The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel: Where Old Hollywood's Ghosts Still Linger

A Hotel Born from Hollywood Royalty

The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel opened on May 15, 1927, at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard — financed by a group that included Louis B. Mayer, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Sid Grauman. Named after President Theodore Roosevelt, the $2.5 million property quickly became the beating heart of Hollywood's Golden Age. On May 16, 1929, the hotel hosted the very first Academy Awards ceremony in its Blossom Ballroom, with only 270 attendees and Douglas Fairbanks presiding as Academy president. In 1984, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places, and in 1991 the City of Los Angeles designated it Historic-Cultural Monument No. 545.

The Ghost of Marilyn Monroe

During the early 1940s, a young, struggling Marilyn Monroe called the Roosevelt home for approximately two years. It was near the hotel's pool that she shot her very first magazine cover. Decades after her death, maintenance staff and hotel guests have repeatedly reported seeing Monroe's reflection in a large mirror that once hung in her poolside suite — Suite 1200. The mirror, now relocated inside the hotel, remains one of the most frequently photographed objects on property due to its reported paranormal activity. The Hollywood Reporter has cited staff accounts of the apparition firsthand.

Montgomery Clift and the Trumpet in Room 928

Actor Montgomery Clift occupied Room 928 for three months in 1953 while filming From Here to Eternity. A deeply troubled man, Clift would pace the room at all hours and practiced his trumpet obsessively. Guests who have stayed in Room 928 since Clift's death in 1966 — at age 45 from a heart attack — regularly report hearing the faint sound of a trumpet with no physical source, as well as unexplained cold spots and the distinct sensation of being watched.

The Blossom Ballroom and a Child Named Caroline

The Blossom Ballroom, site of the inaugural Oscars, has been the source of ongoing reports of unexplained footsteps across the polished floors when no one is present, flickering lights, and cold drafts with no apparent origin. Perhaps more unsettling is the legend of a young girl named Caroline, said to have drowned in the hotel pool decades ago. Staff report phantom telephone calls from the lobby where a child's voice asks for her parents before the line goes silent.

Historic Significance

The hotel remains an operating luxury property and a living piece of Hollywood history. It is frequently cited by paranormal investigators and historians alike as one of California's most credible haunting sites, owing to the documented history of its notable former guests and the sheer volume of independent witness accounts spanning nearly a century.