Hollywood Studio Club
Encyclopedia
The Hollywood Studio Club was a chaperoned dormitory
, sometimes referred to as a sorority, for young women involved in the motion picture business
from 1916 to 1975. Located in the heart of Hollywood, California
, the Studio Club was run by the YWCA and housed some 10,000 women during its 59-year existence. It was the home at various times to many Hollywood celebrities, including Marilyn Monroe
, Ayn Rand
, Donna Reed
, Kim Novak
, Maureen O'Sullivan
, Rita Moreno
, Barbara Eden
, and Sharon Tate
. The building was designed by noted California architect Julia Morgan
in the Italian Renaissance Revival architectural style
, who also designed Hearst Castle
. The Studio Club closed in 1975, and the building is currently used as a YMCA
-run Job Corps
dormitory. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places
in 1979.
The Hollywood Studio Club was formed in 1916. It began with a group of young women trying to break into the movies who gathered in the basement of the Hollywood Public Library to read plays. A librarian, Mrs. Eleanor Jones, worried about the young women living in cheap hotels and rooming houses with no place to study or practice their craft. Mrs. Jones solicited help from the local YWCA, and a hall was established as a meeting place. Hollywood studios and businessmen donated money to rent an old house on Carlos Avenue with space for 20 women. Mrs. Cecil B. DeMille
and Mary Pickford
were active in the club's operations, and Pickford later recalled, "Mrs. DeMille spent every day doing something for the club. And the motion picture industry supported us." A newspaper article in 1919 described the club this way: "The club is more of a sorority, with delightful picture 'atmosphere,' than anything else, and the same happy atmosphere will pervade the new home. A dominant note is the refining touch of home life and sense of protection, with assurance of assistance, not only in material way when need arises, but in one's work, as well. Financially, many desperate cases among young women have been tided over by the Hollywood Studio Club."
and his role in the death of young actress, Virginia Rappe
. The image of the "extra girl", the pretty young girl who had traveled across the country to make it in the movies only to find herself the victim of exploitation, became a public relations problem for Hollywood. One industry observer wondered if extra work would ever be anything other than "an alibi for prostitution." In order to change this negative reputation, the Hollywood studios, led by Will Hays
, enacted reforms including the formation of the Central Casting Bureau
in 1925 and the construction of a large new home for the Hollywood Studio Club in 1926. By opening a large "chaperoned, elite dormitory" for Hollywood's young women, the studios hoped to replace the image of sad, bedraggled and exploited "extra girl" with the image of the new "studio girl" -- a smartly dressed, graceful, and genteel woman tutored in etiquette as well as the performing arts. Hays told The New York Times
that he sought to "make the motion picture business ... a model industrial community, complete with recreation facilities, community centres, dormitories [and] matrons."
($10,000), Metro Goldwyn
and Carl Laemmle
($5,000 each), Warner Bros.
($3,000), and Christie Comedies
($2,000). In March 1923, aviatrix and movie star Andree Peyre conducted an aerial acrobatic exhibition and airplane race over Hollywood to help raise funds for the new home. In February 1925, a final $5,000 donation from silent screen star Norma Talmadge
allowed the group to begin construction. The organization hired noted architect Julia Morgan
to design the new building, and a ground-breaking ceremony took place in June 1925 with Mary Pickford and Morgan in attendance.
The new Hollywood Studio Club opened in May 1926, having been built at a cost of $250,000. The building was opened at a ceremony attended by 2,500 people, "including many of the celebrities of the motion picture world," with dedication ceremonies in the afternoon and "dancing at midnight."
Julia Morgan designed the Studio Club in a Mediterranean style
with interiors decorated in "pistache green, rose coral, and tan." The large building has three sections—a central section with connecting wings on each side. The entrance to the center section is marked by a loggia
, three archways with decorative quoin
s. There is also a painted frieze
above the main entrance. The building includes several recurring elements from Morgan's Mediterranean style buildings, including full-length arched windows, balconies with iron ballustrades, and decorative brackets. A writer in California Graphic said "this beautiful and spacious new building is but one more jewel in the crown of Achieved Results which this progressive and cultural little city is wearing so proudly and shows its ever increasing desire to give unstinted moral and financial support to every progressive endeavor."
The rooms at the Studio Club had nameplates on the doors identifying individuals who made subscriptions of at least $1000 to the building fund. There were rooms named for Douglas Fairbanks
, Howard Hughes
, Gloria Swanson
, Jackie Coogan
, and Harold Lloyd
.
