Whitley Heights 101

Whitley Heights House of Mistaken Identity

Upon finding a great website called Hollywood Historic Photos in my quest to find information about Whitley Heights, I found 11 photographs under its own section. Three of the houses under the section were not familiar and must have been demolished for the freeway construction. The first house in the photograph above caught my eye as I began to research and find out what happened to the house. The caption underneath the photo read: Residential area torn down to make way for the Hollywood 101 Freeway in 1954. Studying the background of the house did not prove to be familiar as the house was on a downslope with another residence right above it. I thought this might have been located on Fairfield Avenue or perhaps near Bette Davis’ former house on Alta Loma Drive. I began searching over aerial photographs of Hollywood and still no luck.

The house began to intrigue me and I wanted to know more about it, even if it had been demolished. I felt that this house had a story to tell. Then one day, I noticed numbers on front of the house. Almost unrecognizable, I began searching addresses in Whitley Heights in the 2000 and 3000 blocks as the first number had to be a “2” or a “3” and the last three numbers appeared to be 0-3-9. There was no 3000 block of Whitley Heights so the house number had to be 2039 which did not exist in Whitley Heights. I stopped searching; the house was not in Whitley Heights.

Later, a compound across the street on Highland Avenue went on the market and after looking at an area in Hollywood Hills right above it, I spotted it house on 2039 High Tower Road. Actually the house is a duplex (2037-2039 High Tower Road). There is one unit above the garage and the second unit on the top floor. It was built in 1923 after Fred S. Gallagher bought five acres land and called the area Morning Glory Terraces; Gallagher was also responsible for erecting the High Tower Elevator, which was advertised as “California’s Only Tract with an Electric Elevator”.

2037-2039 High Tower Road was built in 1923 and a businessman from Chicago, William Schwartz and his wife, Paulette, moved into the lower unit (2037 High Tower) by 1924. Schwartz died in 1926 and Paulette moved onto husband #4, Hans Demuth in 1927. Mr. and Mrs. Demuth remained at the High Tower residence until Paulette, at the age of 76, died in a sanitarium in 1942. Actress Olga San Juan resided at 2037 High Tower circa 1946. The Puerto Rican actress was often compared to Brazilian actress Carmen Miranda and was nicknamed, “The Puerto Rican Pepperpot”. San Juan was discovered at the club, The Copacabana, a popular New York City night club, by Paramount Pictures. She was credited for 17 roles between 1945 to 1960 including; Blue Skies (1946) with Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, Are You With It? (1947), starring opposite Donald O’Connor, and One Touch of Venus (1948) with Ava Gardner. San Juan’s career fizzled after marrying actor Edmond O’Brien (The Barefoot Contessa) in 1948 and having three children.

San Juan was long gone in the lower unit by 1949 when concert singer Salvatore Gueci, his wife and two sons were residing there. The older Gueci son attended Hollywood High School where he met Mary Catherine Reardon, who lived down the street at 524 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Mary Catherine moved to Hollywood with her mother shortly after she was acquitted in the 1947 death of her wealthy father, J. Vincent Reardon, 58, the president of his own paint company in St. Louis, Missouri. Mrs. Reardon felt they needed a fresh start in a new city. The then, 14 year old girl was charged for shooting her father while he was driving her and her friend, Michael D’Arcy, home after the two had run away from home. The 13 year old boy died in the car as a result of Reardon losing control of the vehicle after he was shot. It was convenient for Mary Catherine to blame the deceased boy for shooting her father, although he had been shot in the back of the head.

On July 23, 1949, according to Mary Catherine’s mother, Leona, she went missing and had to file a police report. The police found Mary Catherine at 2037 High Tower Road, two weeks later, now married to 18 year old Gabriel Gueci. The two eloped on July 22 in Las Vegas while Mrs. Gueci and a younger brother were in attendance. Mrs. Gueci thought Mary Catherine had written permission to marry her son and was not aware she had recently been acquitted from her father’s murder. Leona wanted the young couple to get an annulment, but Mrs. Gueci indicated she would oppose it. Several weeks after the wedding, Mary Catherine got arrested for trying to steal a dress out of a department store. Mary Catherine sobbed, “We haven’t any money and I like pretty things. I’m used to pretty things. I have always had them.” Mary Catherine, would not inherit anything from her deceased father until she was 21. Both set of parents kicked them out of their houses so the young couple was renting a room in Sherman Oaks and had trouble paying the rent. Mary Catherine had to sit in jail because they could not afford the $500 bail.

