2183 Argyle Avenue

2183 Argyle Avenue was built in 1920 as a 5 room house on a downslope by owner Lucille Best.  At the time, the widowed Lucille Best was residing at 2130 Vista Del Mar Avenue (Hollywood Krotona Building) with her mother, Dr. Marie Kuznik, one of the original Krotona followers.  Best lived at this house periodically and used this house primarily as a rental, subletting the house to various members of the Hollywood movie industry, while she lived next door.  Her mother purchased a studio next door at 2177 Argyle Avenue (built in 1916 as a Krotona Studio) in 1919 and added a room to the studio to convert it into a house.  When Best purchased the land on 2183 Argyle Avenue, she hired architect John Roine to build the house and also hired him to upgrade the house next door enlarging the kitchen and adding windows to the first floor and putting in a bathroom on the bottom floor.  

Best's first tennant was French actor Max Linder (1883-1925) an actor, director and screenwriter who was dubbed "The French Charlie Chaplin".  Linder returned to Hollywood from Paris and rented this house while he formed his own production company "Max Linder Productions" in which he produced, wrote, directed and starred in "Seven Years Bad Luck" which some consider was his best film.  

His production company was short lived; he only completed three films in two years and went back to France in 1923.  In April of 1923, Linder was involved in a near fatal car accident in Nice, resulting in a serious head injury-he was never the same after the accident.  A few weeks after the accident, Linder was arrested for the kidnapping of a minor.  Linder had met a 17 year old girl named Hélène "Ninette" Peters and he planned to marry her in Monte Carlo.  After they got married, Linder turned insanely jealous and mentally abusive towards his child bride.  He accused Peters of cheating on him and often threatened to end her life.  When he was away, he would call and Peters had been been home to take his call.  

On February 24, 1924, Linder and Peters were both found unconscious at at hotel in Vienna; Linder claimed they both took an accident overdose of sleeping powder.  In October 1925, after they attended a Paris screening of Quo Vadis, a film similar to Romeo and Juliet,  Linder and Peters drank Veronal, injected morphine and slashed their wrists. Peters died first, while Linder was unconscious and doctors fought unsuccessfully to keep him alive.  Linder died November 1, 1925 in Paris.  While some suspected the two died in a suicide pact, Peters family felt that Linder killed her and then tried to commit suicide.  

Actress Mary Miles Mintor decided to get away from her controlling mother.  By December of 1922, Minter moved into 2183 Argyle Avenue and reportedly was hosting a dinner with friends at her rental.  In early 1923, Minter was informed that her contract would not be renewed, she was just shy of her 21st birthday.  It did not help that she was linked to director William Desmond Taylor who was murdered in his home on February 1, 1922; the murder was still unsolved.  Moving out of her mother's house had caused an estrangement between the star and her mother and, unfortunately for Mary, it was Charlotte still controlled her finances.  Without a studio contract, Minter no longer had a way to pay the bills and had to move out of 2183 Argyle Avenue by mid 1923.  Mary never acted again, but married in 1957 and lived to be 82.

In June 1923, actress Sigrid Holmquist "the Swedish Mary Pickford" took over the lease at 2183 Argyle Avenue.  That same month, she was hosting a dinner party.  As she and her guests were on her porch, one guest Goodwin Bradley, was grazed Bradley in the hand and nearly another shot nearly hit Holmquist.  This event was kept quiet until August 1923 (Holquist was trying to keep Bradley out of the news).  When the news came out, others, including Mary Miles Minter, thought the shooting was meant for her.  Bradley later revealed that it had been the second time he almost was shot.  In May, he was shot at in front of A.C. Heck's home and indicated days before, a member of a bootleg ring approached him to buy 500 gallons of alcohol.  The bootlegger was later arrested and fined $5,000.  Bradley suspected bullet was meant for him, discrediting Minter's theory.  After the shooting, Holmquist fell victim to a police raid and burglars entering the home one evening shining a flashlight in her face while she was sleeping.  It was all quite enough and she fled the house.