The only qualification needed for admittance to the Studio Club was that the applicant had to be seeking a career in the motion picture business, whether as an actress, singer, script girl, cutter, writer, designer, dancer or secretary. Some referred to it as a sorority, and the Studio Club also offered classes in various aspects of the performing arts, as well as hosting dances, teas, dinners and occasional plays, fashion shows and stunt nights. The club also provided residents with two meals a day, sewing machines, hair driers, laundry equipment, typewriters, theater literature, practice rooms, stage and sundeck. Former resident Rosemary Breckler recalled, "At the Studio Club, when we had a date, he waited anxiously and almost reverently downstairs, and then, dressed like princesses, we floated down those gorgeous stairs." A newspaper article in 1946 described the club this way: "The Hollywood Studio Club has been thought by the unknowing to be a house filled with glamour girls constantly receiving boxes of long-stemmed roses. On the other hand it has been classified as a rescue home for wayward girls. It is neither of these. The club is a comfortable sorority house possessing many of the freedoms and comforts of a man's club. It has grown in 24 years from the home for 22 girls and a white mouse into the home of 100 girls with another 100 servicewomen equally at home in the adjoining guest house." Another article in 1959 referred to the club as a "colony" of students and described the atmosphere this way: "You may hear the wail of a clarinet, the vocal exercise of a balladeer ... and seen in a quiet corner, the silent gestures of a rehearsing ingenue with a script. But most of all there are clustered groups recounting their day -- of pounding pavements, hearing of jobs, lamenting and blessing their luck and philosophizing." In 2000, Susan Spano wrote in the Los Angeles Times: "The handsome Italianate building, designed in 1926 by architect Julia Morgan (of Hearst Castle
fame), still evokes the good old days when a mother could send her daughter to Hollywood to become a star without worrying that her offspring would go astray." However, the Studio Club was not free from scandal. Actress and former Studio Club resident Virginia Sale recalled, "One woman, older than the rest of us, was murdered in front of the club by a boyfriend. He was an ex-serviceman or something like that. And he then killed himself."
Over the years of its operation, the Studio Club was home to many budding starlets and others trying to make it in show business. Those residing at the club included:
Other residents of the Studio Club included Donna Reed
(star of It's A Wonderful Life
and The Donna Reed Show
and Oscar winner for From Here to Eternity
), Rita Moreno
(winner of an Academy Award in 1961 for West Side Story
, a Grammy Award
in 1972, a Tony Award
in 1975, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom
in 2004), Linda Darnell
(star of Forever Amber
, Unfaithfully Yours and A Letter to Three Wives
in the late 1940s), Nancy Kwan
(star of The World of Suzie Wong
and Flower Drum Song
in the early 1960s), Barbara Rush
(Golden Globe winner for It Came from Outer Space
and star of The Young Philadelphians
), Janet Blair (movie star in the 1940s in films including Three Girls About Town
, Broadway
, and Gallant Journey
), Elvia Allman
(voice of Clarabelle Cow
in 28 Disney cartoons, the homely woman pursuing Bob Hope
in Road to Singapore
, Cora Dithers in the Blondie
radio series, and the aggressive forelady in the chocolate candy conveyor belt episode of I Love Lucy
who yells, "Speed'er up a little!"), Barbara Britton
(star of Captain Kidd
and The Virginian
in the mid-1940s), Gale Storm
(star of the 1950s television series My Little Margie
and The Gale Storm Show
and singer of the hit song Dark Moon
), Evelyn Keyes
(Scarlet O'Hara's younger sister in Gone with the Wind
and real-life spouse of Charles Vidor
, John Huston
and Artie Shaw
), Ann B. Davis
(two-time Emmy Award
winner as "Schultzy" in The Bob Cummings Show
and housekeeper Alice in The Brady Bunch
), and Sally Struthers
(Gloria from All in the Family
).
.
Dormitory
A dormitory, often shortened to dorm, in the United States is a residence hall consisting of sleeping quarters or entire buildings primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people, often boarding school, college or university students...
, sometimes referred to as a sorority, for young women involved in the motion picture business
Classical Hollywood cinema
Classical Hollywood cinema or the classical Hollywood narrative, are terms used in film history which designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production used in the American film industry between roughly the 1910s and the early 1960s.Classical style is...
from 1916 to 1975. Located in the heart of Hollywood, California
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
, the Studio Club was run by the YWCA and housed some 10,000 women during its 59-year existence. It was the home at various times to many Hollywood celebrities, including Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
, Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
, Donna Reed
Donna Reed
Donna Reed was an American film and television actress.With appearances in over 40 films, Reed received the 1953 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as the tramp Lorene in the war drama From Here to Eternity. She is also noted for her role in the perennial Christmas...
