Joan Crawford, 1959
In Seraphic Secret’s move to WordPress last week, this post was, for a while, lost in cyberspace. Due to the kindness and tech know-how of our faithful reader Alter Ben-Zion, we have been able to snatch this blog out of its spectral prison. Alter also sent all the comments and they are included.
In 1925, on Stage 6 of the MGM lot, electrician Carl Barlow was working on a lighting platform when one of the supports fractured. The entire platform collapsed in a heap and Barlow plunged to his death.
Stories of a ghost in white overalls haunting the catwalks of various MGM stages were widespread in Hollywood for many years.
As told by Esther Williams in her memoir “Million Dollar Mermaid,” in 1953 the swimming star heard spectral noises from Stage 5.
Williams entered the empty stage. She heard a voice tragically wailing. Tentatively, Williams moved towards the tortured echo.
And then she saw it.
But Williams did not see a ghost.
She saw the legendary star Joan Crawford, after a twelve-year absence at MGM, standing on the dark sound stage pleading to an audience that no longer existed:
“Why have you left me? Why don’t you come to my movies? What did I do to you? What did I say? Don’t turn your back on me!”
It’s no wonder that when Williams saw her movie career heading into its inevitable decline she got out of Hollywood and became a highly successful businesswoman.
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
21 Comments
Robert–unable to access previous posts.
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Barry:
Working on it. Thanks for the alert!
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Robert,
I have loved your site since I discovered it linked on my best friend Tony’s web site. I mourn the loss of your son (I am the father of 5). I love your writing and my love of American culture (Hollywood included) makes your site a must read. It is in my RSS feed home page. I also spied my wife from afar and captured her heart. I struggle constantly against the sin of spouse worship for how fortunate I feel to be 43 and as giddy as an 18 year old with his dream prom date.
Keep the faith (though mine is Christian) and the good blog posts. Looking forward to the book about your relationship with Karen…
Regards,
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Posted by: Raphael Kaufman at June 24, 2011 12:26 AM
As someone who does business in Storey County, Nevada, I am often in Virginia City since it is the county seat and all the county offices are there. I think that that is the coolest thing about the place. For all the western tourist hooplah stuff, it’s still a working town. Even some of the mines are still working (with the price of gold and silver these days, anyone who has a hole in the ground in Nevada is making money).
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Raphael:
Virginia City is on our list of places to go ASAP.
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I read that there is a big fight on between the townspeople and a mining company who wants to resume mining in a big way.
…and of the silver found 90% of it is still in the ground. It was just uneconomical to get.
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Bill:
Okay, I’m ready to walk away from Hollywood and become a silver miner:-)
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Robert – Better Read Mark Twain’s description of it first – then you’ll understand why he went into writing
But that early era – filled with mines lost at poker tables only to become multi million dollar producers – and that was when a dollar was a dollar!
I have taken my car club up there – 6 years ago we stayed at the Gold Hill Hotel in Silver City just 5 or so miles away – a lot quieter than the busy main street of Virginia City.
Although they have a “new” section of hotel rooms you have to see the original – unchanged in 160 years as is the bar/dining room.
And it’s origins at Sun Mountain weren’t silver but gold. Miners out on their way to California stopped there to try their luck. They kept throwing away this blue ore they called “blue stuff” until somebody had the idea of taking it down the mountain to Grass Valley to have it assayed.
It turned out to be the richest silver ore the world had ever seen.
Finally I guess I should tell you how the town got its name.
James Finney – nicknamed “Old Virginny” – was rather drunk one night – he stumbled out of the saloon (which one of the 60+ I have no idea
) – spun around on the dirt avenue and said “I hereby christen this town Virginia Town! – to complete the christening he dropped his bottle and the rest of the contents soaked the earth.
The rest, as they say, is history!
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Posted by: Barry Lane at June 23, 2011 07:22 PM
The Joan Crawford story. like other items in Esther William’s book is simply too neat to be believed. John Ireland thought Joan nothing like her portrait in Christina’s book. In fact, he thought she was normal, smart and kind.
