Whitley Heights 101

6502-6520 Cerritos Place

6502-6520 Cerritos Place was built in 1926 by contractor H.H. Kroth and consists of eight 2 bedroom apartments. In 1982, the apartments were added to the Whitley Heights Historic District and remain in tact from when it was originally built. Above is the complex on the corner of Wilcox Avenue and Cerritos Place in 1934. The apartments were first named Fairview Apartments with a listed address of 1975 N. Wilcox Avenue and was advertised for rent on September 15, 1927. By 1936, the complex was called Cerritos Court Apartments. The main entrances to the units are on Cerritos Place: 6512 and 6508 are in the front, 6514, 6510 and 6502 are in the middle, and 6520, 6518 and 6516 are in the back of the property. There is a gated parking lot in the rear and a side entrance on Wilcox Avenue. Several movie industry notables and interesting residents have lived inside these walls since the property was first erected.

The following former tenants are listed by unit number starting in the front of the building:

6512 Cerritos Place is 900 square feet with 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom on the upper floor. Hollywood florist Bruce Rathbone-Deaton and wife, Morton, lived at 6512 in 1930. In April of 1935 Ms. Rathbone filed for divorce claiming Bruce would throw rocks at her window when he came home at night and refused to support her so she had to model to earn a living. Actors Louis Tinsdale in 1929 and Eli Solomon in 1940. Solomon lived here with his wife, Glenda, and worked for the Hollywood Alliance Theater and moved to motion pictures by 1942. Eli was born Elliott Sullivan (pictured below) in 1907 in San Antonio, TX and was credited for 125 minor roles between 1936 and up until his death in 1975. He is known for his roles in: Alcatraz Island (1937), Wells Fargo (1937), Ziegfeld Girl (1941), The Dirty Dozen (1957), and The Great Gatsby (1974). Producer Bob Munger lived here with his mother, Helen, between 1956-60. Munger produced Born Again in 1978 and was the religious advisor to the producers for the film The Omen in 1976.

6508 Cerritos Place is 845 square feet with 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. Between 1935-36 Hollywood publicist Thomas F. MacLeod lived in 6508. MacLeod worked for Warner Brothers in 1931 and lived in two other Whitley Heights residences: 2008 Whitley Avenue in 1936 and 6650 Whitley Terrace in 1938. MacLeod’s claim to fame was that he received an oral invitation for a Charlie Chaplin premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theater on February 7, 1936. MacLeod walked into the theater with his fiancee, actress Louise Davidson. MacLeod was not on the invitation list and he and his date were barred from the lobby, and the police, at the request of the management, ejected him. He sued Fox West Coast Theaters, which operated the movie house, for $30,000; a jury awarded him $5,000. This was later reserved by a higher court as Fox West Coast Theaters appealed the case.

Also in 6508 Cerritos Place was Charles Borel in 1938. Borel (1883-1960), was an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey best known for winning the 1917 Kentucky Derby. Borel rode for prominent stable owners such as Harry Payne Whitney and James Butler. For Whitney he notably won the 1913 Futurity Stakes with Pennant, and for Butler, he finished second in the 1915 Kentucky Derby aboard Pebbles. He then won the 1917 Derby with Omar Khayyam, the first foreign-bred horse to win the prestigious race. By the mid-1930s, a retired Charles Borel made his home in Los Angeles, California where he was an exercise rider at Santa Anita Park. Borel died March 15, 1960 in Los Angeles.

6514 Cerritos Place was home to motion picture director Francis Ford in 1930. Ford was the older brother of actor and director, John Ford, The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and Stagecoach (1939). Francis moved from his Maine family home to Hollywood to start his acting career. Francis had roles in nine Oscar Best Picture nominees: The Front Page (1931), The Informer (1935), A Star Is Born (1937), In Old Chicago (1938), Stagecoach (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Ox-Bow Incident (1942), Wilson (1944) and The Quiet Man (1952). Francis was actually credited for acting in 495 films and directing 180 films starting in 1909 until his death in 1953. Ford was married three times and was married to actress/screenwriter (wife #2), Elsie Van Name, until her death in 1934. Van Name wrote and starred mystery screenplays during the silent era and sometimes when by the name Elsie Ford.