After Holmquist moved out, newlywed and actors, James Kirkwood and Lila Lee moved in the rental in July of 1923.  Lee was 30 years younger than Kirkwood and he got her pregnant.  Lee later revealed that before they were married, she had lost her virginity to Kirkwood and got pregnant prior; Kirkwood arranged for an abortion the first time.  Within weeks of moving it, Kirkwood suffered a near-fatal skull fracture from a horse-riding accident.

Accidents, suicides or murder, job losses, shootings, you name it, tragic things were happening to all of the tenants that once lived in the house.  A February 1924 issue of Screenland magazine went so far the name 2183 Arygle Avenue "Hoodoo House" and "Hollywood's Mysterious Jinx", calling it a "house of evil destiny" and "every occupant has had ill luck".  Clothing store manager Victor H. Levy lived in Hoodoo House from 1925 to 1926.  In May 1929, it was reported that actress Evelyn Stark suffered a fractured jaw, fractured right leg, bruising and possible internal injuries when she was driving Levy's car, which lost control in the 6800 block of Camrose Drive and crashed into a tree.  Later reports indicated that Stark was suing Levy for over $50,000 claiming that she was sitting in Levy's parked car when it plunged down a hillside as the brakes were not set. Levy asserted that the brakes were set and Stark entered the car alone and tried to drive off after midnight and was seeking money for damages to his vehicle.  At the end of the trial, Stark won $8,000 from Levy.  Was this part of the Hoodoo House curse?

Between 1926 and 1928 sisters Rosetta, Vivian and Evelyn Duncan rented 2183 Argyle Avenue.  While Vivian appeared in one film in 1915, Rosetta and Vivian were known as "The Duncan Sisters" an American vaudeville duo who became popular in the 1920s with their act Topsy and Eva.  Sure enough, mishaps started to occur while they lived at Hoodoo House.  In August 1926, Vivian and her lead man, Vernon Rickard, were traveled back from San Francisco, when the car they were in collided with another car near Oxnard, causing a wreck.  Vivians knee cap shattered.  In November of 1926, 35 year old George Chistman was arrested when he was discovered hiding in their bushes.  Christman had been arrested a year earlier for a string of burglaries.  The following year in March, Vivian was arrested for excessive speeding and in June, she was hospitalized after being in another car accident.  The sisters moved elsewhere in 1927.  In December 4, 1959, Rosetta was traveling late one night after a show in Berwyn, Illinois and fell asleep at the wheel causing a crash and succumbing to her death.  

In June of 1928, a fire of unknown origin started in the house.  The firemen had difficulty putting out the flames due to the steep hill.  The fire caused $75,000 in damages; Lucille Best repaired the house after the fire.  Film producer Winfield Sheehan resided in the house in 1929.  At the time, Sheehan was vice president at William Fox Studios and when William Fox was injured in a severe car accident, Sheehan took control of the company pushing for a massive investment in sound stages for talking pictures.  This controversy was dubbed "Winnie’s Folly," believing it would be a financial disaster, when in fact, the opposite occurred.  A year later, a significant legal scandal erupted between Sheehan and William Fox regarding stock ownership with Sheehan winning the battle.  

Between 1933 and 1934 Geoffrey Shurlock (Association Motion Picture Producers) and Erwin Gelsey screenwriter for RKO Studios rented the home.   Shurlock is best known as the successor to Joseph Breen as the director of the Production Code Administration (PCA). He served as the industry's "chief censor" from 1954 to 1969, overseeing the enforcement of the Hays Code.  Erwin S. Gelsey (1900–1988) was a prominent American screenwriter and story editor active during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was a prolific writer, particularly known for his work on major musical comedies and pre-Code films in the 1930s and 1940s.   While Gelsey was living here, he was a passenger in a vehicle driven by film writer Norman Krasna on Doheny Drive and suffered severe injuries.  There is one more-in 1976, 26 year old Diane Dufault was booked on drug charges after trying to jump off a cliff at Elysian Park during Easter sunrise.   She was living in this house at the time.  

2183 Argyle Avenue has gone through extensive remodeling and does not look like the same house as it did when it was first built in 1920.  The interior of the house is completely remodeled.  Below, the image on the right is how the house could appear today if it was left unaltered.