, Kim Novak
Kim Novak
Kim Novak is an American film and television actress. She began her career with her roles in Pushover and Phffft! but achieved greater prominence in the 1955 film Picnic...
, Maureen O'Sullivan
Maureen O'Sullivan
Maureen Paula O’Sullivan was an Irish actress.-Early life:O'Sullivan was born in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland, the daughter of Roman Catholic parents Mary Lovatt and Charles Joseph O'Sullivan, an officer in The Connaught Rangers who served in The Great War...
, Rita Moreno
Rita Moreno
Rita Moreno is a Puerto Rican singer, dancer and actress. She is the only Hispanic and one of the few performers who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony, and was the second Puerto Rican to win an Academy Award....
, Barbara Eden
Barbara Eden
Barbara Eden is an American film and television actress and singer who is best known for her starring role in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early years:...
, and Sharon Tate
Sharon Tate
Sharon Marie Tate was an American actress. During the 1960s she played small television roles before appearing in several films. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic performances, she was hailed as one of Hollywood's promising newcomers and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for...
. The building was designed by noted California architect Julia Morgan
Julia Morgan
Julia Morgan was an American architect. The architect of over 700 buildings in California, she is best known for her work on Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California...
in the Italian Renaissance Revival architectural style
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...
, who also designed Hearst Castle
Hearst Castle
Hearst Castle is a National Historic Landmark mansion located on the Central Coast of California, United States. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan between 1919 and 1947 for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who died in 1951. In 1957, the Hearst Corporation donated the property to...
. The Studio Club closed in 1975, and the building is currently used as a YMCA
YMCA
The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...
-run Job Corps
Job Corps
Job Corps is a program administered by the United States Department of Labor that offers free-of-charge education and vocational training to youth ages 16 to 24.-Mission and purpose:...
dormitory. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1979.
Formation of the Studio Club
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...
and Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
were active in the club's operations, and Pickford later recalled, "Mrs. DeMille spent every day doing something for the club. And the motion picture industry supported us." A newspaper article in 1919 described the club this way: "The club is more of a sorority, with delightful picture 'atmosphere,' than anything else, and the same happy atmosphere will pervade the new home. A dominant note is the refining touch of home life and sense of protection, with assurance of assistance, not only in material way when need arises, but in one's work, as well. Financially, many desperate cases among young women have been tided over by the Hollywood Studio Club."
The "Studio Girl"
In the early 1920s, Hollywood became embroiled in scandals, including the 1921 case involving Fatty ArbuckleFatty Arbuckle
Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. Starting at the Selig Polyscope Company he eventually moved to Keystone Studios where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd...
and his role in the death of young actress, Virginia Rappe
Virginia Rappe
Virginia Rappe was an American model and silent film actress.-Early life and career:Rappe was born to unwed mother Mabel Rapp in New York City. Mabel died when Virginia was 11, and Virginia was then raised by her grandmother in Chicago. At age 14 she began working as a commercial and art model in...
. The image of the "extra girl", the pretty young girl who had traveled across the country to make it in the movies only to find herself the victim of exploitation, became a public relations problem for Hollywood. One industry observer wondered if extra work would ever be anything other than "an alibi for prostitution." In order to change this negative reputation, the Hollywood studios, led by Will Hays
Will H. Hays
William Harrison Hays, Sr. , was the namesake of the Hays Code for censorship of American films, chairman of the Republican National Committee and U.S. Postmaster General from 1921 to 1922....
, enacted reforms including the formation of the Central Casting Bureau
Central casting
Central Casting is a casting company located in Burbank, California, United States. They currently specialize in casting extras, body doubles, and stand-ins.-History:...
in 1925 and the construction of a large new home for the Hollywood Studio Club in 1926. By opening a large "chaperoned, elite dormitory" for Hollywood's young women, the studios hoped to replace the image of sad, bedraggled and exploited "extra girl" with the image of the new "studio girl" -- a smartly dressed, graceful, and genteel woman tutored in etiquette as well as the performing arts. Hays told The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
that he sought to "make the motion picture business ... a model industrial community, complete with recreation facilities, community centres, dormitories [and] matrons."
Architecture and construction
Between 1923 and 1925, a widely-publicized fundraising campaign was held to build the new Hollywood Studio Club. Contributions were received from Famous Players-LaskyFamous Players-Lasky
Famous Players-Lasky Corporation was an American motion picture and distribution company created on July 19, 1916 from the merger of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company -- originally formed by Zukor as Famous Players in Famous Plays -- and Jesse L...
($10,000), Metro Goldwyn
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
and Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle , born in Laupheim, Württemberg, Germany, was a pioneer in American film making and a founder of one of the original major Hollywood movie studios - Universal...
