The Spider Pool girls -- a bit of hidden Hollywood Babylon

[deepsepia]

Big thank you to Solarbear for alerting me to this story, its a great one. It seems to be a bit of a precursor to Hefner's Playboy Mansion . . . here's a bit from an LA history blog, the writing is a bit overwrought, but still, its a great story.

There is something so delightfully decadent and downright pagan about Hollywood in the 1920’s. Maybe it was the heat and the transformation of desert wasteland to an arena of dreams and star making machines or perhaps the country’s overall shedding of prudish Victoriana morals and decor. Social and creative mores were pushed, at times, in the most delicious and evocative of ways. (As anyone who has studied pre-Hays Code films can probably assure you!) Sitting in the Hollywood Hills, like some pastiche Abbey of Thelema meets Silver Screen ambiance was the “Crazy House.”

“Crazy House” belonged to silent film writer/director Jack McDermott. McDermott was born in 1893 and originally from Green River, Wyoming, a mining town known for being one of the first in the country to ban door-to-door solicitation. When his family moved to Los Angeles in the protean days of filmmaking, it was kismet for an unrestrained soul like McDermott’s. Settling in the desert landscape like a holy burning bush as witnessed by a tribe of mescaline-dosed fops, McDermott’s reputation would soon grow legion. With directing credits dating back to at least 1916 and the last credited film of his being released in 1926, intriguingly titled The Love Thief, McDermott’s legacy in Hollywood mythos has become less solidified in silver nitrate and more in surreal antics and architectural wonderment.

Stories about McDermott the Hollywood Imp would soon circulate by the 1920’s. Gags such as giving guests a ride in his Model T in some of the rockier parts of the landscape, only to pull the steering wheel completely off and throw it out whenever his company started getting nervous, were just the tip of the iceberg. (McDermott’s car had foot controls installed that helped prevent certain auto-crash doom.) Driving shenanigans aside, it would ultimately be, as described in a 1927 issue of Picture-Play magazine as “The Strangest House in Hollywood,” that would make him a whispered name decades past his expiration date on this mortal plane.

Described by McDermott himself as his “crazy house,” what the structure lacked in modern cohesive design, it more than made up for with slackful ingenuity and a mega-ton of studio sets and props. Not just a few odds and ends here and there, but that the house itself was largely composed of set-pieces and what would now be viewed as Hollywood artifacts and relics.

The “Crazy House” featured rugs, furniture and walls straight off the sets of films like the 1924 Raoul Walsh actioner The Thief of Baghdad, a roof constructed from Lon Chaney Sr.‘s classic Phantom of the Opera, fencing from one of Rudolph Valentino’s last films, 1925’s The Eagle, among many others. McDermott even reportedly utilized the tombstones used in the 1923 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame to form part of a stone wall on the property.


As you would enter the house, you would be descending into a realm full of secret passageways, sliding panels and even a tunnel guests would have to go through to simply enter the living room via a manhole. Speaking of the living room, looking up you might notice that the chandelier is a bit….unusual looking? That’s because it is not a chandelier at all but instead an inverted baptismal font that McDermott himself absconded from a church going through some re-construction.

Not surreal enough for you? There’s a whole room where all of the furniture was nailed to the ceiling. Its main purpose was to serve as an un-sanctuary for any party guests who had imbibed a little too much bootleg liquor. The room was even complete with peep holes for the more fortunate ones to peek and get a mean-spirited giggle out of the highly disoriented lost, hung over souls. In a borderline Subgenius move, McDermott even had the handle to the main toilet connected to his fire alarm, undoubtedly scaring the bejeesuz out of both the bathroom user and any nearby new guests.


It’s not hard to believe that for a moment in time, Jack McDermott’s Crazy House was party central, with its funhouse Dada and tales of specialty bathing suits for female guests that would immediately disintegrate in the water. But bizarrely enough, that would not be the crown jewel of the estate. Like any proper West Coast castle, it’s all about the pool and Jack McDermott created the pool of pools to match his crazy house.

