1926 was the height of the roaring twenties and a pivotal year in Hollywood.

The Roosevelt Hotel, built in 1926, played a key role in the lives of those whose stars shone bright during the golden age of Hollywood. Do the ghosts of famous actors haunt the Roosevelt’s halls? Of course they do. And we’re gonna tell you all about it.

She was the Oprah of 1926. America’s first radio televangelist with a nationwide following claiming she had the power to heal thousands with her touch. One day, while swimming at Venice Beach, this famed evangelist goes missing. It’s a true crime spectacle that consumes the summer. Then, she turns up in Mexico five weeks later. What really happened during that strange summer that rocked Los Angeles and the nation?

Take a further look:

Douglas Fairbanks' 1916 cocaine movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Mystery_of_the_Leaping_Fish_(1916).webm

Smithsonian Magazine's The Incredible Disappearing Evangelist: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-incredible-disappearing-evangelist-572829/

The Woman Nobody Knows: https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/woman-nobody-knows

Upton Sinclair's poem about Aimee Semple McPherson's disappearance:

An Evangelist Drowns by Upton Sinclair



Through green-white breakers swift I leap,

Sun-sparkled seas by body keep;

Bearer of Gospel-Glory I

With singing angels in my sky,

And earthly chorus at command,

The trumpets of my silver band!

The cripples to my temple crowd,

I heal them, and they shout aloud.

A thousand miles my raptures go

Upon my magic radio.

Time, space and flesh I rise above,

I turn them into singing love…

What's this? A terror-spasm grips

My heart-strings, and my reason slips.

Oh, God, it cannot be that I,

The bearer of Thy Word, should die!

My letters waiting in the tent!

The loving messenger I sent!

My daughter's voice, my mother's kiss!

My pulpit-notes on Genesis!

Oh, count the souls I saved for Thee,

My Savior-wilt Thou not save me?

Ten thousand to my aid would run,

Bring me my magic microphone!

Send me an angel, or a boat…

The senseless waters fill her throat.

Ten million tons of waters hide

A woman's form, her Faith deride;

While thousands weep upon the shore,

And searchlights seek…and breakers roar…

Oh, gallant souls that grope for light

Through matter's blind and lonely night!

Oh, pity our minds that seek to know

That which is so--

And piteously have forgot

That which is not!

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