($5,000 each), Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
($3,000), and Christie Comedies
Christie Film Company
Christie Film Company was an American pioneer motion picture company founded in Hollywood, California by Al Christie and Charles Christie, two brothers from London, Ontario, Canada....
($2,000). In March 1923, aviatrix and movie star Andree Peyre conducted an aerial acrobatic exhibition and airplane race over Hollywood to help raise funds for the new home. In February 1925, a final $5,000 donation from silent screen star Norma Talmadge
Norma Talmadge
Norma Talmadge was an American actress and film producer of the silent era. A major box office draw for more than a decade, her career reached a peak in the early 1920s, when she ranked among the most popular idols of the American screen.Her most famous film was Smilin’ Through , but she also...
allowed the group to begin construction. The organization hired noted architect Julia Morgan
Julia Morgan
Julia Morgan was an American architect. The architect of over 700 buildings in California, she is best known for her work on Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California...
to design the new building, and a ground-breaking ceremony took place in June 1925 with Mary Pickford and Morgan in attendance.
The new Hollywood Studio Club opened in May 1926, having been built at a cost of $250,000. The building was opened at a ceremony attended by 2,500 people, "including many of the celebrities of the motion picture world," with dedication ceremonies in the afternoon and "dancing at midnight."
Mediterranean Revival Style architecture
The Mediterranean Revival was an eclectic design style that was first introduced in the United States about the end of the nineteenth century, and became popular during the 1920s and 1930s...
with interiors decorated in "pistache green, rose coral, and tan." The large building has three sections—a central section with connecting wings on each side. The entrance to the center section is marked by a loggia
Loggia
Loggia is the name given to an architectural feature, originally of Minoan design. They are often a gallery or corridor at ground level, sometimes higher, on the facade of a building and open to the air on one side, where it is supported by columns or pierced openings in the wall...
, three archways with decorative quoin
Quoin (architecture)
Quoins are the cornerstones of brick or stone walls. Quoins may be either structural or decorative. Architects and builders use quoins to give the impression of strength and firmness to the outline of a building...
s. There is also a painted frieze
Frieze
thumb|267px|Frieze of the [[Tower of the Winds]], AthensIn architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon...
above the main entrance. The building includes several recurring elements from Morgan's Mediterranean style buildings, including full-length arched windows, balconies with iron ballustrades, and decorative brackets. A writer in California Graphic said "this beautiful and spacious new building is but one more jewel in the crown of Achieved Results which this progressive and cultural little city is wearing so proudly and shows its ever increasing desire to give unstinted moral and financial support to every progressive endeavor."
The rooms at the Studio Club had nameplates on the doors identifying individuals who made subscriptions of at least $1000 to the building fund. There were rooms named for Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
, Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
, Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...
, Jackie Coogan
Jackie Coogan
John Leslie Coogan , known professionally as Jackie Coogan, was an American actor who began his movie career as a child actor in silent films. Many years later, he became known as Uncle Fester on 1960s sitcom The Addams Family...
, and Harold Lloyd
Harold Lloyd
Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. was an American film actor and producer, most famous for his silent comedies....
.
Operation
Hearst Castle
Hearst Castle is a National Historic Landmark mansion located on the Central Coast of California, United States. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan between 1919 and 1947 for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who died in 1951. In 1957, the Hearst Corporation donated the property to...
fame), still evokes the good old days when a mother could send her daughter to Hollywood to become a star without worrying that her offspring would go astray." However, the Studio Club was not free from scandal. Actress and former Studio Club resident Virginia Sale recalled, "One woman, older than the rest of us, was murdered in front of the club by a boyfriend. He was an ex-serviceman or something like that. And he then killed himself."
Closure
By the mid 1960s, times had changed, and the idea of a chaperoned dormitory had become dated. In 1964, the club expanded its membership to include studio secretaries, dancers, models and others working broadly in the talent field. The club was losing money, and the YWCA considered using it for executive offices or selling it until a petition drive by residents persuaded the YWCA to keep the facility open. By 1971, the club was forced to open its doors as a regular hotel for transient women and stopped serving meals, but it still lost money. Changes in the fire code also took a toll, as modifications needed to bring the structure up to fire code were estimated at $60,000. In 1975, the Studio Club closed its doors. At the time of the closure, the Los Angeles Times wrote:"They are tales of happier times, when the Studio Club was a haven for all those young girls -- nearly 10,000 of them -- who had come to Hollywood from little towns across the country to seek fame in the motion picture business. Some of them made it. Most of them didn't. While they were here, though, the club tried to be what it said it was, a substitute home for the one each had left. Today, the Studio Club is gone. The building on Lodi Place just a few blocks from Sunset and Vine closed last week, a victim of changing times and new fire codes. 'It's out of vogue to live in a club atmosphere,' said actress Dorothy MaloneDorothy MaloneDorothy Malone is an American actress. Her film career began in 1943, and in her early years she played small roles, mainly in B-movies. After a decade in films, she began to acquire a more glamorous image, particularly after her performance in Written on the Wind , for which she won the Academy...