Built reportedly from expensive tile samples via Italy and France, thanks to McDermott posing as an LA-based tile dealer (!), his pool featured a vibrant mosaic with the centerpiece being a spider in its webbed home. It was this mosaic that must have seared its way into many a visitor’s head. It was also this same arachnid art that outlived McDermott himself, who passed away at the young age of 52 in 1946 and even the house itself, which suffered a major fire in 1947. While the silent film funhouse that McDermott had worked so hard to construct was long gone, the pool and its spider steadfastly remained.

In a twist that perhaps McDermott himself could not have foreseen, his pool and its spider mosaic in particular, would go on to have a new life thanks to an assortment of camera club enthusiasts, as well as professional pin-up photographers. Even a legend from McDermott’s film era, in the form of silent film comedian Harold Lloyd, who took a number of pin-up style photos by the spider, including one of a pre-Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill! Tura Satana. (Several of Lloyd’s pin-up work would years later be published in the tome, Harold Lloyd’s Hollywood Nudes in 3-D.)

Other famous nude and pin-up models would get to work their buxotic magic in front of McDermott’s spider tile, including Diane Webber and one of the best burlesque queens ever, Dixie Evans. However, once the seemingly-now tame era of cheesecake started to segue into an era of more explicit sexuality, both the rosy-cheeked coy nudies and the striking landscape behind them, faded into dust. Until recently.

A Dutch-Indonesian photographer by the name of Tom Stratton, born 26 years after McDermott’s passing, had found out about the legend of the spider mosaic via a friend and an artistic obsession began. Most would be happy to go on the treasure map hunt and simply find the old loot, but in a nod to his pulchritude-picture-taking-predecessors of the past, Stratton has created some incredibly striking pin-up shots of his own that could have been found right out of an abandoned film lab. Most impressive given that the pool’s address is not readily known and is basically landlocked by several private properties.

But this is not just a tale of fun art and sexy women in front of one admittedly beautifully tiled spider. No, this is a tale of a man who was so defiantly, so beautifully weird in an era that was desperately trying to rebel against its old ways and forge an identity, that he built an entire home and lifestyle damning the torpedoes and sending them into a stratosphere that went past Hell and entered firmly into a joyously demented wonderland of manic weirdness and Theatre of Cruelty splendor. Jack McDermott may be a mere footnote for silent film enthusiasts but his legend in the landscape of all that was truly strange, beautiful and eternally unmatched lives on in a desolate and decayed section of the Hollywood Hills. The best treasures are often the ones seemingly forgotten and covered in rust. On Jack McDermott’s tombstone, it simply says “a genius” and really, doesn’t that say it all? Life’s too short for anything else.

from "Dangerous Minds: Of Spiders, Pin-up girls and Silent Movie Mad Men: The Legacy of ‘Hollywood Imp’ Jack McDermott" -- can't link here.

[solarbear]

Excellent.. Another Spider Pool model was dolores du vaughn (edit: i thought that was her name, but i just did a search in the softcore models, she isn't there), i think she was one of the unofficial talent scouts also, she was in quite a few group stills. She was kind of ugly in the face, with bleached peroxide hair.

I am still searching for the Betty White connection.....her topless photos are high quality, and she was posing in groups, like the spider pool theme.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by solarbear

Excellent.. Another Spider Pool model was dolores du vaughn (edit: i thought that was her name, but i just did a search in the softcore models,

I think you're thinking of "Dolores del Monte" (the early Playmate).

