Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 252

View Larger Map

If you look beyond the No. 1 Furniture Group and Chiropractic Group offices at 6128 Wilshire Blvd, you’ll see a thirty unit apartment building. This is where a teenaged Ann Dvorak was living with her mother and stepfather, Anna Lehr and Arthur Pearson, in 1929. This is where Ann would have been residing when she made the trek down to the MGM Studios to appear as a chorus girl in Hollywood Revue of 1929.

Marlene Laskey Collection/Los Angeles Public Library

A couple of years ago, a patron came into the library doing research on this building, specifically about Lane’s Cocktails which occupied one of the storefronts in the 1960s. When she gave me the address and said she was looking for information about the building, I responded, “Oh, that’s where Ann Dvorak lived when she first started as a chorine at MGM.” I’m fairly certain I am the only librarian on the face of the planet who could have answered with that.

Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 251

MGM Studio in Culver City Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection

Ann Dvorak is usually associated with Warner Bros., the studio she was under contract to, and warred with, from 1932-1936. However, the first studio to sign a deal with Ann was Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

Ann was an unfashionable, but spunky teenager when she showed up at MGM’s fabled studio gates, hoping to land a gig in the chorus for The Hollywood Revue of 1929. She made the line-up by the skin of her teeth and was eventually offered a contract as a dancer and assistant choreographer.

Chorine wasn’t a long-term career plan for Ann and when she was still getting cast in uncredited dancer or extra parts two years later, she ceased being enchanted with the studio that boasted, “more stars than in the heavens.”

She eventually left to make a little film called Scarface, but did return to Culver City a handful of times as a freelancer.

View Larger Map

The massive MGM backlot is a thing of the past (check out this book if that’s of interest), and the water tower now reads Sony, but the studio that Ann set foot on countless times and its gates are still there, and always give me a cheap thrill every time I drive by them.

Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 247

Ann Dvorak may have started her Los Angeles education at the Elliott School, but she ultimately ended up at the Page School For Girls in the Highland Park neighborhood. This is from where she graduated around 1927 or 1928. After Ann became a known actress, she visited her alma mater on at least one occasion.

1920 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map

Like the Elliot School, Page was a converted Victorian home that served as a boarding school.  The school, who advertised it would prepare its students for “useful womanhood” was started by sisters Emma & Della Page. Della later broke off to start the companion Page Military Academy which served the young male population. There are still Page private schools in existence which are offshoots of the military academy and operated by the descendants of Della Page. Unfortunately, they do not have any records from the girls school.

I have never been able to find a photo of the Page School, which drives me nuts. The above photo, taken by one-time Disney engineer Herman Schultheis is especially maddening. While taking this shot, he was standing at the lower lefthand corner of the above map. Had he just turned around he could have gotten some photos of the school! This image is in the photo archive I oversee, so Herman definitely did not turn his camera behind him.

View Larger Map

While this stretch of Pasadena Ave (actually, it’s now Figueroa) maintains many remnants of its long history, the site Page School For Girls is now a rather unsightly shopping center.