, a Studio Club alumna from the mid-'40s. 'They never allowed men in the rooms and girls didn't live with their boyfriends then,' she explained."
Famous residents
- ZaSu PittsZaSu PittsZaSu Pitts was an American actress who starred in many silent dramas and comedies, transitioning to comedy sound films.-Early life:ZaSu Pitts was born in Parsons, Kansas to Rulandus and Nellie Pitts; she was the third of four children...
- Pitts, the star of Erich von StroheimErich von StroheimErich von Stroheim was an Austrian-born film star of the silent era, subsequently noted as an auteur for his directorial work.-Background:...
's 1924 masterpiece, GreedGreed (film)Greed is a 1924 American dramatic silent film. It was directed by Erich von Stroheim and starring Gibson Gowland, Zasu Pitts, Jean Hersholt, Dale Fuller, Tempe Pigott, Sylvia Ashton, Chester Conklin, Joan Standing and Jack Curtis....
, was one of the first stars to come out of the Studio Club. Von Stroheim called Pitts "the greatest dramatic actress." Pitts later noted that "without the club I should have been a village dressmaker all my days." - Ayn RandAyn RandAyn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
- When Ayn Rand arrived in Hollywood in 1926 to become a screenwriter, she lived at the Studio Club. Though her heavy accent and plain Russian clothes made her an "odd apparition" to the pretty, fresh actresses of the Studio Club, Rand was welcomed into the sorority. She was hired initially as an extra, at a salary of $7.50 a day, leaving the Studio Club before dawn each day to arrive at the studio at 6 a.m. for makeup and dress. While staying at the Studio Club, she met both Cecil B. DeMilleCecil B. DeMilleCecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...
and her future husband, Frank. A club resident later recalled the following story about Rand:"We all had money problems, but the funniest story I ever heard was about Ayn Rand, the author. She apparently had terrible financial problems and owed money to the club. Almost everybody did at one time or another. Anyhow, a woman was going to donate $50 to the neediest girl in the club, and Miss Williams (Marjorie Williams, the revered director of Studio Club from 1922 to 1945) picked out Ayn. Ayn thanked them for the money, went out and bought a set of black lingerie."
- Maureen O'SullivanMaureen O'SullivanMaureen Paula O’Sullivan was an Irish actress.-Early life:O'Sullivan was born in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland, the daughter of Roman Catholic parents Mary Lovatt and Charles Joseph O'Sullivan, an officer in The Connaught Rangers who served in The Great War...
- Actress Maureen O'Sullivan, who played Jane in the Tarzan movies of the 1930s and early 1940s and starred in The Devil Doll, took up residence at the Studio Club when her mother brought her to Hollywood from Ireland. - Virginia Sale - Sale, who went on to have more than 150 film and television credits, also started at the Studio Club. Years later, Sale recalled her friendship with Ayn Rand at the club in the 1920s. Though Rand largely kept to herself, Rand encouraged Sale in her writing of skits. "She (Rand) did the sound effects for me backstage and that was really where my one-woman show got started, right at the club. Over the years on tour I gave 3,000 performances." (Sale is one of the women in the picture above shown "cleaning house.")
- Diana DillDiana DillDiana Love Dill is a Bermudian actress, active in the U.S., who has also appeared professionally under the names Diana Douglas and Diana Douglas Darrid.-Personal life:...
- Diana Dill was an actress living at the Studio Club when she met Kirk DouglasKirk DouglasKirk Douglas is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past , Champion , Ace in the Hole , The Bad and the Beautiful , Lust for Life , Paths of Glory , Gunfight at the O.K...
, who she married in 1943. - Marie WindsorMarie WindsorMarie Windsor . Born as Emily Marie Bertelson in Marysvale, Piute County, Utah, Windsor was an actress known as "The Queen of the Bs" because she appeared in so many film noirs and B-movies like Cat-Women of the Moon...