There's a comprehensive list of Spider Pool models, as identified by enthusiasts:

Betty Blue – (1931-2000) (Photo) A former Playboy Playmate of the Month
Betty Kidder –
Bobbie Reynolds – Real name Barbara Reynolds
Donna (Busty) Brown – (probably deceased) Very busty nude model and burlesque stripper of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. Real name: Ruth Brown Talbot Anderson
Candy Paige –
Chris – A busty Hispanic.
Debbie Westmore – Popular petite, but busty, nude model of the 1950’s. One of the “Three Graces.”
Diane Webber – One of the most photographed nude models of the fifties and early sixties. Perhaps the most popular model after Betty Page. A two time Playmate of the Month. For many years a well known nudism advocate and belly dancing instructor. Daughter of author Guy Empey. Also photographed as Marguerite Empey.
Delores Del Monte (Photo) A former Playboy Playmate of the Month. Roommate of and model for well known artist and illustrator Zoe Moezert. Had a short career as a nude model.
Donna Watkins – Statuesque nude model of the early 1950’s who appararently had a long career as she is seen to age visibly across her photographic shoots. One of the “Three Graces.”
Jacqueline (Jackie) Prescott – (possibly deceased) A Playboy Playmate of the Month (Sept, 1957).
Kathy Suits – Very busty model who appears in many photo shoots.
Marge ? – A slender model with platinum blonde hair.
Marge Hammond -
Melody Ward –
Patti Conley – A bondage model who has a slight resemblance to early 70’s porn star Georgina Spelvin
Peggy Watkins – Also known as Ann
Polly – Also known as Sue; a picture of Sue provided the critical clue in rediscovering the location of the Spider Pool
Sybil Ball – Mousy blonde.
Thelma Montgomery – Nude model, mainstream magazine cover girl and one shot movie actress of the early 1950’s. Appeared in “Girl Gang” (1954) with Peggy Winters. One of the “Three Graces.”
Tura Satana – Busty Filipino/Japanese model and actress. She was photographed at the pool as a teenager by Harold Lloyd. Discovered by Russ Meyer and starred in several of his films.

http://www.backdrop.net/sm-201/index.php?title=Spider_Pool_Models

There's also a Yahoo group devoted to the subject . . .

Still a bunch remain to be identified . . . The "Spider Pool History Project" folks have devoted a lot of effort to this, definitely VEF-worthy. This group of photographers and models seems to connect with a lot of what would become Southern California erotica-- folks from John Willie to Russ Meyer to Hugh Hefner all are connected one way or another.

[solarbear]

Excellent.

The model i am thinking of was a busty one, but was way too homely to be a playmate.

she had bleached white hair and was in group photos quite often.

i remember the last name had a "du" prefix kind of like Du Pree or something

[badman999]

Originally Posted by solarbear

Excellent.

The model i am thinking of was a busty one, but was way too homely to be a playmate.

she had bleached white hair and was in group photos quite often.

i remember the last name had a "du" prefix kind of like Du Pree or something

Dolores Du Vaughn. who was East Coast based I believe.

[solarbear]

Yes, that is her name, it is showing up on my local, but her model thread isn't there, i remember it once was.,,,,Anyway, thanks for clarifying, judging by the photo quality, i would have believed that she was one of the spider pool models..

[mot]

Sandra nash was also a model that posed there. http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/t13...ndra-nash.html

[K_D]

Virginia DeLee @ The Spider Pool
from: "Adam" Magazine (1957)

[Spruce]

https://pixhost.to/gallery/XUmxA

[deepsepia]

Another nice piece on the Spider Pool story, this one from 2008-- copying it here, because who know how long that site will last

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It started, as many good things do, with the internet. In the early aughts (what all the cool kids are calling the ‘00s these days), a group of people assembled in an imaginary space to collect and trade cheesecake photos taken in the late nineteen forties to the early nineteen sixties. As the site describes it, this is not pornography; it is “young ladies in various modest states of undress.” (Though let’s not fool ourselves, my conservative grandparents, raising their children contemporaneously in New Jersey would have considered these girls fallen, and trashy. Still, in the tide of starlets who “accidentally” leak their amateur porn and nudie photographs and the press that both hounds and glorifies them, these pictures seem charming and innocent.)