Also in 6514 Cerritos Place was cartoonist Dick Lundy and his wife, Juanita, in 1933. They married in 1932 and divorced in 1934. Lundy (1907-1990), was an American animator and film director who worked at several animation studios including The Walt Disney Company, MGM, and Hanna-Barbera. Lundy was a pioneer of personality animation and is best remembered as one of the creators of Donald Duck. Throughout his career he worked as a primary animator on at least 60 films, both short and feature-length, and directed 51 shorts including; Mickey Mouse shorts, The Yogi Bear Show (1951-2), The Jetsons (1962-3), The Flintstones (1960-6), Charlotte’s Web (1973) and Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels (1977).

6510 Cerritos Place is 900 square feet with 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom and was rented by writer Harry K. Dunn in 1928. Dunn directed short films at MGM, moved into theater directing in the 1940s and founded the Community Theater in Arcadia in 1955. Dunn was credited for acting in The Sunshine and Clouds of Paradise Alley in 1915. He played an auctioneer in the tv series, Lux Video Theater in 1960. The following year, cameraman Ray Ramsey (pictured below) and his wife, Muriel, rented 6510. Ramsey (1899-1952) was a cameraman for MGM and Warner Brothers in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Starting at age 16, he worked as a photographer for Fox Studios. Drafted into WW1 in 1918, he went into the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Again in 1940, he enlisted for WW2 and trained in Rochester New York. Ray rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel before returning to Hollywood in 1942.

Perhaps more interesting in Ramsey’s life, was his list of wives. In February of 1920, Ramsey married Ziegfeld Follies actress Lois Boyd and had one child before divorcing in 1927. Boyd was also one of Mack Sennett’s bathing beauties. Next came actress Muriel Montrose immediately after his divorce to Boyd. Montrose was another of Sennett’s bathing beauties and worked as Clara Bow’s body double. Muriel (pictured below) appeared in a handful of movies including Heart Trouble and The Jolly Jilter. Then she started working as a stunt women in Western films. Ramsey and Montrose lived at 6510 before divorcing in 1929. Montrose married general contractor John Dow after her divorce and had two children, one was Tony Dow who was Wally Cleaver on Leave it to Beaver from 1957 to 1963.

Ramsey then married Florence McQuigg from 1930-1937 before last marrying actress Shirley Hughes from 1937-1946. Hughes was an actress, known for The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Test Pilot (1938) and Double Wedding (1937). She was also the stand-in for Myrna Loy. In addition to working together, the two were friends, and Hughes attended Loy’s wedding in 1937 as maid of honor. In return, Loy held Ramsey’s and Hughes’ wedding at her Coldwater Canyon mansion in 1937. Ray proposed to wife Shirley Hughes (stand-in for Myrna Loy) on the set of Petticoat Fever (1936), a love story starring Myrna Loy and Robert Montgomery.

Also a tenant in 6510 Cerritos Place was actor Nick Copeland and his wife, Pearl, in 1935. Copeland (1894-1940) was credited for 128 films between 1928-1940. Copeland had minor roles in Gambling Lady (1934) starring Barbara Stanwyck, Twentieth Century (1934) with John Barrymore and Carole Lombard, Sadie McKee (1934) with Joan Crawford, The Thin Man (1934) with William Powell and Myrna Loy, andMr. Smith Goes to Washington (193) with James Stewart.

6520 Cerritos Place is 850 square feet with 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. Cameraman Frank Kesson rented 6520 in 1928. Kesson (1885-1939) has 41 movie credited and was primarily known for the Bobby Jones’ “How I Play Golf” series. However, Kesson also filmed The Sea Beast (1926) with John Barrymore and While London Sleeps (1926) a Rin Tin Tin movie. Another cinematographer, William T. Crespinal (pictured below) and his wife, Jeanette rented 6520 in 1938. Crespinal (1890-1987) only worked on a handful of films but was a pioneer in color inventions such as “the rainbow negative” and named president of Cinecolor Corp. in 1946 and then retired in 1948 after working 40 years in color.

