Peg Entwistle Takes on the Coveted Role of an Afterlife

"Actress Ends Life by Jumping Off Fifty-Foot Sign After Failure in the Movies"

At least that's how the New York Times insensitively, even cruelly, put it anyway. Yet perhaps Peg Entwistle just hadn't quite yet had the chance to achieve more lasting success in Hollywood. Of course we'll never know for sure, because on September 16, 1932, the despondent young (only 24 year old) woman walked, all alone, up into the lofty, sparsely wooded heights of Tinseltown, up to the now world-famous sign, that at the time read "Hollywoodland," paused in front of the first letter, the H, and then, after laboriously climbing some fifty feet upward (using a service ladder), took the fateful leap that sadly ended her corporeal existence.

Yet, oddly enough, when it comes to fame (though not necessarily fortune) Ms. Entwistle may now be much more well known (or legendary at least, in the realm of paranormal research) than many of her early 20th century entertainment industry contemporaries. In fact, prior to her last film appearance in Thirteen Women, a production that was so poorly received that it was soon  hastily re-edited by RKO Pictures (which caused Peg's role in the movie to be drastically cut and her contract terminated), she had actually achieved considerable success as a promising young stage actress.

The eerily titled "Thirteen Women" (1932)

Where most of her contemporaries are now only known to classic movie and theater buffs, in the many intervening decades since her sad demise, Peg Entwistle is reportedly still seen by a number of perhaps foolish, thrill-seeking trespassers to the now very much forbidden and sealed-off site, where it is believed that the unfortunate wraith still treads the doleful path she last took toward her final destination in life.

For unfortunately, by the Fall of 1932, in the wake of the poor reception of Thirteen Women, all the young starlet's previous accolades seemed to be of no avail if she could no longer even afford to pay her rent. So reluctantly, Peg was forced to take up residence with a close relative.

It's unclear how well that particular arrangement may have been tolerated by all parties involved, but what is known, is that one evening, saying that she was going to the store, the despondent young thespian left her uncle's home and headed out on foot, quietly plodding toward the ever beckoning Hollywoodland sign, that surely represented the sum total of all her once promising hopes and dreams.

It's at least quite conceivable then, that Peg may therefore now be sadly, even perhaps supernaturally, typecast - forever trapped in the tragic role of yet another leading "Lady in White" - that all too ubiquitous ghost story sobriquet bestowed upon many a frightfully pale female apparition that is commonly reported in numerous haunted locations the world over, and even all throughout recorded history.

In the case of this particular Lady in White, even when she's not actually seen in the spectral flesh, the distinctive scent of Ms. Entwistle's favorite, Gardenia scented perfume (which she was undoubtedly wearing on the night of her passing), is sometimes detected by visitors to nearby Griffith Park - which just happens to be a great place to get a much closer view of the now fully restored Hollywood sign.

Simply paying a visit to the park however, doesn't necessarily get one all that close to the world famous tourist attraction. Nor does it mean that spending leisure time at the popular public venue is an appropriate place to go ghost hunting. As a result, every now and then, thrill seekers and amateur ghost hunters alike attempt to sneak onto the premises after hours, hoping to get a glimpse of the fabled Lady in White.

One such frightful tale was once told of the melancholy shade that allegedly haunts the rugged slopes leading up to the site of Peg's suicide. As the story goes, a couple of greatly startled young eye-witnesses later described suddenly encountering the macabre manifestation of a solitary female figure who, eerily enough, stared back at them from the hollowed out orbits of a skeletal face. The rest of her semi-transparent form, they claimed, was clad in "flapper" era clothing that concealed all but her bony hands and perhaps the lower part of her legs.

Yet, if it really is the ghost of poor Peg Entwistle that is periodically witnessed still winding her dispirited way up to the very last - and perhaps all too successful - audition of her brief life, then what a shame that such a beautiful, once vibrant young woman might, quite possibly, be trapped in time and space up on that steep, dark hillside in otherwise golden, sunny southern California, so very far from the time-honored place of her birth.

We can only hope then, that if it is indeed Peg's spectral form that still haunts the location, that she will one day find the eternally restful sleep that she no doubt richly deserves.

"The darker the night, the brighter the stars,

the deeper the grief, the closer is God." ~Fyodor Dostoevsky

But then... maybe that's what the lovely young lady wanted all along. Maybe, out there, somewhere, in the multi-dimension defying Afterlife that we mere mortals have yet to fully comprehend, Peg is even now still locked in the well-rehearsed throes of faithfully "breaking a leg" in the only way she has ever knew how.

Perhaps this final opus is the eternal swan song of a talented young actress whom Hollywood was foolish enough to simply overlook. Although, it is said that three days after Peg's suicide, her uncle received a letter from a film studio, stating that she was being considered for a major role in an upcoming motion picture.

Even so, perhaps this last, oft-repeated command performance may very well be the starring role that she was always meant to play long term, and to the very hilt. Or, maybe it's just that, in the final, heart-rending moments of the downward spiral of her life, in the deeply depressive state she was obviously in, that that's just the way that she may have imagined that it all ought to come crashing to an anti-climactic end. And then, though the final curtain did so abruptly, so very harshly fall, this shrinking violet, this unsung talent of days gone by, did in fact rise again - if only in spectral form - to perhaps nightly, up to this very day, "go on with the show."

Whatever the case may in fact be, on a final note, even though amateur ghost hunting has definitely become all the rage in recent years, one would hope that no curious (or just plain foolhardy) interlopers will attempt to clandestinely scale the south slope of Mount Lee in hopes of encountering this particular, ill-fated Lady in White.

Because if it is indeed the pitiful phantom of Peg Entwistle that is periodically encountered out there in the dank, lonely stillness, way up in those wickedly deceptive and forbidding hills that have long beckoned literally millions of young, star-struck Hollywood hopefuls, then I for one tend to think that she at least deserves much better than to be the object of an endless stream of perhaps far too uncaring thrill seekers. Don't you?

Further Reading:
* The Ghosts of Old Hollywood