, Hollywood's Golden Age – and outside the door, just down the street, the old Art Deco buildings, where the glamorous ladies in slinky dresses and elegant men in tuxedoes had their friends over for cocktails, still stand. The windows are windows to the past.
This is the Hayworth Tower, on North Hayworth Avenue, just south of Sunset Boulevard.
Next door, this –
On Sunset Boulevard, the windows of the Sunset Towers Apartments, designed in 1929 by Leland A. Bryant – with its history –
Numerous Hollywood luminaries called the Sunset Towers home: Marilyn Monroe, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Billie Burke, Joseph Schenck, Paulette Goddard, Zasu Pitts, the Gabor sisters, Frank Sinatra, directors George Stevens, Preston Sturges and even gangster Bugsy Siegel. It was a favorite of Howard Hughes, who kept a number of suites here for his various girlfriends. John Wayne called the penthouse home at one time - rumor has it that he kept his cow on the balcony, "so fresh milk was readily available."
Use your imagination.
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Technical Note:
These photographs were taken with a Nikon D200 – the lenses used were AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or AF Nikkor 70-300 mm telephoto. The high-resolution photography here was modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0 software.
