Whitley Heights 101

6627 Emmet Terrace

6627 Emmet Terrace was built in 1923 (the permit was dated December of 1922 by owner Arthur Taylor, who was residing at the former Christie Hotel). The Christie Hotel was located at 6724 Hollywood Boulevard and just built that year. It was considered Los Angeles’ first luxury hotel. The building is now owned by the Church of Scientology (at least they did not tear it down). Below, the hotel can be seen on the left in the photograph taken in the 1920s.

Arthur built 6627 Emmet Terrace originally having three bedrooms and two full bathrooms. However, after 1960 a third bathroom was added. The floor plan of this residence is unique in that the house is surrounded by patio areas. In addition, upon entering the front door, there is a small entry way, the stairs leading up to the second floor, a doorway to the left leading into the dining room and a doorway to the right going into the living room. There is no direct access to the kitchen.

After entering the dining room, there is a door that leads into the kitchen. From the kitchen, there is another doorway where the third bedroom, another full bathroom and laundry area are located. The dining room and back hallway both have doors that lead out to the patio. The patio faces the front, left side and back of the residence.

One notable tenant was Adelbert G. Volck and his wife, Helen, from 1931-1934. The studio executive and civil engineer went by his middle name George. He was born in Texas in 1870. His mother, Elizabeth, was first married to George’s father, Albert Volck, when she was only fifteen years old. Elizabeth was on her third marriage to Brazilian ambassador Domicio Da Gama. George’s grandfather was the Civil War illustrator, Adelbert J. Volck (1828-1905).

Prior to living in Hollywood, George resided in New York and took a teenage bride, 17 year old Edna Alexander in 1921. George was previously married and had a 13 year old daughter from the first marriage in 1908. In 1912, his first wife, Lillian sued him for divorce citing desertion and non-support. Lillian ended up getting the divorce in Reno in 1913; she did not get all the financial support she was looking for because George’s mom stopped his “allowance” and he was heavily in debt. Lillian also claimed that George wanted to marry an actress. In 1914, ten days after his divorce, he eloped to an actress May Allen. The second marriage did not last so he was onto wife number three, the teenage bride. These scandals caused friction between George and his mother, who disinherited him from her fortune. (She inherited a large sum of money after the death of her second husband).

At the time, George was vice-president of the Selzneck Corporation and was transferred to Los Angeles in 1922. George rented a furnished house from actress Clara Whipple Young at 2000 Holly Drive and the place ended up getting trashed. Clara sued George for damages to her expensive drapery, broken wine glasses and other glassware. The courts had to decide whether the tapestries were imported or not. In the end, George owed Clara a total of $95. Then George’s wife, Edna filed for divorce citing abandonment and financial neglect of their three year old daughter. In 1925, George’s first daughter, Alice, now 17 years old, married Prince Johannes of Liechtenstein, which was apparently approved by her grandmother who was leaving Alice seven million dollars in her will.

Sometime before 1931, George married wife number four, Helen, a New York socialite. George’s career was flourishing and he was working with Hollywood icons such as Cecil De Mille and Thomas Ince. In 1939, Helen filed for divorce because George bought his secretary an expensive car and he was having an affair. His disastrous marriages did not inhibit his career. That same year, George started his own talent agency, George A. Volck Agency and represented actress, Lillian Gish. However, George left to fight in the war in 1941 and another agent stole her away from him. Kurt Frings was critical of the way Volck had handled her, particularly in allowing her to return to the screen in a role as weak as that of the wife in Commandos Strike at Dawn. Volck released Lillian in February 1943. Lillian wrote a letter of thanks to George: “I will feel lost without you both [George and his wife, Helen], as I have felt now for well over a year, as I think George left the office in November 1941. Just another and a great big reason for me to hate everything about this war, and to pray fervently for an early end to it.” George died in Fullerton in 1974.

