Whitley Heights 101

1824-1826 Grace Avenue

Welcome to Edmary Court-well that is what owners Edward and Mary Hibbert used to name this 12 unit apartment complex when they built it in 1924. Now called “Gracewood Court”, this Spanish Colonial Revival complex has 2-story buildings which are eligible to be designated as a historic monument. Each apartment has built in fireplaces and shelving, a breakfast nook, and front and rear doors to the outside. Located on Grace Avenue near Franklin Avenue, the apartments were once home to the Dabney sisters in 1930.

Actress Virginia Dabney resided in one of the units with her husband, William O’Donnell, They married just a few months prior; he was 23 and she was just 21 years old.

The dancer and singer would get her first film role, appearing in “Scarface” which first aired in 1932 and was produced and directed by Howard Hawks. The film starred Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak and Boris Karloff. Other uncredited appearances included; Jean Harlow, Francis Ford, Dennis O’Keefe, and even Howard Hawks. Years later, Oliver Stone would direct the remake of the movie starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfiffer.

Virginia was born in 1907 in Atlanta, GA, to Oscar and Blondine Dabney. She had an older sister, Marion, who also lived in the complex with their mother at the same time. Blondine suffered physical and emotional abuse from their father and filed for divorce several times before his death in 1923. Following their father’s death, Blondine and her two daughters moved to Hollywood. Virginia had 63 film credits before 1940, mostly minor roles, usually as a chorus girl because she could dance, in films “42nd Street” (1933), “Footlight Parade” (1933), “Fashions of 1934” (1934), “Wonder Bar” (1934), “Twenty Million Sweethearts” (1934), and “A Star is Born” (1937).

Her husband worked in the film industry, aspiring to be a film director, but did not have any film credits. Virginia divorced O’Donnell in 1932 and married director and screenwriter Robert Florey in 1939. They were married for 40 years before his death. Florey was born in France in 1900 and was credited for co-writing “Frankenstein” (1931), “Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1932), and “Bride of Frankenstein” (1937). The two met when Florey directed Barbara Stanwyck’s “The Woman in Red” in 1935; Virginia appeared in the film in an uncredited role. Florey would direct television shows in the 1950s and 1960s such as “The Loretta Young Show”, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “The Twilight Zone”.

After Florey’s death, Virginia married actor Lloyd Nolan in 1983 who died just two years later. Nolan appeared in hundreds of film and television shows. The two were actually acquianted in 1938 when they both appeared in “King of Alcatrez” which was directed by Virginia’s second husband, Robert Florey. Below, Lloyd Nolan (right) with Virginia Dabney in “King of Alcatrez”.

Marian Dabney (1903-1969) began her career, appearing in the Broadway Show “Dearest Enemy” in 1925 and then appeared as a dancer in “On Ze Boulevard” (1927) and “King of Jazz”. Marian then focused her career on fashion and worked in the wardrobe department in the film, “Gone with the Wind” in 1939 where she worked with Elmer Ellsworth whom she married from 1943 to 1946.

Ellsworth worked in the costume department in “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938), “Lady in the Iron Mask” (1952) “Around the World in 80 Days” (1956) and the tv series “The Fugitive” from 1963 to 1966.

Prior to moving near Whitley Heights, the two sisters lived at the Parva-Sed Apta Apartments at 1817 N. Ivar Avenue for several years during the mid to late 1930s. They had must of met an unemployed writer named Nathanael West who lived there in 1935. It is said that while West lived in the Tudor-style room house (which still stands today), he was writing his book, “The Day of the Locust” and many of the residents inspired the characters in his novel-aspiring actresses, aging vaudeville performers, extras, prostitutes and a dwarf.

Perhaps the Dabney sisters were inspirations to the novel. “The Day of the Locust” was published in 1939 and West died a year later in an automobile accident with his newlywed wife, driving back to Hollywood from a hunting trip in Mexico. “The Day of the Locust” was made into a film in 1975 starring Donald Sutherland, Karen Black and Burgess Meredith. The character “Faye” sort of resembles Virginia Dabney. Several scenes of the movie were filmed in Whitley Heights. Edmary Court used the slogan “You’ll feel at home” in the newspaper in 1920s as this was home to the Dabney sisters for a year.