As Mary Catherine was only 17 years old, her case was transferred to the juvenile division and she was named a ward of the court. In August, during a hearing, Leona was summoned to court and she indicated that she was in the process of setting up an allowance for Mary Catherine from the trust fund as she was now expecting a child. In February 1951, Mary Catherine was already asking for a divorce who had separated from Gabriel on Valentine’s Day. After Mary Catherine turned 18, she got a waitressing job and was able to draw some money from her inheritance, but then lost the baby. She filed for a divorce from Gabriel charging him “extreme cruelty”. One month after she filed for divorce, her lawyer sued her for failing to pay him $3,000 that she owed him.

Mary Catherine, a.k.a. “Poor Little Rich Girl”, was granted divorce in December of 1951. Gabriel had moved back to 2037 High Tower Road with his mother and Mary Catherine was now living in Burbank. She called Gabriel lazy and unemployed and he claimed he did not know she had been accused of murdering her father when they married. And just like that, Mary Catherine quietly stayed out of the newspapers. She married and divorced twice more and died in 1999.

The upper unit, 2039 High Tower Road, consists of 1,500 square feet with 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. The interior of this unit:

In 1930, newlyweds actress Ethlyne Clair and make-up guru Ernest (Ern) Westmore moved into 2039 High Tower Road. Ethlyne (1904-1996) was a silent screen actress who began her career in 1924 and was credited for 46 roles until 1932. She was most popular in Westerns opposite cowboy stars such as Hoot Gibson although her career was less than a decade long. Unfortunately, her voice did not survive the era of talking pictures.

Ern Westmore (1904-1967) was a popular Hollywood makeup artist to began his career in Douglas Fairbank’s, Don Q Son of Zorro, starring Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Astor. Westmore was credited for 66 films until 1951 including; Tiger Rose (1929) starring Monte Blue and Lupe Velez, Cimarron (1931) starring Irene Dunne, and Valentino (1951) with Eleanor Parker and Richard Carlson. Ern was also involved in the creation of the House of Westmore with three of his brothers. It was the elite beauty salon for women, and Ern was forced to borrow $40,000 from John Barrymore and Errol Flynn to assist in the financing, never paying them back. Ern was also involved in a beauty tips television show in the 1950s. Unfortunately, he struggled with alcoholism throughout his life, drinking as early as 1921. Eventually he was forced out of Warner Bros. because of his alcohol problem.

Their marriage was doomed from the start. While on the steps of the Hollywood Presbyterian Church taking pictures after they got married, Westmore’s 7 year old daughter called for her father in the crowd of spectators. Muriel, followed by his ex-wife, Vioda, approached the newly married couple. Muriel then asked her father when he was going to pay her mommy alimony so she could go to school. This was followed by a process server handing Westmore a court summons to appear in court over his delinquent alimony and child support. Unfortunately, a photographer was there to snap the event.

After Westmore assaulted the photographer, to avoid jail time, he paid up his past alimony payments and bought the photographer a new camera. Their marriage was not a happy one. Clair’s career was plummeting while Westmore’s was in demand. In 1932, then 9 year old Muriel moved in with them and Clair found herself taking on the role as step-mother and giving birth to a daughter two years later. In 1937 Clair filed for divorce citing Westmore’s fits of rage and extreme jealousy. When she left Westmore at 2039 High Tower Road, he attempted suicide by slitting his wrists. “Very foolish. I won’t do it again”, Westmore told his friends after the incident. Clair received a generous settlement and Muriel informed the media that she wished to live with her stepmother.

On July 1, 1969, Allan Dale Kuhn, 30, was arrested at 2039 High Tower Road, along with his wife, Susan, 20, and Howard Kessler, 39. Kuhn’s claim to fame was in 1964, when he and another Miami scuba diver named Jack “Murph the Surf” broke into the New York Museum of Natural History and stole the Star of India sapphire. Both served only two years in prison and when both was released, continued their lives of crime. Kuhn was arrested several times in Los Angeles for robberies in several exclusive homes in Beverly Hills. Murph the Surf was arrested in Miami in 1968 for the murders of two Hollywood, California secretaries who stole $500,000 worth of securities bonds and gave them to Murphy. Murphy had not paid them their share and they threatened to squeal so he allegedly killed them and then drove the bodies to Hollywood, Florida, where he tied the bodies to concrete blocks and put them in a canal. Murphy was caught after jumping through a glass door in Miami after a shoot out when he was robbing the place. Kuhn met the 20 year old waitress at a Van Nuys bar and she divorced him a year later.

“The Greatest Jewel Heist of the Twentieth Century” was made into a film, Murph the Surf in 1975, starring Robert Conrad, Don Stroud, and Donna Mills. Kuhn assisted in writing the screenplay and made it appear that the theft was his idea. Apparently, Kuhn claimed he worked with Francis Ford Coppola in future movie sets. He later retired in northern California where he died in 2017. Murphy was sentenced with life in prison for the murders in Florida, but was allowed parole in 1986. Afterwards, Murphy became involved in the prison ministry and died in 2020 in a small town in Florida. Lot’s of history in this duplex!