- Windsor, who found a niche in film noirFilm noirFilm noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
and became known as "Queen of the B's", won two beauty pageants in Utah before driving to Hollywood to become a star. She lived at the Studio Club when she arrived in Hollywood, stayed for three years (the maximum stay period) and later returned for six more months after World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. - Dorothy MaloneDorothy MaloneDorothy Malone is an American actress. Her film career began in 1943, and in her early years she played small roles, mainly in B-movies. After a decade in films, she began to acquire a more glamorous image, particularly after her performance in Written on the Wind , for which she won the Academy...
- Malone, who later received an Academy Award for her role in Written on the WindWritten on the WindWritten on the Wind is a 1956 American drama film directed by Douglas Sirk. It stars Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone....
, lived in the Studio Club in the 1940s after moving to Hollywood from Texas. She later recalled that the Studio Club was already famous as a home for aspiring young actresses. She said, "You had to have references and a letter from your parents just to get in. There was a long waiting list from the beginning." She dated Mel TormeMel TorméMelvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
while living at the club and recalled being discovered by Alan LaddAlan Ladd-Early life:Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was the only child of Ina Raleigh Ladd and Alan Ladd, Sr. He was of English ancestry. His father died when he was four, and his mother relocated to Oklahoma City where she married Jim Beavers, a housepainter...
while playing a Spanish girl in a showcase at the club; but when she reported to the studio without the black hair, they did not believe she was the same person. - Marilyn MonroeMarilyn MonroeMarilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
- Monroe lived at the Studio Club from 1948 to 1949. She later recalled that it was to raise $50 to pay rent at the Studio Club that she posed for the famous nude photographs. She said, "Funny how shocked people in Hollywood were when they learned I'd posed in the nude. At one time I'd always said no when photographers asked me. But you'll do it when you get hungry enough. It was at a time when I didn't seem to have much future. I had no job and no money for the rent. I was living in the Hollywood Studio Club for Girls. I told them I'd get the rent somwhow. So I phoned up Tom Kelley, and he took these two colour shots—one sitting up, the other lying down. ...I earned the fifty dollars that I needed." Monroe stayed in Room 334. - Kim NovakKim NovakKim Novak is an American film and television actress. She began her career with her roles in Pushover and Phffft! but achieved greater prominence in the 1955 film Picnic...
- Kim Novak was the biggest star to live at the Studio Club in the 1950s. When Harry CohnHarry CohnHarry Cohn was the American president and production director of Columbia Pictures.-Career:Cohn was born to a working-class German-Jewish family in New York City. In later years, he appears to have disparaged his heritage...
, president of Columbia PicturesColumbia PicturesColumbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
, signed Novak to a studio contract, he required that she not date anyone during the week and posted a studio guard outside the Hollywood Studio Club, where he required her to live. Novak moved into the Studio Club in 1953 and stayed on at the club even after she became a movie star. Another resident at the time recalled, "She was very neat and clean. Nobody could look more glamorous in a man's white shirt and Levi's. I remember she just couldn't bear to leave. In those years we had raised the limit of time to five years." - Barbara EdenBarbara EdenBarbara Eden is an American film and television actress and singer who is best known for her starring role in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early years:...
- In the 1950s, before landing her role on I Dream of JeannieI Dream of JeannieI Dream of Jeannie is a 1960s American sitcom with a fantasy premise. The show starred Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie, and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries...
, Eden lived at the Studio Club. Other club residents later recalled that Eden would look at the club's bulletin board and apply for every show business job available, even those that she was advised would "ruin" her career. - Sharon TateSharon TateSharon Marie Tate was an American actress. During the 1960s she played small television roles before appearing in several films. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic performances, she was hailed as one of Hollywood's promising newcomers and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for...
- Tate, who was murdered by the Manson Family in 1969, lived at the Studio Club when she began her career in Hollywood in 1963. When her aggressive roommate at the Club made lesbian advances, Tate requested a new room. - Joanne Worley - Worley, who went on to fame in Laugh In, lived at the Studio Club in the 1960s. She recalled, "I remember it was a wonderful place. ... It was inexpensive, had good food and 24-hour telephone service. And on Sundays the best coffee cake I ever ate."
Other residents of the Studio Club included Donna Reed
Donna Reed
Donna Reed was an American film and television actress.With appearances in over 40 films, Reed received the 1953 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as the tramp Lorene in the war drama From Here to Eternity. She is also noted for her role in the perennial Christmas...
(star of It's A Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra and based on the short story "The Greatest Gift" written by Philip Van Doren Stern....
and The Donna Reed Show
The Donna Reed Show
The Donna Reed Show is an American sitcom starring Donna Reed as the upper middle class housewife Donna Stone. Carl Betz appears as her pediatrician husband Alex, and Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen as their teenage children Mary and Jeff. The show originally aired on ABC at 10 pm from September...
and Oscar winner for From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity is a 1953 drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and based on the novel of the same name by James Jones. It deals with the troubles of soldiers, played by Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra and Ernest Borgnine stationed on Hawaii in the months leading up to the...
