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A Tangled Webb: 1005 Rexford Drive, Beverly Hills

[IMG:L]Few tales demonstrate just how attached a spirit can become to the posh environs of Beverly Hills like the tale of the quaint Spanish stucco house that was once set at a prestigious corner of Sunset Boulevard at 1005 Rexford Drive, where not one but two stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age reportedly tried to remain, even in death.

The mansion served as the home to many industry luminaries over the years, including the prolific silent film director Gone With the Wind co-director Victor Fleming, screen siren Marlene Dietrich, and Grace Moore, a Tennessee-born Metropolitan Opera soprano of the 1930s who came to Beverly Hills via a film contract and made a habit of throwing lavish, fun-filled parties that went into the wee hours.

The home was later purchased by Clifton Webb. An actor, dancer and singer whose screen success solidified unexpectedly at age 53 when he appeared as the mordant newspaper columnist Waldo Lydecker in the 1944 film noir classic Laura, a role that earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor—an honor he would win in 1946 for The Razor’s Edge.

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Webb—who also famously played Mr. Belvedere in a popular series of screen sequels—was what Hollywood liked to call a “confirmed bachelor” and he lived in the Rexford house with his mother Maybelle. Known for his sophisticated if effete and fussy image, he was a close confidante of Humphrey BogartNoel Coward and the home’s previous owner, Grace Moore.

The year Webb moved in, Moore was killed in a tragic plane crash in Copenhagen, but the actor hadn’t seen the last of her. Webb told friends he spotted what appeared to be her shade in his home on more than one occasion and, perhaps inspired by the soprano’s ghostly devotion to her old haunt, the actor decided he, too, would never move out. “I’m not leaving this house, even at death,” he vowed to Hollywood psychic-to-the-stars Kenny Kingston in 1966, just days before he died of a heart attack inside the masion at age 75.

By 1967 the house had passed into the hands of TV producer Douglas S. Cramer (who made hit shows like The Love Boat and Dynasty with partner Aaron Spelling) and his wife, the influential Los Angeles Times gossip columnist Joyce Haber. On the couple’s first day there Cramer’s mother was unable to locate her toothbrush in a bathroom of the home’s “Greek Room.” After discovering it wedged in a hidden wall receptacle she hadn’t noticed before, she tried to leave the bathroom and found the door hopelessly jammed, forcing her to climb out a window to escape.

[IMG:R]Two months later, Cramer’s half-sister, who had given up smoking, was visiting and awoke to find a pack of smashed cigarettes in the Greek Room’s bathroom sink. A week later, more cigarettes turned up squashed and broken, strewn around the bedroom, and she felt herself being hugged by a warm but invisible presence while lying in bed. Bathroom toilet paper frequently unrolled by itself and—perhaps weirdest of all–she twice awoke to find that a mysterious someone had used the bathroom but neglected to flush.

After that, the Cramers would frequently spy a shadowy, transparent figure passing through the house, a figure the two Hollywood insiders realized was the size and shape of Clifton Webb. A second figure, whom the couple believed was Webb’s mother Maybelle, was also glimpsed from time to time.

Servants reported lights flicking on and off at will, and no one was more sensitive to the home’s extra residents than the Cramers’ three beloved dogs, who were greatly disturbed by a ghostly “cold spot” in the hallway between the guest bedroom and the den, an area where Webb, a frequent insomniac, was known to pace during the night. Haber finally brought one of Webb’s films home to show the servants, who identified the actor on the spot as the figure they had sometimes encountered, but the most telling evidence came when the canines saw the screen and all began howling.

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One evening, Haber could not get one of the dogs to calm down and stop howling through the night. Hearing some odd moaning sounds in the bedroom, she investigated and discovered the gray figure in the corner. The date was Oct. 13 which was, Haber would later learn, the first anniversary of Clifton Webb’s death. Over the next several days, Haber would re-encounter the figure in the night, and once heard it sigh “Well, well…,” a characteristic phrase frequently uttered by the deceased actor. Despite the disturbing encounter, Haber began to get the sense that Webb’s spirit wanted the Cramers to stay.

Finally, in October 1968, Haber decided to invite renowned ghostbuster Hans Holzer and the famed psychic Sybil Leek to hold a seance in the Cramer house and see if they could find the answer to the phantasmagorical goings-on once and for all. A pair of Webb’s closest friends, screenwriter Garson Kanin and his collaborator and wife, actress Ruth Gordon, were invited to attend. All were shocked when Leek suddenly took on the persona and mannerisms of the fastidious actor, but even more so when—as Clifton Webb—she correctly answered questions to which only the Oscar-winner could have known.

A knockout performance, it was to be Webb’s swan song. Seemingly content with one last little bit of the limelight, his spirit—and his mother’s—never disturbed the Cramers or their dogs again, although subsequent owners swear they spotted apparitions of a man and woman dancing in the entry hall. Perhaps Webb and his good friend Grace Moore, both accomplished dancers, had reunited for one more waltz in the house (which was subsequently razed) they both filled with so much merriment.

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