Whitley Heights 101

6665 Emmet Terrace

6665 Emmet Terrace was built in 1923 by comic actor Clyde Cook who owned the home until the 1930s. The Mediterranean style home has a total of 3,339 square feet with four bedrooms and three bathrooms. This includes a separate apartment that has its own living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and laundry. The main house has multiple patios and a fireplace. There is a two-car garage on the property located just below the home on Emmet Terrace.

Clyde Cook (1891-1984) was born in Australia and known as one of the original Keystone Cops which were a series of comic silent movies produced by Mack Sennett and his Keystone Film Company between 1912 and 1917. Cook started acting at the age of six in Australia and was able to do acrobatic routines. He also went to England and France to further his career but returned to Australia. From there he wanted to become a soldier for World War I but denied due to his small physique. Instead he fundraised and entertained the soldiers and was possibly where his trademark moustache (see below) first appeared. Cook left for the United States after the Spanish Flu appeared because he did not like the exposure to the epidemic. After being recognized by William Fox in New York for his comic shows, he signed with him and moved to Hollywood. By 1925, he signed to continue his comedies with Hal Roach which made him a star. By 1925, he switched to Warner Bros. and was able to transition to talking pictures due to his Australian accent. While he worked with Hal Roach, some of his films were directed by Stan Laurel.

Cook met Alice Draper (stage name: Alice Knowlton) when they both worked on Ziegfeld’s Follies in 1924 and they married a year later. They had one daughter named Julia who was born in 1928 while Cook still owned the Whitley Heights property. Ten years later, they went through a very public and scandalized divorce. Alice asked for a divorce calling him “domineering, selfish, and intemperate”. She further claimed that he drank often and “choked, beat, and kicked” her. She also claimed that he was unfaithful. Cook filed a countersuit and claimed it was Alice who did the drinking and “imagined events that did not happen”. The divorce trial heated up when Cook ended up punching Alice’s lawyer in the face in court. Despite the very public trial, the divorce was granted in 1938 and Cook continued to make successful movies in Hollywood. Below is Cook and Alice together in the film short “Lucy in Love” in 1928.

Centering on Hollywood and downtown L.A. from its southwest exposure, the home was described as having “a most marvelous view of the Los Angeles plain from their terrace” in a 1926 story in The Times. The story also noted that Cook was “carving a ship model for the mantel” at the time.

In 1933, screenwriter James B. Fagan rented the home and ended up dying in the home from a heart attack after having influenza at the age of 59. He was born in Belfast, Ireland in 1873 and moved to England where he studied law and then turned to acting, writing and producing plays. Beginning in the 1920s, several of Fagan’s plays were adapted for the cinema. Fagan moved to Hollywood in 1929 for the filming by Paramount of his play The Wheel as The Wheel of Life. He is best known for his adaptation of the highly successful, Smilin’ Through (1932), starring Norma Shearer. His first marriage to Elizabeth Kirby ended in divorce. He was living in the home with his second wife, British actress Mary Gray.

According to E.J. Fleming in The Movieland Directory, actor Hurd Hatfield resided at this property in 1943. Hurd Hatfield (1918-1998), was credited for over 80 roles between 1944 and 1981. He is best known for the Hollywood film, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (1945), playing the main role in Oscar Wilde’s tale of a vain young man who trades his soul to retain his youthful appearance which made him a star. Although the part made him famous, he had difficulty getting other parts that differed from that role and ended up in lesser known roles. Born in New York City, he got a scholarship to study acting at Michael Chekhov’s Dartington Hall company in Devon, England. Returning to the United States with Chekhov’s company in 1939, he began a sexual affair with fellow actor Yul Brynner a year later.

Hatfield eventually resented his having initially come to the public’s attention playing the title role in The Picture of Dorian Gray. He believed that the film was ahead of its time and that its undertones of narcissism and bisexuality typecast him and denied him major roles in movies. He became lifelong friends with actress Angela Lansbury when they were making The Picture of Dorian Gray together; he appeared three times on her successful television series Murder, She Wrote (1984) and she convinced him to buy a property close to hers in Ireland in the 1970s.

From 1935 until his death in 1949 Risser Patty lived at 6665 Emmet Terrace. Patty was the former dean of music at Coe College, taught voice lessons in the home and hosted concert parties on the property.

As to any changes to the original structure, Clyde Cook added a tile roof over the front open porch in 1928. In 1947, Risser Patty enclosed one of the porches in glass that is on the second floor. More recently, there has been a new roof put on the home and bathrooms and kitchens have been remodeled.

Below is one of my favorite pictures taken of Whitley Heights. 6665 Emmet Circle is the white home on the lower right of the photograph.