Taken by amateur photographers, spurred to join clubs by the invention of the Stereo Realist Camera, some ended up in magazines, others in private collections. Betty Page did this kind of modeling (though she is not in any of the pictures that concern us.) These clubs liked to photograph outside, in interesting locations.

Our intrepid internet collectors found themselves intrigued by these places, many of which had distinctive features. One in particular captivated them. It was a pool, secured into a hillside with a view of the San Fernando Valley in the background. The pool was surrounded by strange loop de loops of white cement and extravagantly colored tiles, but its most distinctive feature was the mosaic that adorned a retaining wall above the pool. It depicted a large spider in its web, a tiny blip of a hornet caught off to the side. They began comparing photos, especially their backgrounds, to pick out the features that would help them to figure out where the photos were taken.

By November, 2004, they had come up with a triangle of likely territory and a couple of locals to confirm the location. Using a telescope, these explorers saw the spider on the retaining wall. It was on some vacant land, wedged in-between properties. They hiked up a empty lot to get to it.

What they found was very different from the glorious pictures they had seen. The pool had been removed entirely, due to instability, leaving only a grassy bowl of land near the spider mosaic. Though the white background had been washed away, there was enough contrast to see that the spider, the web and most of the tiles surrounding it were still whole. It was cause for celebration.

But what is the Spider Pool? We know about its afterlife, as a ruin and photography club location, but where did it come from?

Records of Jack McDermott in Los Angeles date back to his family’s selling dry goods, fresh from the east in 1914. Jack, like any young man in a boomtown, looked to the new movie industry to find his destiny. He started as an actor, but eventually moved behind the camera, with a company of actors of his own. He made several silent films, including Sky Pilot, Dinty and Midnight Madness (he later eschewed directing for writing, where his credits include Blonde or Brunette, Stranded in Paris and The Fifty-Fifty Girl.

As his career blossomed, he wanted more than living in a downtown boarding house with other movie types. Eventually he decided that the place for him to build was the bucolic Hollywood Hills. By 1923, he had settled on a pre-1900 foundation. He conscripted set pieces, most notably from the Norma Talmadge flick, Song of Love, which he hauled up into the hills with donkeys and put the house together himself. (Which leaves this writer to suppose that sets were more substantial than they are now, when it seems like just a little moisture will do them in.) It is believed that the swimming pool area (swimming pools were the height of fashion in post WWI LA) was developed at this time. It was built on the crest of the ridge, up several stairs (and possibly a secret passage) up from the house itself.

Beyond the Algerian style pieces, he pilfered from other sets, including the sets of The Thief of Baghdad and The Phantom of the Opera. The result was a long, ramshackle dwelling that combined many different styles, not only Algerian, but also Navajo, Moroccan, and Egyptian. The Spider House turned up in numerous magazines, often described as a “crazy house,” a place of debauchery and wonder, full of secret passages, fishponds and even a fake cemetery complete with skulls made of chalk.

In 1929, McDermott’s career wound down. Talkies were all the rage and it seemed that he couldn’t gain any purchase as the industry changed. He wrote some minor plays, had some things optioned for features and traveled the world. None of it seemed to make him very happy. He was living in the house in 1946 when he accidentally overdosed on pills. He was dead at 53. He’d left scores of movies and a wonder of a house behind him.

n short order, the house burned in a fire, though there are records of people living there after that time. The photographers came and went. Kids moved in to squat and throw parties – much to the consternation of the surrounding neighborhood. In 1958, a man bought the property to try to restore it, but couldn’t get it up to code and was prohibited from having a driveway. The property was abandoned in 1962 and dismantled by the city.

I found out about the Spider Pool while roaming the internet one day. Just a line about its discovery. I wanted to see what it looked like, so I followed a link down the rabbit hole. Not only is the iconography – the spider, the wasp, the gorgeous tiles, arresting, but it’s very close to the house my parents were living in when I was born. I had never heard them mention it. I was hooked. I had to see this place.