), Rita Moreno
Rita Moreno
Rita Moreno is a Puerto Rican singer, dancer and actress. She is the only Hispanic and one of the few performers who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony, and was the second Puerto Rican to win an Academy Award....
(winner of an Academy Award in 1961 for West Side Story
West Side Story (film)
West Side Story is a 1961 musical film directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. The film is an adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was adapted from William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. It stars Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno,...
, a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
in 1972, a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
in 1975, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with thecomparable Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award in the United States...
in 2004), Linda Darnell
Linda Darnell
Linda Darnell was an American film actress.Darnell was a model as a child, and progressed to theater and film acting as an adolescent. At the encouragement of her mother, she made her first film in 1939, and appeared in supporting roles in big budget films for 20th Century Fox throughout the 1940s...
(star of Forever Amber
Forever Amber (film)
Forever Amber is a 1947 film directed by Otto Preminger and starring Linda Darnell and Cornel Wilde. It was based on the book of the same name. It also starred Richard Greene, George Sanders, Glenn Langan, Richard Haydn, Dolores Hart, and Jessica Tandy...
, Unfaithfully Yours and A Letter to Three Wives
A Letter to Three Wives
A Letter to Three Wives is a 1949 film which tells the story of a woman who mails a letter to three women, telling them she has left town with the husband of one of them. It stars Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern, Kirk Douglas, Paul Douglas in his film debut, Jeffrey Lynn, and Thelma Ritter...
in the late 1940s), Nancy Kwan
Nancy Kwan
Nancy "Ka Shen" Kwan is a Eurasian-American actress, who played a pivotal role in the acceptance of actors of Asian descent in major Hollywood film roles...
(star of The World of Suzie Wong
The World of Suzie Wong (film)
The World of Suzie Wong is a 1960 British-American romantic drama film directed by Richard Quine. The screenplay by John Patrick was adapted from the stage play by Paul Osborn, which was based on the novel of the same title by Richard Mason...
and Flower Drum Song
Flower Drum Song (film)
Flower Drum Song is a 1961 film adaptation of the 1958 Broadway musical Flower Drum Song, written by the composer Richard Rodgers and the lyricist/librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The film and stage play were based on the 1957 novel of the same name by the Chinese American author C. Y...
in the early 1960s), Barbara Rush
Barbara Rush
Barbara Rush is an American stage, film, and television actress.-Career:A student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Barbara Rush performed on stage at the Pasadena Playhouse before signing with Paramount Pictures...
(Golden Globe winner for It Came from Outer Space
It Came from Outer Space
It Came from Outer Space is a 1953 science fiction 3-D film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, and Charles Drake. It was Universal's first film to be filmed in 3-D.- Plot :...
and star of The Young Philadelphians
The Young Philadelphians
The Young Philadelphians is a 1959 drama film starring Paul Newman, Barbara Rush and Alexis Smith, and directed by Vincent Sherman. Robert Vaughn was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film is based on the novel The Philadelphian by Richard P...
), Janet Blair (movie star in the 1940s in films including Three Girls About Town
Three Girls About Town
Three Girls About Town is a 1941 Columbia comedy film directed by Leigh Jason. The story is written by Richard Carroll and stars Joan Blondell, Binnie Barnes and Janet Blair .-Plot:...
, Broadway
Broadway (1942 film)
Broadway is a 1942 film about Broadway theatre with George Raft, Pat O'Brien, Janet Blair, Broderick Crawford, Marjorie Rambeau, Anne Gwynne, and S.Z. Sakall. Raft plays himself, recalling an incident early in his pre-movie career as a dancer. The movie was directed by William A....
, and Gallant Journey
Gallant Journey
Gallant Journey is a historical film about early U.S. aeronautical experimenter John Joseph Montgomery. It depicts his efforts to build and fly gliders, from his childhood through to his death in 1911.The chief pilot for the film was Paul Mantz....
), Elvia Allman
Elvia Allman
Elvia Allman was a character actress and voice over performer in Hollywood films and television programs for over 50 years. She is best remembered for her semi-regular roles on The Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction and for being the voice of Walt Disney's Clarabelle Cow...
(voice of Clarabelle Cow
Clarabelle Cow
Clarabelle Cow is a Disney fictional character within the Mickey Mouse universe of characters. Clarabelle Cow was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks in 1928. Clarabelle is one of Minnie Mouse's best friends and is usually depicted as the girlfriend of Horace Horsecollar, although she has also...
in 28 Disney cartoons, the homely woman pursuing Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
in Road to Singapore
Road to Singapore
Road to Singapore is a 1940 Paramount Pictures film starring Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, and Bob Hope, which marked the debut of the long-running and popular "Road to …" series of pictures spotlighting the trio.-Plot:...
