Originally published in the Denver Post and The Advocate (Baton Rouge), Halloween 2004.
Never never never bring a Ouija board into a haunted hotel. Sounds like a no-brainer, right? But that’s what happened recently at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, CA, a place renowned for its glut of ghosts. “She asked for the haunted room,” says hotel security agent Bruce Campbell, 36, about a recent guest. “Then when she was trying to sleep, the coffee pot went on and off, and the TV set started changing channels by itself, and the lights flickered on and off. She called downstairs and [complained], so we gave her a different room and the same thing happened, like it followed her or something. She got so upset that she checked out about 4:00 a.m. That’s when we found out that she had a Ouija board and had tried to contact Montgomery Clift.” Clift, a popular movie actor who died in 1966, lived in Room 928 (right) for three months during the filming of From Here to Eternity. He used to pace up and down the ninth floor hallways, rehearsing his lines and sometimes blowing a bugle. His room is considered the “haunted room” because it has the most reported activity, but there have been sightings and strange phenomenon on all 12 floors. It is said upwards of 35 ghosts wander this grand old hotel, its cabanas, and recreation areas. Clift’s is something of a belligerent spirit, frightening guests by tapping them on the shoulder or scaring housemaids by brushing past them in the hallway. Not surprisingly, the maid staff turnover rate is rather high. Peter James, a leading paranormal researcher and clairvoyant medium, spent the night in 928. He woke up at 3:30 a.m. when he felt the sensation of a heavy weight straddling his body. He could barely move. The weight finally lifted when he was able to struggle his arms free. He fell asleep again, and then at 5:00 a.m. he woke up and saw a man standing by his bed. “I realized that it was Montgomery Cliff,” he says. “He stood for a few moments, walked over to the chair and "sat" there for approximately 30 minutes. He spoke of a very tormented life... He was a gentle soul with a boyish nature.” Clift is not the only former celeb to hang posthumously at the hotel, according to James. He claims to have contacted Clark Gable and Carole Lombard in the suite named after them, and the spiritual presence of Errol Flynn in the hotel bar. The ghost of movie icon Marilyn Monroe may be here as well. Her association with the Roosevelt goes back a long way. She posed for her first print ad - for toothpaste - on the diving board of the hotel pool and stayed here often in the 1950’s, preferring a second floor Cabana Room, #246. At her request, the hotel provided a tall, dark wood framed full- length mirror, which was moved to the general manager’s office after her tragic suicide in 1962. In December, 1985 a maid named Suzanne Leonard was dusting the mirror when she saw a blonde woman standing directly behind her reflected in the glass. She turned to speak to the woman, but no one was there. When she turned back, the reflection was again behind her. Two psychics “read” the mirror, and found much sadness in it, but it was inconclusive whether or not the apparition was the famed actresses. This 75-year old hotel, located on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame and kitty corner from Grauman’s Chinese Theater, has its share of non-famous ghosts as well. Security agent Campbell tells the story of a little one named Caroline: “There was a man staying in a cabana with his young son and daughter,” he says. “Apparently he left to run an errand, and the left the kids asleep. The kids [woke up and] couldn’t find their dad, so they decided to go play on their own. Caroline jumped in the pool, her brother jumped in after her and they both drowned.” Caroline’s ghost would become part of hotel legend several years later. Campbell continues: “The PBX operator got a call from a little girl using the house phone in the lobby. The little girl picked up the phone and said to the operator, “I’m looking for my daddy, I can’t find my daddy.” The operator said, “Well, if you wait right there we’ll send a security agent to come get you and we’ll figure out where your dad went.” And she said, “Tell him to hurry up because I want to play.” And the operator said, “Okay, just wait right there and we’ll send somebody.” The security agent really wasn’t that far away, but by the time he got to the lobby there was no little girl on the phone. So he’s thinking, great, this little kid’s loose somewhere. He looked in Blossom Ballroom, he looked in the lobby, he looked in the restaurant, and he was looking behind the bar when the girl called back. The operator picked up the phone and the little girl said, “Did you find my daddy?” The operator said, “No, and can you stay in one place because the security agent can’t find you.” She said, “Well, I really want to play. Do you want to play?” And the operator said, “No, sweetie, I’ve got to work.” The little girl said, “You’re ugly!” and hung up the phone. The operator got back on the radio and said to the security agent, “That little girl’s on the phone again. Will you go get her and bring her to the front desk?” And the security agent said, “But that’s impossible. There’s nobody on that phone because I’m standing right next to it.” “That’s when the operator kind of got freaked out,” says Campbell.
The Roosevelt Hotel is on Hollywood Boulevard, across the street from Grauman's Chinese Theater (foreground).
Montgomery Clift's room.
This is the mirror Marilyn Monroe had in her pool side bungalow. It now stands on the second floor across from the gift shop. Note the floating orb in the center.
Many guests and staff members claim to have seen Caroline over the years. She wears a blue dress and frolics in the lobby. When approached, she disappears. Manny Frias, 45, an engineer with the hotel for 20 years, thinks he saw her brother. Late one evening he saw a young boy playing in the Jacuzzi. He turned his head away to look for the parents, but when he looked back, the boy was gone. He checked the area for wet footprints, but there were none. How could the boy have got out of the Jacuzzi without leaving wet footprints? Things didn’t get crazy around here until 1985. The hotel began a $12 million renovation project in 1984 that was completed the following year. Something must have happened during its reconstruction, some kind of cosmic jarring, because the ghosts have made their presence felt since then. Before that, it was just another swanky place to stay. Other ghosts show up from time to time. A white-suited piano player in the Blossom Ballroom. An African-American cook in the kitchen. A clarinet player in the cabaret. There is other ghost-related phenomenon as well. An orb is a bubble- like object said to be the spirit of a person or another life form, most times invisible to the naked eye. Digital photos taken in the Roosevelt show orbs floating in the air. Lots of them. There is allegedly a cold spot in the Blossom Ballroom, where the first Academy Awards ceremony was held. This is a “ghost’s calling card,” according to Psychic -Medium Craig McManus on ShirleyMacLaine.com. The ballroom also has strange little lights that seemingly come from no source, that dance on the walls and then disappear. What are they? Spirits winking at the living, then moving on? That’s unlikely. As much of this is unlikely. The good folks at Skeptical Enquirer magazine would have a field day picking apart this story because there is not a shred of irrefutable proof to any of it. Plenty of first-person account. No solid evidence. A search for the cold spot in the Blossom Ballroom came up empty. It is supposed to be 30 inches in diameter and more than ten degrees cooler than the rest of the room. Its approximate location is known, so it should not be hard to find. But it is not there. And the dancing lights probably have some logical explanation. Why do the lights have to be ghosts? The photo above shows an “orb” by the Marilyn Monroe mirror. Yet most paranormal sites on the Internet claim orb photography is bunk. The Ghost Research Society says “most orb photographs are taken with digital cameras [like this one] under extremely low-light conditions and are nothing more than digital flaws caused by lack of pixelation or filling of the proper colors due to a digital defect.” Easy to fake, in other words. Most of the ghost stories are exactly that: stories. Great as urban legend. But in the light of cold hard fact, Scully beats Mulder every time. So go ahead and check into Room 928. And don’t be alarmed when the coffee pot turns on and off and the TV set starts changing channels by itself. There has to be some logical explanation, right? Because there’s no such thing as ghosts. Right?