6518 Cerritos Place is 850 square feet with 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. Actress Claudia Craddock rented 6518 in 1929 and starred in one film: Paramount’s A Lady’s Profession in 1933. Between 1936-1938 WQKR radio station of The New York Times, Norman McGee rented the apartment. Following his departure, writers Nancy Naumburg and Muriel Rukeyser rented 6518 in 1938. Naumburg was a writer for Photoplay Magazine. Rukeyser, a famed poet, traveled to Alabama in 1931 to attend the infamous “Scottsboro Boys” trial (nine young black teenage boys were accused of raping two white women on a train, convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury; a lynch mob attempted to hang them before the trial, they were denied adequate counsel and exculpatory evidence was not presented. It also turned out that the two “victims” admitted they had fabricated the rape stories, but the boys were convicted anyway). She said that the event opened her eyes to the deep-seated existence of racism in American society, not only to the extent that innocent men were sentenced to death solely because they were black, but that she and other “Yankees” were chased out of town by locals angry at what they saw as outside “interference” in local matters).

She returned to New York City and attended Roosevelt Aviation School (where she wrote her first book, “The Theory of Flight”). She later traveled to Europe, and in 1937 was aboard a train in Spain when the Spanish Civil War broke out; she and other passengers were trapped on the train in a town in the Pyrenees while gun battles raged outside between rebels and government troops. She returned to the U.S. and traveled between New York and California, writing the book “U.S.1”. She has also written several volumes of poetry, a biography of Willard Gibbs and a book about the fall of Wake Island during World War II.

In 1938 actress Ruth Fallows (pictured below) rented 6518 Cerritos. Fallows (1905-1980) was credited for 8 roles between 1933 to 1940. Her first role was Mildred in the 1933 film Emergency Call with William Boyd. A year later she was cast in Fay Wray’s Madame Spy and Boris Karloff’s Night Key in 1937. Her last role was a minor part in Anita Louise’s Glamour for Sale (1940). According to a 1939 Los Angeles Directory, Ruth lived here with actor Joseph C. Boyle. However, according to vital records, Ruth did not marry Joseph until March 24, 1956. Boyle later transitioned to behind the camera as production manager and director.

6516 Cerritos Place is 850 square feet with 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. Between 1929-1931 actress Louise de Friese (pictured below) rented 6516 and also used the name Louise C. King. de Friese was credited 4 roles in 1932 and was later cited to star in “Ruby Red” with Mae West, but was retitled as Belle of the Nineties. Perhaps her most notable documented film with Blonde Venus with Marlene Dietrich and Cary Grant. She also starred in Flesh (1932) which was directed by John Ford, brother of Francis who was living in the complex at the same time!

The following year, actress Lorena Layson (pictured below) rented 6516. Layson, born Lorena Mayer Jones in 1907, came to Los Angeles alone from a small town in Georgia and signed a contract with Warner Brothers in December 1934 and married Daniel J. Danker Jr., head of the J. Walter Thompson Hollywood Office. He was a Vice-President and later a board member of the Company. The Thompson Hollywood Office produced many popular radio programs such as the Lux Radio Theater. Danny Danker was known as the Mayor of Hollywood because he knew, and was friends with, so many people in the radio and picture businesses. The Dankers had one child, Suzanne. Danker died suddenly in July, 1944 and Lorena went to work for The Thompson Co., getting acting roles for Cecil B. DeMille, Lux Radio Theater. She met Louis B. Mayer, as part of her job, and they married in December, 1948-Mayer was 22 years older than she. Mayer adopted Suzanne. Mayer’s own daughters, Edith Goetz and Irene Selznick were about Lorena’s age. Mayer, perhaps the top movie producer of his era, ran MGM for Loews until the early fifties. Mayer died in late 1957. Lorena married Michael Nidorf in 1961. Nidorf was a successful show business agent and manager. Nidorf died in the late seventies and Layson lived until 1985. How ironic is Layson’s first film was called Gold Diggers of 1933!

These are classic apartments that rent for about $2,200 a month if you want to live in the Whitley Heights area.