6809 Iris Circle

6809 Iris Circle was built in 1926 for widower Mary McNerney by architect W.A. Alexander, both from Huntington Park. The Spanish Villa 8-room home consists of 3,300 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and a two-car garage. The residence sits on a double lot and contains a famed Batchelder-tiled fireplace, Juliet balconies and direct access to the house from the garage, which is an usual feature in Whitley Heights (most garages are detached in the area). Below, 6809 Iris Circle is in the center with Whitley Terrace in the front.

The widower resided in the home with her chauffeur/handyman Jack Evans until her death in 1936. Based on California Voter Registrations and Los Angeles City Directories, Charles L and wife, Augusta Blumenschein and Margaret Severn were listed as residing in the home until 1942. According to a 1940 US Census, Margaret Severn was listed as a “lodger”, but she was Augusta’s sister. (From 1930-1934, the Blumenscheins and Margaret Severn were living down the street at 6820 Iris Circle). This is not the famous dancer Margaret Severn who was born in 1901-this Margaret was born in 1882 and listed her occupation as a store keeper according to the 1930 Federal Census.

By 1944, the Blumenscheins had moved out and were living at 6650 Franklin Avenue. Between 1940-1942 actor Guy Bates Post and his fourth wife, British actress Lillian Kemble-Cooper moved into 6809 Iris Circle. Guy Bates Post (1875-1968), starred in 21 Broadway plays and then moved to Hollywood and was credited for 25 films. Post had a 25-year career in cinema beginning in 1922 with silent film adaptations of Omar the Tentmaker and The Masquerader. He played the Grand Lama in the 1936 serial Ace Drummond and ‘Papa’ Bergelut in the 1937 serial The Mysterious Pilot. Post played Louis Napoleon in the 1937 film Maytime with John Barrymore, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. In 1939 he was once again cast as Louis Napoleon in the film The Mad Empress opposite Medea de Novara, Lionel Atwill and Conrad Nagel. In his last film, A Double Life (1947), Post plays an actor performing in a production of Shakespeare’s Othello.

Post had been married four times: actress Sarah Truax (1897-1907), actress Jane Peyton (1907-1914), actress Adele Ritchie (1916-1929) and actress Lillian Kemble-Cooper (1936-1968). Ritchie was trouble from the beginning. Post married Adele Ritchie on February 2, 1916, at a ceremony held in Toronto two days after the actress had secured a divorce from her previous husband. Toward the end of the 1920s Ritchie became director of the amateur theater group, Community Players, in Laguna Beach. During this time she became friends with Doris Miller, a set designer at the Laguna Beach Playhouse. Miller, who was some 23 years Ritchie’s junior, came from a prominent Waukegan, Illinois, family and was the former wife of Chicago dentist, Dr. Clinton Foster Palmer. For a time, the two were often seen together at social events involving the Laguna Beach artist colony, but this began to change when Ritchie was replaced as the group’s director after clashes with some of the actors. Ritchie grew increasingly bitter over this, which only escalated after Miller received an invitation to a social event, and she did not. Below is Guy Bates Post and Adele Ritchie when they were married.

The two women were observed arguing on the afternoon of April 24, 1930, and that evening their bodies were found in Miller’s bungalow apartment by a friend returning a lost dog. Miller had been shot in the back, while Ritchie was shot in the mouth. From the evidence presented, Ritchie apparently made a futile attempt to stem the flow of blood from Miller’s wound before cleaning up at a bathroom sink and then ultimately took her own life. Fortunately, the forth time was a charm for Guy Bates Post; on October 26, 1936, he and Kemble-Cooper eloped in Las Vegas and stayed together until his death in 1968. Below are Guy Bates Post and Lillian Kemble-Cooper at their Iris Circle home circa 1940.

Kemble-Cooper was born in 1892 in England and is credited for 29 movies and television shows appearances. Although she played minor roles when she moved to Hollywood, she appeared as a nurse in Gone with the Wind (1939) and her last role was as an uncredited Lady Ambassador in My Fair Lady (1964). She comes from an entertainment family as her parents were stage actors Frank Kemble-Cooper and Alice May (Taunton) Kemple-Cooper and siblings were actors Greta Kemble-Cooper, Anthony Kemble-Cooper, and Violet Kemble Cooper (played Lady Capulet in Romeo & Juliet in 1936). Kemble-Cooper was previously married to actor Charles MacKay and former World War I pilot and writer, Louis G. Bernheimer.