, Cora Dithers in the Blondie
Blondie (radio)
Blondie is a radio situation comedy adapted from the long-run Blondie comic strip by Chic Young. The radio program had a long run on several networks from 1939 to 1950....
radio series, and the aggressive forelady in the chocolate candy conveyor belt episode of I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, on the Columbia Broadcasting System...
who yells, "Speed'er up a little!"), Barbara Britton
Barbara Britton
Barbara Britton was an American film and television actress.She was the first actress to play Laura Petrie on television on the pilot program, Head of the Family, which was retooled and became The Dick Van Dyke Show with the role taken over by Mary Tyler Moore. The California native signed a film...
(star of Captain Kidd
Captain Kidd (1945 film)
Captain Kidd is a film starring Charles Laughton, Randolph Scott, Barbara Britton, and John Carradine, directed by Rowland V. Lee, produced by Benedict Bogeaus and James Nasser, music conduced by Werner Janssen, and released by United Artists. The film has entered the public domain since the...
and The Virginian
The Virginian (1946 film)
The Virginian is a 1946 film based upon the Owen Wister novel, with Joel McCrea as the Virginian and Brian Donlevy as Trampas. The film was directed by Stuart Gilmore and remains widely regarded as an inferior remake of the 1929 movie with Gary Cooper and Walter Huston. There have been several...
in the mid-1940s), Gale Storm
Gale Storm
Gale Storm was an American actress and singer who starred in two popular television programs of the 1950s, My Little Margie and The Gale Storm Show.-Early life:...
(star of the 1950s television series My Little Margie
My Little Margie
My Little Margie is an American situation comedy that alternated between CBS and NBC from 1952 to 1955. The series was created by Frank Fox and produced in Los Angeles, California at Hal Roach Studios by Hal Roach, Jr. and Roland D...
and The Gale Storm Show
The Gale Storm Show
The Gale Storm Show is an American sitcom starring Gale Storm. The series premiered on September 29, 1956, and ran until 1960 for 143 half-hour black-and-white episodes, initially on CBS and in its last year on ABC...
and singer of the hit song Dark Moon
Dark Moon (song)
"Dark Moon" is a 1957 country song by Ned Miller. With its haunting rhythm and forlorn lyrics, it scored on both the country and popular charts in the year of its release. Singer Bonnie Guitar took it to the country charts; Gale Storm to the pop charts. Storm's version, with Ned Miller himself on...
), Evelyn Keyes
Evelyn Keyes
Evelyn Louise Keyes was an American film actress. She is best-known for her role as Suellen O'Hara in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind.-Early life:...
(Scarlet O'Hara's younger sister in Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
and real-life spouse of Charles Vidor
Charles Vidor
Charles Vidor was a film director.-Biography:Born Károly Vidor to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, he served in the Hungarian Army during World War I...
, John Huston
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
and Artie Shaw
Artie Shaw
Arthur Jacob Arshawsky , better known as Artie Shaw, was an American jazz clarinetist, composer, and bandleader. He was also the author of both fiction and non-fiction writings....
), Ann B. Davis
Ann B. Davis
Ann Bradford Davis is an American television actress.Davis achieved prominence for her role in The Bob Cummings Show for which she twice won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series...
(two-time Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
winner as "Schultzy" in The Bob Cummings Show
The Bob Cummings Show
The Bob Cummings Show is an American sitcom starring Robert "Bob" Cummings which was produced from January 2, 1955 to September 15, 1959, and originally sponsored by R.J. Reynolds' Winston cigarettes...
and housekeeper Alice in The Brady Bunch
The Brady Bunch
The Brady Bunch is an American sitcom created by Sherwood Schwartz and starring Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, and Ann B. Davis. The series revolved around a large blended family...
), and Sally Struthers
Sally Struthers
Sally Ann Struthers is an American actress and spokeswoman, best-known for her roles as Gloria Stivic on All in the Family, for which she won two Emmy awards, and as Babette on Gilmore Girls.-Personal life:...
(Gloria from All in the Family
All in the Family
All in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended...
).
Recognition as historic site
The Hollywood Studio Club has been recognized as a building of significant historic importance at both the local and national level. In 1977, the Studio Club was designated a Historic-Cultural Monument (No. 175) by the City of Los Angeles. And in 1980, it was listed in the National Register of Historic PlacesNational Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.