The Knickerbocker Hotel was built in 1925 and originally opened as an upscale apartment building. This Hollywood hotel catered to hundreds of celebrities. Today the hotel is a senior citizen home but several ghosts have been seen in what was once the old hotel’s lobby. Valentino and Marilyn Monroe both have been seen casually making their way to perhaps a night on the town

Knickerbocker -1714 Ivar Ave, Hollywood.

Harry Houdini: Harry Houdini made a pact with his wife and friends that he would contact them if it were possible from the other side. 

For ten years, his wife held séances at the Knickerbocker in hopes of reaching her husband.  Her last séance was held on Halloween night 1936.  With a group of friends, Besse Houdini went to the roof of the Knickerbocker and for over an hour tried to contact her husband.  Finally, they gave up and at that moment, a violent lightning thunderstorm broke out drenching everyone with a downpour.  They would later learn that the mysterious storm did not occur anywhere else in Hollywood.  Maybe Harry Houdini did contact his wife after all.

Houdini website: http://www.houdinitribute.com/houdini.html
Book: The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero (Hardcover) by William Klush and Larry Sloman

In 1925, under the huge crystal chandelier, the epic film director D.W. Griffin died of a stroke.  At the time of his death, he was forgotten by his peers.  He was lonely and spent a lot of time at the hotel’s bar.

Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio honeymooned at the Knickerbocker in 1954.  Elvis Presley often stayed at the hotel in 1956 when he was filming Love Me Tender.  Jerry Lee Lewis, Mae West, Lana Turner, Cecil B. DeMille, Frank Sinatra, Laurel and Hardy, William Frawley, all lived at the hotel at one time or another.

Frances Farmer electrified Hollywood in the 1930’s and 40’s.  In six years, she starred in 18 films, 3 Broadway plays, thirty major radio shows and seven stock company productions.  She was only 27 years old.

After a failed marriage and a string of disastrous relationships, she turned to alcohol and then drugs to control her weight.  In January 1943, she was starring in the film “No Escape” (This seemed to be the theme to her life from that moment on.)

She caused a fight on the set and later arrested at the Knickerbocker.  The police took her from her room, half-naked through the hotel lobby.  She was placed und the care of a psychiatrist.  She began seven years of hell in sanitariums.  She was given insulin treatments that would put her into shock, causing her to have brain damage.  She was given electroshocks, prostituted out to soldiers, and was raped and abused repeatedly by orderlies.  She was finally given a lobotomy.  She died at the age of 57 alone and broken forever. 

November 15, 1962, Irene Gibbons took a room at the Kickerbocker, checking in under an assumed name.  She cut her wrists and then jumped from her window on the fourteenth floor.  Her body landed on the hotel awning where it was discovered later that night. 
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William Clement Frawley was born in Burlington, Iowa.  He attended Catholic school and sang with the St. Paul’s church choir.  He loved the theater and set out to pursue his dreams.  He is best known for his role as Fred Mertz, the penny-pinching landlord in the I Love Lucy sitcom.

On March 3, 1966, William Frawley collapsed of a heart attack while walking down Hollywood Blvd.  He was brought to the Knickerbocker Hotel where he once lived at for many years.  He was rushed to the nearby Hollywood Receiving Hospital and pronounced dead.  Desi Arnaz paid for a full-page ad in the Hollywood Reporter about his life.  He wrote: “Buenas Noches, Amigo!” (Good Night Friend.)
Website: http://lucylibrary.com/Pages/profile-frawley.html