In 1956, Russian born sculptor Oscar Miestchaninoff, died at 6809 Iris Circle, where he lived wife, vocalist Beatrice Mery. Miestchaninoff worked in Paris and had pieces in museums all over the world. He moved to the United States by World War 2 where he became a US citizen. The artist’s most famous work A Man in a Top Hat is at the G. Pompidou National Museum of Contemporary Arts and was included into the exhibition of the artists of the Paris School Part of Another, which took place in Paris in November 2000 – March 2001, hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Arts of the City of Paris.

According to several real estate websites (Trulia, Redfin, Zillow), la.curbed.com, lonelyplanet.com, Whitley Heights HPOZ Preservation Plan, and various Hollywood Tour Books, the claim is that actress Marie Dressler resided in this home. After an extensive search to obtain any documentation that she resided at 6809 Iris Circle, none could be found. This is not to say she did not stay in the home-it may have been short term. Here is the timeline and documentation of what was found. You be the judge.

Marie Dressler was born Leila Marie Koerber in Ontario, Canada in 1868. At the age of 14, she left home to begin acting in the Nevada Stock Company and told them that she was 18 years old. The company traveled throughout the midwest where she remained for three years. Dressler ended up in Philadelphia, where she joined the Starr Opera Company as a member of the chorus and then returned to her family who had moved to the United States. In 1892, Dressler made her debut on Broadway at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in Waldemar, the Robber of the Rhine, which only lasted five weeks and then went on to star in other Broadway productions. She was able to buy her parents a home in Long Island and by 1907, she moved to London where she appeared on stage.

Dressler’s stint in London did not last long and she returned to New York after a financial loss. Dressler continued to work on the stage through both world wars, but often struggled to find steady employment at times forcing Dressler to be more frugal with her money. Early in 1930, Dressler joined Edward Everett Horton theater troupe in Los Angeles to play a princess in Ferenc Molnár’s The Swan, but after one week, she quit the troupe. Later that year she played the princess-mother of Lillian Gish’s character in the 1930 film adaptation of Molnar’s play, titled One Romantic Night. Dressler could have stayed at Iris Circle with widow McNerney during her brief trip to Hollywood during this time.

As Marie began to get movie roles, she moved to Hollywood in April of 1927, first residing at the Ambassador Hotel while house hunting according to the Los Angeles Times. In the biography, Marie Dressler: The Unlikeliest Star, by Betty Lee, she then rented a home on Hillside Avenue. Between 1929-1930, Dressler then moved to Whitley Heights and rented 6718 Milner Road, according to a 1930 census and three biography books. According to Marie Dressler: My Own Story, she stated “From my second story veranda, I could see acre upon acre of green California grass and bright-hued California flowers. I lived on my little porch. I had breakfast there every morning. Afternoons and evenings, I played solitaire.” In the book, Marie Dressler: A Biography, by Matthew Kennedy (2006), Dressler moved into a rented home on Milner Road in Whitley Heights that had an arched entryway, iron detailing the doors and windows, hardwood floors, a bedroom that opened onto a sunny terrace that lay a deep narrow pool, a large kitchen with a pantry, 3 bedrooms, and 3 bathrooms. It was also reported at her co-star of Anna Christie, Greta Garbo sent her flowers to this home after the movie premiered. Below is 6718 Milner Road. No interior photographs of this property could be located as it last sold in 1962 for $16,000!

Between 1927-1933 when Dressler was residing in Los Angeles, she starred in 25 roles as she was working hard and her health began to decline. Her doctor suggested she move into a home that did not have so many stairs and levels. In 1930, Marie then rented a home in Beverly Hills (1931 Bedford Drive) and finally was able to purchase her own home in 1932 at 801 Alpine Drive in Beverly Hills. Stricken with cancer, Marie retired in Santa Barbara where she died in 1934. During her career, Marie work with many notables including Lionel Barrymore in Christopher Bean (1933), John Barrymore and Jean Harlow in Dinner at Eight (1933), Wallace Beery and Robert Young in Tugboat Annie (1933), and Norma Shearer in Let Us Be Gay (1930). Below is Dressler cooking in her kitchen in one of the rented homes, possibly the Milner Road residence. Again, Dressler may have temporarily stayed prior to buying her Beverly Hills home in 1932.