Whitley Heights 101

2034 N. Las Palmas Avenue

2034 N. Las Palmas is the other residence that contractor Edward Grupp built in 1926 for Lota Hendricks. While the widow Hendricks resided at 2032 N. Las Palmas after it was built, this property was used as a rental and both properties were sold in 1936. This Spanish style home consists of 1,749 square foot home has four bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, a three car garage and a mother-in-law suite. Below, 2032 N. Las Palmas Avenue (red arrow) sits on a downslope above this property, which is indicated by the yellow arrow, and does not have street access.

Between 1938-1941 writer Eleanor DeLamater and her mother, Elizabeth, lived at 2034 N. Las Palmas Avenue. Born in 1901 in New York, DeLamater was the oldest of five children to Oakley and Elizabeth DeLamater, who took to writing when she was in the fifth grade. DeLamater attended Barnard College in 1922 and Smith College between 1923-1924, where she was a member of Psi Kappa Psi sorority and wrote for Smith College Monthly. Following her college graduation, DeLamater sailed to and from England in 1925. Before settling down to pounding a typewriter steadily, she held quite a few jobs covering a rather wide range, from selling artificial flowers in a store to ghost writing for a psychoanalyst.

Starting in the 1920s DeLamater contributed short stories to many magazines including, American Parade, MacLean’s and Liberty, Pictorial Review, and Redbook magazines. She last contributed two short stories to Cosmopolitan Magazine in 1953 and 1954. DeLamater also wrote a novel, Personals, which was published in 1931. DeLamater rented this house while she wrote two screenplays: Hot Water and Big Business in 1937.

Actress Allyson Ames rented this home in the 1960s-she was working to fix the place up by painting and wallpapering the rooms on her own as she indicated the house had not been painted in over thirty years! Ames came from a difficult childhood. Born Jacqueline Adelle Schwab in Dallas, Texas, in 1937, Ames was the youngest of three children born to John and Roxie Schwab. Her father abandoned the family and on February 27, 1948, as Ames and her two siblings were getting off of a bus on a Dallas Highway, they were hit by a drunk driver, killing her older brother and breaking both of her legs. Although Ames was in critical condition, she survived the accident. This caused her mother to have a nervous breakdown and Ames was practically raising herself. She was a handful as she was often getting suspended and expelled starting in elementary school. The last was when she ran away at the age of 15 and married an older man named John Morris Green and they had 4 children: John Jr., Jackie, Judson, and Jennifer.

Ames was not afraid of hard work-as a child she picked cotton, worked as a carhop and at a movie theater before becoming the star high fashion model of a famed Dallas dept (Margo Jones players). By the age of 21, Jackie Green was doing commercials and modeled for Neiman Marcus Department Store. Then in 1960, she was persuaded to leave Texas for Hollywood-an alleged agent told here there was a contract waiting for her so she packed her 4 kids and drove to Los Angeles with only $3.80 left in her pocket. Once she arrived, she called her husband and told him where she was. After finding out that there was no Hollywood contract, she talked United Artists into giving her a bit part on a Bob Hope trailer. Her husband came out but soon left and they divorced.

Jackie Green changed her name to Allyson Ames and she began to get more acting parts. She was signed by producer Mark Kipsky with Victor Corporation for the lead in “The Cool Blonde” at Telepix Studios. In May of 1961, she got a part in “Too Late Blues” with Bobby Darin and Stella Stevens. Ames had 32 credits between 1961-1975 including parts in: Hazel, Burke’s Law, Perry Mason, Maverick, Sugarfoot, 77 Sunset Strip and Hawaiian Eye. In a 1964, TV Guide article, she was quoted to be the next “Marilyn Monroe”. Being a single mother of 4 did not stop her from getting parts as she was called “a modernized version of Old Mother Hubbard” in a 1964 newspaper article. 1963 brought her a minor role in 4 for Texas, starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Anita Ekberg, and Ursula Andress.

Having 4 children did not stop Allyson from dating, although many men were scared off when they found out she had so many. In 1963, she became engaged to actor and stuntman William O. Douglas, Jr., whose father was Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Ames met Douglas on the set of The Outer Limits. The crazy thing is that his 63 year old father had just divorced his second wife and married a 23 year old five days later! Below is their photo in a 1963 edition of Life Magazine. A month later, the engagement was called off and Ames was already dating Hollywood writer and producer Abby Mann who was 10 years her senior. She also dated actor Gardner McKay.

By January of 1964, Ames was now dating director and screenwriter Leslie Stevens who had just gotten a divorce from actress Kate Manx. (That same year Manx overdosed on sleeping pills and died and it was ruled a suicide.). She was also dating Stanley Rumbough, Jr., the estranged husband of actress Dina Merrill. On March 4, 1964, a fire originated in her two oldest sons bedroom at 2034 N. Las Palmas Avenue. One of her children woke her and Ames found the fire in a bedroom; she had threw a mattress out of the window and escaped the fire with her 4 children and 7 puppies. Ames suffered burns on her right hand and leg and the fire caused extensive damage in the bedroom. By July, the house had been repaired and advertised for rent again.

This time, Ames rented a home on Kings Road in September of 1964. The following month, Ames married Leslie Stevens, who was 17 years older than she; they married in Coronado on Steven’s 41st birthday. They moved to a home on Crescent Drive in Beverly Hills. Their relationship was toxic as Stevens indicated he “fell in love with the aura who Allyson was”. It was reported the Ames smoked like a chimney and liked to spend money. In December, they returned home from a party and got into an argument. Stevens hit Ames and then she picked up a glass bottle of Dr. Pepper that was sitting on the nightstand and hit him over the head. She woke her 4 children and each handed them a paper bag telling them to pack that they were leaving. Stevens locked himself in the bathroom, called her mother pleading with her to talk to Ames to return home. They moved back to the Kings Road house as the landlord had not rented it yet. In December of 1966, Ames obtained an uncontested divorce testifying husband Leslie Stevens, 42, upset her so that she became a nervous wreck and just fell apart. Their marriage lasted just 10 months.

Ames married twice more: in 1969, she married 59 year old Harry Rothschild, president of Getty Oil Company when she was 31 years old. Later, she married Ralph Levitz and lived the Palm Beach lifestyle from 1985 to 1987 (they divorced); he was 73 years old and she was 47. Ames went back to California and died November 3, 1999 of emphysema. Perhaps her well known movie was Incubus with William Shatner. Below is Ames (she called herself Jacqueline Smith) with Levitz in the 1980s.