Actress Jean Parker resided at 6627 Emmet Terrace between 1938-1940. Jean was born as Lois Mae Green in Horne, Montana in 1915. Many accounts say that her father was a poor farmer who struggled during the Great Depression so her parents gave her and her younger sister, Lavona, up for adoption. Jean was allegedly adopted by the “Spackard” family of Pasadena at the age of ten. However, a 1930 Federal Census shows an 13 year old Lois M. Green and 11 year old La Vona M. Green residing in Pasadena with 39 year old Pearl M. Green. La Vona can be traced back to her birth in Colorado and is indeed, Lois’ sister. Pearl is listed as the girl’s mother but her birth date is listed as 1891 and Lois’ birth mother, Melvina, has a birth date of 1896.

Lois supposedly graduated from John Muir High School in Pasadena and was an aspiring artist. Still under the name Lois Green, she won a prize for a poster that appeared, along with her photograph, in that year’s New Year’s Day Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena. That is where Ida Koverman, secretary to the MGM boss, Louis B. Mayer is said to have seen the photograph and recommended her for a contract. She made her debut in 1932 in Rasputin and the Empress where she played an uncredited Princess Maria. One notable role was Beth March in Little Women in 1933 where she co-starred along side Katherine Hepburn and Joan Bennett. Jean was credited for over 80 movie and television roles until 1965. Below is the photograph used for the Rose Parade in 1932.

Perhaps it was Jean’s upbringing and possible adoption that she longed for love. Jean fell hard in love, married quickly and then discovered the incompatibilities. She did this four times using her legal name, Lois Mae Green. In December 1935, she became engaged to New York socialite newspaperman George E. McDonald, and eloped with him to Las Vegas on March 21, 1936. They had just met in November of 1935. George continued to work in New York and develop his career, Jean was living at this residence, listed as Jean MacDonald, with her housekeeper, Elizabeth Campbell. The long distance relationship was doomed from the start. McDonald continued his business affairs on the East Coast, and after less than four years of marriage, Parker was granted an interlocutory decree of divorce on January 23, 1940.

Two months after the divorce, Jean is linked to Captain Doug Dawson. On February 14, 1941, she married Los Angeles radio commentator Henry Dawson Sanders, known professionally as Doug Dawson. Jean married Dawson one day after she received the final divorce decree from MacDonald. They live at a ranch in Glendale next door to Bette Davis. They operated a flying service from Palm Springs Airport which closed with the outbreak of World War II. In July 1942, her husband joined the Coast Guard and in September 1942 they separated as Jean cited “extreme cruelty”. They got back together in November and divorced in July 1943 with Jean stating he criticized her work and her friends.

A month after she was granted her final divorce decree on July 29, 1944, she married Dr. Kurt “Curtis” Arthur Grotter, a Hollywood insurance broker and former correspondent for a group of Czechoslovakian newspapers and active with the Braille Institute in Los Angeles, as he had a substantial loss of vision. On June 19, 1949, Jean announced that she and Grotter have separated after five years of married life because of her stage work. Jean filed for divorce in July of 1949 citing cruelty. They divorced on December 29, 1949.

While still in divorce proceedings with Grotter, Jean falls for actor, Bob Lowery who just separated from his wife. On May 19, 1951, she secretly married actor Robert Lowery, at the home of a friend in Hialeah, Florida. Lowery played Batman in 1949; he was featured in over seventy films in his own career. In June of 1952, they announce to the world they were secretly married a year ago and are expecting a baby and Robert Jr. was born in September of 1952. However, six months later, Robert is going to Hollywood nightclubs while Jean is home taking care of the baby. In 1956, Jean announced they were separating but reconciled for the sake of the baby and then separated again. In September of 1957, Jean filed for divorce but was never finalized. Lowery died of a heart attack in 1971 before the divorce was final.

Jean’s claim to fame was in 1951 while she was visiting Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, she made international news when she was escorted off Bondi Beach when swimsuit inspector Abe Laidlaw measured her bikini and determined it was too skimpy. In 1935, the local government passed an ordinance regulating the amount of skin that could be shown, which was repealed in 1961. Below is Jean wearing the actual bikini that removed her from the beach.

As seen in the 1948 photograph of Bondi Beach, Australia, most patrons were wearing full length street clothing and not beach attire.

After filming her last movie in 1965, Jean went off of the grid and refused interviews. At age 83, she moved into the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, where she died of a stroke on November 30, 2005, at the age of 90.