September's SPIRITS with SPIRITS

GHOULA meets for cocktails in haunted places on the 13th of each month. “SPIRITS with SPIRITS” is a casual social gathering of regional ghost hunters and those that just like ghost stories. Open to all, from the curious skeptic to the passionate phantom pursuer. Make friends, and toast a ghost! Let's put the “Boo!” back into “booze.”

All those who attend will receive a free (square) G.H.O.U.L.A. button. If you already have one, please wear it so others can find you, without asking the staff about our group. (i.e. LOOK FOR SOMEONE WITH A GHOULA BUTTON)

THE DATE: September 13th, 2013(Friday the 13th)
THE PLACE: The Beachwood Café
2695 N. Beachwood Drive, Los Angeles (Beachwood Canyon) (Map)
THE TIME: 8:00pm - 10:00pm

NOTE: September's SPIRITS with SPIRITS is part one of a two-part tribute to one of Hollywood's most famous ghosts. On the following Monday (on the anniversary of her death), there will be the 2nd annual Peg Entwistle Memorial hike to the Hollywood Sign at sunset (for more info... )

THE GHOSTS:

"I am afraid I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain."
--- Peg Entwhistle's Suicide Note.

On the second Friday of September in 1932, failed actress, Peg Entwistle, left her home at 2428 N. Beachwood Drive (which still stands) to fulfill a date with destiny. She told her uncle, who also lived at that residence, that she was going to the Hollywoodland Drugstore (presently known as The Beachwood Café) to get a book, a pack of cigarettes, and meet a friend. It is thought that this neighborhood hang-out was possibly the last place anyone saw her alive, when she walked along the sidewalk past the store-front's windows on her way up Beachwood Drive. From there, she walked/hiked all the way to the iconic "Hollywood Sign" that hovers over Beachwood. Using a workman's ladder at the site, she climbed to the top of the giant letter "H," and leaped to her death, hitting the rocks at the base and rolling down the hill 200ft into the brush.

It is generally accepted that her reason for this larger-than=life suicidal act was that her staring role in an upcoming film, "Thirteen Women" (which was to be her break-out performance) was greatly reduced during the editing process to a minor character. However, GHOULA's favorite version of this conjecture is that an astrologer hired as a consult on this astrology-themed movie, gave all the cast members private readings. When it was Peg's turn, the fortune teller saw nothing in her cards (as if she had no future), which supposedly disturbed the young true-believer. Peg was portraying a character in that film that was driven to madness because of her horoscope. Is that what happened in real life?

Although, the sad tale of Peg Entwistle is one of the most famous tragic, cautionary and mythic tales of Hollywood, with so many retellings over the decades (including legends of her ghost haunting the Hollywood sign), one aspect of this story rarely gets mentioned...

Not only was the Beachwood Café possibly the last place anyone saw her alive, it also may be where people continue to see her in death... on that same sidewalk walking past the café's windows, up Beachwood Drive, presumably repeating that same fateful walk of her last night, She generally seen from inside the café, and some versions came that a cold breeze proceeds the sighting.

Supposedly, none of the locals will talk about Peg's ghost wandering the sidewalk of the shopping district. Beachwood "Village" has a small town feel, and like many small towns, they are weary of outsiders, specifically tourists looking for a photo op with the Hollywood Sign. The community even fought having a bus line to connect them to nearby Hollywood. So naturally because of this uneasy tension, the residents play down any tales that may attract visitors to their otherwise sleepy canyon.

Luckily for GHOULA, local historian, Jim Dawson, chronicled some of these stories in a 1993 issue of Far Out Magazine, including a sighting by a waitress (10 years after Peg jumped from the sign). At the end of the night, when the café was closed, a waitress heard a tapping at the window. She looked up, and saw Peg (in her white dress) waving "hello" through the window. However, when she unlocked the door to see what she wanted, the "woman in white" had vanished.

So, come out to toast one of Hollywood's most famous spirits, a woman with many connections to the number 13 (her Hollywood sign had 13 letters) on Friday the 13th...
if you dare!

(to read about last month's haunted location... )
(to see a map of previous SPIRITS with SPIRITS locations... )