Ray Raymond and Dorothy MacKaye’s Former House

I have been told that I am ridiculously easy to buy presents for.  Anything pink or sparkly, dainty and gold, or having to do with Los Angeles automatically fits the bill.  Some gifts are so perfectly suited to me when it comes to the latter category, in fact, that I have received them on multiple occasions.  Case in point – The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals, a 514-page tome dedicated to Tinseltown’s most famous crimes, which my mom originally bought me for Christmas in 2013.  When the Grim Cheaper came across the publication a few years later while perusing the stacks at our local Barnes & Noble, he snatched it right up and gave it to me the following Christmas, not realizing that my mom had already done so.  Both copies remain on my bookshelf today, heavily highlighted, dog-eared and annotated.  Chapter 5, titled “The ‘Almost Perfect’ Murder,” about the 1927 killing of Ray Raymond at the hands of his wife’s lover, especially piqued my interest.  Prior to reading it, I had never heard of the actor or his homicide, but I devoured the story in minutes, promptly added the address of his former home to my To-Stalk List, and finally made it out there last month while prepping for my Haunted Hollywood posts.

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Ray Raymond was born in San Francisco in 1887.  Described as a “song and dance man,” he found success on the vaudeville circuit early in life.  While acting in a play in New York in 1921, Ray’s eye was caught by his much younger leading lady, Dorothy ‘Dot’ MacKaye (also sometimes written as “Mackaye”), and, despite a 12-year age gap – he was 34, she was 22 – and the fact that he was already married, he quickly took up with her, ditching his wife in the process.  Ray and Dot reportedly wedded that August (though it has been claimed the two never actually tied the knot) and a baby girl the couple named Valerie was born the following year.  In 1926, the family of three moved to Los Angeles, eventually settling into a small bungalow located at 2261 Cheremoya Avenue in the Hollywood Hills.

Their 3-bedroom, 2-bath, 1,622-square-foot home, which was originally built in 1922, still stands today boasting a 0.16-acre lot and a detached 2-car garage, which is just visible in the images below.

The quaint dwelling, largely hidden from the road, was not the site of many happy times for Ray and Dot.  Not only did Ray reportedly have a major drinking problem, but he spent most of his time touring the country playing vaudeville shows.  And Dot . . . well, Dot was in love with someone else.

During Raymond’s time away, MacKaye rekindled her longtime friendship with so-called “tough guy” actor Paul Kelly, whom she had met as a teenager while acting in a play in New York.  Born in 1899, Kelly was a true child star having appeared in more than 55 movies before he even turned 18.  The red-haired looker moved to Los Angeles around the same time as Dot and Ray and settled into an apartment conveniently located right around the corner from their home at 2420 North Gower Street.  It was not long before the two were engaged in a torrid affair, of which neither took great pains to hide.  As Dot’s maid later testified, when Raymond was touring, the young mom often did not come home at night, instead choosing to stay over at Paul’s.  Newspapers of the day also reported that the couple regularly asked Kelly’s “Japanese houseboy” Jungle to serve them meals and gin fizzes, their apparent drink of choice, in bed.

Ray returned from touring in mid-April 1927 distraught over the affair.  He confronted Dot about it and she did little to deny things.  Ray also mentioned his wife’s indiscretion to friends, which apparently set Paul over the edge.  On the evening of April 16th, under the pretense of going out to buy Easter eggs (I’m not making that up), Dot headed to Paul’s place where the two got drunk on gin fizzes (natch).  She told her lover that Ray had been spilling the tea to his buddies and Paul, inexplicably enraged, called Ray to confront him.  Raymond suggested that Kelly come to the Cheremoya house to talk in person and, at around 7:30 p.m., Paul headed over.  Upon arriving, Ray demanded to know where Dot was.  An argument ensued and things rather quickly turned physical, but the 5’7”, 135-pound Raymond was no match for the 6’, 180-pound Kelly, who was 12 years his junior.  Paul pummeled Ray, punching him six times in the head and the actor collapsed to the floor.  Ray’s housekeeper and daughter witnessed the entire altercation.

Though Ray appeared to be OK in the hours following the fight, he fell into a coma the next day.  Dot, hoping to avoid publicity and questioning from authorities, called in a favor from a doctor who was a personal friend and her husband was quietly transported to Queen of Angels Hospital (now Dream Center) at 2301 Bellevue Avenue in Echo Park.  The damage had been done, though.  Raymond passed away at 5:20 a.m. on April 19th.  After being slipped $500, Dot’s doctor friend signed off on the death certificate, claiming “natural causes.”  Someone at the hospital smelled a rat, though, and notified the newspapers that an actor who was badly beaten had died.  Police were contacted and an autopsy was ordered.  Ray, it was found, had actually died from brain hemorrhaging caused by the beating.  Paul and Dot were arrested.

Their trials were reportedly the most attended in California history up until that time.  Kelly wound up being convicted of manslaughter and was sentenced to one to ten years at San Quentin.  He served two and was released on August 2nd, 1929.  Dot was convicted of compounding a felony and was sentenced to one to three years, also at San Quentin.  She was released after ten months.  The two, of course, found their way back to each other and were married in February 1931.  Hollywood inexplicably embraced the duo despite the murder.  As Paul Drexler stated in a 2018 San Francisco Examiner article about the case, “Killing someone is not generally considered a good career move.  It is frowned on in the bible and there is no mention of this technique in any of the books of Dale Carnegie, Stephen Covey, or Tony Robbins.  For Paul Kelly, however, this act secured a long and successful acting career.”  Kelly indeed made a huge comeback, starring in hundreds of films post-release.  He even won a Tony award in 1948!  Dot also walked away from the affair fairly unscathed, penning a play based upon her experience behind bars titled Women in Prison, which was later made into the 1933 movie Ladies They Talk About starring Barbara Stanwyck.  The couple’s wedded bliss did end up to be rather short-lived, though.  On the evening of January 2nd, 1940, Dot was involved in a car accident and, in an eerie echo of Ray’s death, while she appeared fine in the hours following, she passed away from internal injuries three days later.  Kelly, who later remarried, died of a heart attack at the age of 57 in 1956.  That karma never forgets!  Ray and Dorothy’s marital home is the only element of the whole sordid tale that seems to have fared well in the end.  Per Zillow, the tiny bungalow is currently worth a whopping $1.58 million!

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: Ray Raymond and Dorothy MacKaye’s former home is located at 2261 Cheremoya Avenue in the Hollywood Hills.