Joan Crawford's West Hollywood Apartment

It looks quite nice when she was in it, but it’s a dump in the 2018 shot.

Her son, Christopher, in the last pic is not bad looking. Sort of Weho over the top, but not bad looking.

Wasn't this the place she kept to stay at when she had work in Los Angeles, while her primary residence was in New York?

I hope it was convenient to the studios, because damn. The exterior shots look ratty as hell.

R3 Yes. Joan and Christina also quarreled over this apartment because Joan booted her daughter out of it.

To be fair, r3, those exterior photos were taken 4 decades after Joan vacated.

Imagine Loretta Young as your landlady.

Easy-clean plastic covers.

Far out. I used to live two blocks away from there. I'd walk by that intersection all the time, though I remember all three corner-areas more than the one she lived on.

I love the queen webmaster!

Was it close to the studios or the site of an old studio, R8?

Because she did have nice apartments in NYC as a primary residence, the only excuse for a place that small and undistinguished is that was a convenient pied a terre. Because I've seen other pictures, and the place seemed to be a totally ordinary 2BR apartment, and even if the place was more upscale in the 1960s the space still looked like the kind of place ordinary middle class working people would live if they couldn't afford a house.

Bette Davis lived in CT in the 60s and 70s and when she went out to LA she lived in the guest house of a flaming gay antiques dealer.

Is Christopher going to star in a one woman show called HONEY DEAREST? I can't tell if his shirt has sequins or lube stains.

Is this where Joan Crawford murdered Sal Mineo?

R10, it was closer to the studios than a lot of the fancy homes up in the Hills. Marilyn Monroe lived five blocks west of there at the El Palacio Apartments in 1947 with a couple.

And Crawford's place is on the street Bette Davis references as the quickest way through the city, "Always take Fountain," she said or something like that.

Leave it to Bette to know where to find the boys, the booze, and the fastest street in town!

I should add that Monroe lived in two other places just one block away from Crawford's apartment.

There's a cool interactive map where you can go through all 43 (!) of Monroe's residences.

A woman who moves 43 times is obviously unstable.

I don't get why people keep asking if the apartment was close to the studios.....do they think Joan walked to them?

R18 - Everybody knows Joan hitched. She'd hike up her skirt and flash those gams. Sadly only ambulances would stop for her.

I kinda like it. The balcony railings, front doors, curved stairway and such give us a sense of Hollywood Regency and glamour, and I'm sure Joan told her friends she kept the place "as a lark" - a fun little Hollywood pied-à-terre.

But I bet it smelled like a goddam dirty ashtray.

R18 Ambulances AND Pepsi delivery guys.

R2, that’s not Chris Crawford.

R22 is accusing someone else of being the dumb one.

LOL! There's a plastic cover on a chair with an uncovered pillow.

Wait! All pieces of furniture are covered in plastic. Hee hee.

r25 - To be fair, they didn't have Depends in 1963.

What a dump.

Did Marilyn have stalkers?

"I don't get why people keep asking if the apartment was close to the studios..."

Some of us have driven in the LA traffic, dear.

People expected different things in apartments then. A quote "luxury" building from the Sixties might appear modest today. Still, what a calling card for a host to be able to say he lives in Crawford's place.

A typical ugly 50s/60s LA apartment complex. I'll bet that Pepsi was laced with vodka.

Joan always put vodka in her Pepsi.

When Joan married Al Steele (the Pepsi CEO) in 1956 she sold her Brentwood house, which she had lived in since 1929, and moved to NYC which was her primary residence for the rest of her life. The LA apartment was only occasionally on a short-term basis so she didn't need anything fancy.

R14, The story goes, Johnny Carson asked Bette for advice on the best way an aspiring starlet could get into Hollywood. Her reply, "Take Fountain!"

[quote] "Easy-clean plastic covers."

That was taken in the Fifth Avenue apartment sometime in the late 1950s, R7. But I wasn't shocked to see Joan preferred plastic slip covers.

[quote] Her reply, "Take Fountain!"

I don't get it.

R16 Well, that was a heartbreaking rabbit hole. Poor Norma Jean.

That dump probably rents for $3800 a month these days.

Marilyn lived 43 places. She died at 36. She had no stability, no home.

^ She was a whore dear,

John didn't sell her big Beverly Hills home until 1959 after Steele was dead. She owned it for exactly thirty years and rented this modest apartment in 1960.

Was it really worth building as an investment for Loretta Young and her husband? Four small units bringing in how much in rental income? Maybe that's how Young was a wealthy woman not begging for work until she was half in the grave like Bette Davis.

Fountain Ave runs East / West parallel to but a block or two north of Sunset & south of Hollywood Blvd - even in the late 80s people would advise you to take Fountain because there was less traffic on it than Hollywood or Sunset.

[quote]Maybe that's how Young was a wealthy woman not begging for work until she was half in the grave like Bette Davis.

Bette Davis supported her entire family for decades. She was always in need to money because she had so many leeching relatives and husbands.

Loretta probably owned all kinds of real estate. She probably had good management.

My mistake - Fountain is south of both Hollywood and Sunset. I haven’t lived in LA for 30 years. But it was considered a faster route through that part of town.

[quote] "Marilyn lived 43 places. She died at 36. She had no stability, no home."

Her childhood alone was plagued by moving and instability, R39 & R40. It's actually completely insane, and I still feel bad for the little girl that endured it, when it crosses my mind.

Christ, that place is smaller than the servant's quarters in her Brentwood house.

Vodka makes the rooms seem much bigger R47

(Yeah R45, Fountain runs parallel to Santa Monica (to the south) and Sunset (to the north). No one uses Hollywood Blvd for anything if they can help it and, because it ends at Crescent Heights to the west, it's not even a viable thorough fair anyway.)

[quote] There's a cool interactive map where you can go through all 43 (!) of Monroe's residences.

Not sure about the 42 other locations, but the Afton Place one is wrong. It’s 6 miles away from what’s listed, nowhere near the Hollywood Bowl.

Marilyn's final home in Brentwood was on the market several years ago and it's beautiful.

The outside of the apartment reminds me of the Paul Snyder apartment in Star 80 -- garage on the bottom and a window over the garage, stairs on the side, but this building seems to have more units. Maybe just a popular style.

I absolutely love that Pepsi stationery.

R50 I noticed that, too. It was practically in Eagle Rock.

R52 - google “dingbat apartments Los Angeles”

The four plus one-type building (4 stories with one story for parking and a lobby underneath) which was common in Chicago in the 50s and 60s was a similar idea.

Looks like the current resident has too much furniture crammed into the apartment for its size. Fountain runs between Sunset and Santa Monica Boulevards. The area is centrally located (under 8 miles) to Sony (MGM), Fox (Disneyish now), Warner Bros, Disney, Universal and Paramount.