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Barry:
Of course one can doubt the veracity of the Williams story, and her book is, in places, quite self-serving. And of course one can question Christina Crawford’s book about her mother, but to call Joan Crawford normal is, I believe, an oxymoron. No real Hollywood star is normal. Not then, not now.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at June 23, 2011 07:34 PM
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Well, John wasn’t exactly a perfect person, so within that context…
Posted by: Barry Lane at June 23, 2011 09:05 PM
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Posted by: Pearl at June 23, 2011 05:41 PM
You have the true gift of storytelling — for sure, I thought you’d tell us about a ghost that Esther Williams had seen… But that story of Crawford speaking to a non-existent audience had me remembering “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” that haunting thriller. Eerie, eerie…
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Pearl:
There are, I suppose, all sorts of ghosts that haunt the corners of our mind.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at June 23, 2011 07:30 PM
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Posted by: Bill Brandt at June 23, 2011 05:36 PM
Robert –
I recommend that you read Mark Twain’s Roughing It if you want to go to Virginia City – Ostensibly it is about his time in the West but most of the book details his times in Virginia City.
It is a shame as Virginia City looks like a honky Tonk “tourist town” but if you get the background it comes alive.
Mark Twain became a writer there writing for the Territorial Enterprise (finding mining too back breaking) – he poked so much fun at daily life there so many minors were looking for him so he went from Sam Clemmons to Mark Twain on his byline.
Levi Strauss started there learning how to make rugged pants out of tent material that stood up to the rigors of mining.
I believe AT&T started there and George Hearst made his fortune there.
It stabilized the Union currency an helped win the Civil War with such an influx of the richest silver ore the world had ever seen.
Made San Francisco – most of the richest citizens there made their fortune in Virginia City.
And on and on….
But read Roughing It first.
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Bill:
“Roughing It” is now on my list. Thanks.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at June 23, 2011 07:28 PM
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Posted by: Bill Brandt at June 23, 2011 03:25 PM
If you ever go to Virginia City Nevada – a place that had a glorious history and was so influential – stop at the Gold Hill Hotel in nearby Silver City.
It is Nevada’s oldest hotel and if you go in to the bar and dining room, you will feel that you have stepped back in time 150 years.
Upstairs the rooms look pretty much as they did 150 years ago and I stayed in one that was supposed to be haunted but alas, it was quiet that night.
Maybe I scared the ghost.
But the Joan Crawford story is a bit creepier than seeing a ghost!
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Bill:
Always wanted to go to Virginia City. On my list.
This Crawford story might be one of the most tragic Hollywood scenes I have ever heard.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at June 23, 2011 04:32 PM
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Posted by: Jennifer at June 23, 2011 02:06 PM
I just found your blog. This comment has nothing to do with the article, but for the loss of your son. May God be with you. Blessings.
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Jennifer:
Karen and I greatly appreciate your kind condolences. G-d bless you and yours.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at June 23, 2011 04:29 PM
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Posted by: Johnny at June 23, 2011 01:02 PM
All my older brothers and sister, after they got old enough to move into the bedrooms upstairs in our house, all claim at one time or another to have seen a ghost up there. My mother said she saw ghosts in our house a couple of times. A friend of my older brother, who would be ordained a Catholic priest 10 years later, swore he saw a ghost in the middle of the night. To this day he will swear on a Bible that what he saw was a real ghost.
But the thing is our house was built by my dad and uncles 7 years before I was born and no one ever died there. There is no evidence it was built on an Indian burial ground as my mom contended and in the 9 years my younger brother and I lived upstairs we never saw any ghosts no matter how much alcohol we had consumed.
So while I don’t believe in ghosts I do love a good ghost story and the Esther Williams story is pretty funny. But when people start believing in ghosts they seem to go down the Art Bell road it’s a short jump to looking for aliens at Area 51.
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Johnny:
In Judaism there is an ancient legend that when synagogues are empty, shaydim, lost Jewish souls, wander the aisles.
When I was very young, I was locked by mistake into my grandfather’s basement synagogue.
I was terrified. I mean out of my mind with fear. Luckily my parents noticed that I was missing at the dinner table and they discovered me shivering in a corner of the tiny synagogue.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at June 23, 2011 04:28 PM
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