Star's Ghosts haunt Their Hollywood Homes

Sex goddess Jean Harlow's ghost cries and sobs in the Beverly Hills house where she tried to commit suicide in 1932 after her husband, producer Paul Bern, killed himself.

One woman who lived there said that she often heard sobbing noises coming from the bathroom. Once day she ran into the bathroom and actually saw the ghost of Harlow crying. The ghost was wearing a pink dress and had Harlow's trademark platinum hair and very red lipstick.

The woman tried to talk to Harlow, but the spirit slowly vanished.

When John Barrymore was America's most famous actor in the 1920s and 1930s he often lived in the Hollywood mansion of his manager and his ghost still haunts the building.

The young actress who lives there today saw Barrymore's ghost, and definitely recognized him. He was dressed in a sports jacket and gray pants, and looked very handsome.

She said the ghost will often lock or unlock doors, and twice broke a big kitchen light when no one was near.

Carole Lombard, the beautiful blonde star who was married to Clark Gable before her death in a plane crash in 1942, haunts her old house on Hollywood Boulevard.

A psychic saw Lombard at the house in a pink dress during a séance when he tried to contact her.

He checked after the séance for a description of what she was wearing the day she died - and it was the same dress.

Falcon's Lair is the house on Bella Drive in Beverly Hills that was purchased in 1925 by Rudolph Valentino for his second wife, Natasha Rambova. He lived in it for only one year before he died of peritonitis, aged 31. He was said to be sterile and impotent, and always picked masculine-type women. They usually gave him the dirty end of the deal.

Natasha left him for another man, and then he became very ill. But he would never admit that he was going to die. And it is believed that , even now, he doesn't know that he is dead.

People have heard music coming from the house and have seen figures walking about. Sometimes it is Valentino himself, dressed as a gaucho.

Silent screen star Mary Pickford and her famed husband Douglas Fairbanks Sr. lived in a haunted Beverly Hills mansion.

It stands in the foothills of Santa Monica Mountains and was called Pickfair.

Before their ownership, a tragic fatality is said to have taken place there. Soon after taking possession, Miss Pickford spoke to Douglas about the unaccountable noises she heard now and then, especially at night. Knowing his wife to be highly imaginative, he attributed them to "wind under the eaves." But the disquieting noises persisted. Douglas himself admitted he heard them and both eh and Mary tried to find an adequate explanation without success. The noises were like the pacing of a nervous woman's feet- up and down, up and down.

One midnight, Mary awoke from a dreamless sleep, got out of bed and walked to the door. The head of the staircase was dimly lighted but not so dimly that she was unable to see the figure of a young woman holding what looked like a piece of musical manuscript. Miss Pickford was not at all frightened because the face was so kindly and attractive and the star stepped forward and stretched out a welcoming hand. then the figure turned as if to descend the staircase and faded into thin air.

Again, when the couple were sleeping in the front bedroom, Mary became conscious of a creepy feeling stealing over her, and a noise in the attic above began. Douglas, too, admitted later he was aware of a "suffocating oppression." They both described it as the distinct unearthly sensation that they were not alone.

There came an ominous rustling of curtains, and ten there stood before them, at the far end of the room, a ghostly female dressed in what appeared to be a modern clothing. She was apparently in great trouble; her hands were clasped together and her eyes turned upward with an agonized expression.

Fairbanks was the first to speak; "Mary, do not be frightened, but do you see tat weird figure there near the curtain?" "Yes, I do, Doug, she said, shuddering. "thank heaven I have you near me this time."

The same specter was seen by several guests of Pickfair from time to time. A titled Scotchman who passed several days there in 1929 had an even more frightening experience than the one by his hosts. On the first night, he slept soundly until 3 in the morning. He had been awake a short time when suddenly the door of his bedroom blew open and slammed. Almost at the same time he heard the sound of creaking shoes pacing forward and backward in the large room.

Fixing his eyes in the direction from where the sound come, he saw standing in a corner the feminine apparition, hands clasped as if in prayer. It came forward, and to the man's terror, touched him on the forehead with fingertips that felt icy cold. Before he could give a gasp of surprise, the figure disappeared.

In an interview which Mary Pickford gave in 1933, she said; "I do not yet know who this ghost can be or what she wants, but I now she appears here at Pickfair and we are becoming used to her.