I looked up everything I could, and hauled my (then) fiancé out there in late 2005. Having grown up in rural NY, he was uncomfortable about the possibility of trespassing. I, either out of having grown up in the hills, being used to a lot of trespassers, or possibly just out of sheer stupidity, was unbothered. I was on fire with this place.

Getting there was arduous. I left my fiancé and climbed through shrubs and cacti. There were no trails, no indicators at all, but eventually, I started seeing tiles – tiles that I recognized! I walked the length of the area, before hitting a wall of cacti. I saw tiles stairs, the outline of a small pool, alcoves in the hillside. But no spider. I couldn’t see the spider anywhere. But I knew I had found something.

Weeks later, I found a picture of a woman near the little pool outline. I sent it to an email address, along with a picture of what I had seen. At first, nothing happened. But a few weeks later, I heard back – there was a lot of excitement. Apparently, completely by accident, I had stumbled on the remains of the house. No one had found it before. I was thrilled to be a part of the story that had lit me up. I was glad to contribute to something that had given me so much pleasure.

But a couple of years passed, the fact remained. I had not seen the spider. Last month, I packed up a camera, some nuts and water (and a lot of loose clothing) and took to the hills. It was the kind of day LA dreams about -- when everything is perfectly clear and blue and bright. On reaching the area, I drove around a little, trying to figure out which way would give me the best access. Having spotted it, I parked and watched. I was hoping that no one was home. While I may be stupid enough not to care about trespassing, I really don’t like to bother people.

I scrambled up the grassy hillside and as it leveled out, I started seeing a lot of weird debris, street signs where there was no street, old trash cans full of tiles (and not the Spider Pool kind.) There were old plants withered in their protective metal trellises. It was a different world – a place where things ended up because they were of no use to anyone. When I reached the next flat part, I looked around. To the right was a house. It was small, not in great shape, but someone was starting to take care of it. To my left was a horse paddock. The notion struck a chord. There was a little shelter at one end and a gate, beyond; it was grassy, sunny and rising. I made my way over. It was just beyond the gate of the paddock that I saw it, the white winking out of the scrubby brush. It was so sudden and such a secret, it took my breath away.

It was on the east side, so the sun wasn’t on it, but it shown through the leaves and plants all around, gilding the area. The night cool still rose from the old, large grained cement the spider was in. It was blue – the spider and the web. I hadn’t known that. I sat on the bench that jutted out of the hill and looked out at the living map that had led us all to the Spider Pool.

I wandered all over the area, taking pictures, asking myself questions, scrambling over more brush to get down to the house. (It looked much the same, except that it was overrun by nasturtium – a semi-edible plant that thrives in the area. It amazed me how close it really was to people’s houses it was, easily accessible from the driveway of one home. I guess I wouldn’t like it if people wandered around on my property (I don’t think my mom was too big on it when I was a kid) but how could people not want to share this with everyone? I remembered how there had been some talk among the Poolies (as they called themselves) about what it would take to make it a park, but even if there was access, it was too steep.

Maybe it’s for the best. As much as I want to tell the story, I’m not going to tell you where the Spider Pool is. A bunch of people going up there would disrupt the area, and likely destroy whatever remains of the ruins (I realize I contradict myself, but, to paraphrase Walt Whitman, so what? I contain multitudes.) I’m telling this story because it burns in me, because I think it says something about the kind of place Los Angeles is – to be such a young place, and yet have such marvelous ruins, about the value of old things, in a place where we are constantly tearing them down, about the internet, as a conductor of wonder and connection and particularly about mysteries. Now that you’ve read this story, you can look around this city and know – there are things hidden, things annihilated that are as strange and as bizarre as anything on earth. And that’s important. As Ken Kesey once said, “Sometimes the need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.”