Peg haunts the Hollywood sign

MOST people know Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge on Choctaw Ridge, Mississippi – the Bobby Gentry song came out in 1967.

But although Peg Entwistle’s passing, in 1932, didn’t generate a hit song, her spirit lives on, and still scares the bejesus out of people to this day.

Millicent Lilian ‘Peg’ Entwistle was a young English actress trying to make a name for herself in the burgeoning US film industry, but instead she found fame as the ghost of the Hollywood sign. 

Anyone who has flown into Los Angeles will have seen the huge sign that sits in Griffith Park high on Mount Lee, about 25km north of LAX. 

Researcher Erin McCann says stories began circulating about paranormal activity after 1932, when 24-year-old Peg Entwistle ended her life by jumping off the letter H.

Peg had moved to Los Angeles, in the hope of pursuing an acting career. 

She found work had some minor roles, then starred in the film Thirteen Women — but critics tore the film apart.

The studio did as well; they re-edited it, cut out most of her part, and dropped her contract. 

Distraught, the 24-year-old actress, walked along park trails to the sign, which back then read ‘Hollywoodland’ where she ended her life.

In a cruel twist of fate, she received a letter a few days later offering her a major role in a film – as a woman who commits suicide.

So Peg Entwistle gained fame or infamy as the actress who committed suicide on the Hollywood sign.

She is also known as the only person in history to do so.

However, she may still around in more than just the popular imagination.

Many people claim to have met her ghost, a sad looking blonde in 1930s clothes who smells of gardenias, as she makes the same walk to her death, night after night.

Beachwood Canyon Trail passes by the Hollywood sign, and people often report seeing Peg there.

A couple was hiking the trail one morning in 1990 when their dog began to whine and cower by their feet. 

They wondered why the animal was acting so strangely, until they encountered a woman who they assumed was also out for a walk.

They chalked her 1930s style clothing up to the fact they were in Hollywood, but noticed she seemed to be in a daze, as if she was on drugs or a bit inebriated.

They opted to avoid her just in case, but she suddenly vanished into thin air.

After attending a baseball game at Dodger Stadium in the 2000s, four friends decided to extend their evening activities by paying a visit to the Hollywood sign.

Although the area around to the sign is off limits to the public, the group hopped over a fence and went to check out the famous landmark up close. 

On their way back, one friend was separated by a fall and was surprised to find a figure walking towards him.

“It was a woman, wearing a dress similar to the style of the 1930s,” he said.

“She wore heels and a veil over her face. She walked effortlessly up the hill. Her footsteps made no sound.”

Griffith Park ranger John Arbogast has several stories about encountering Entwistle’s ghost. 

He notes she usually comes to visit the Hollywood sign when it’s foggy, and always late at night.

Arbogast also discovered that the alarm systems installed around the sign to keep vandals or other suicidal people away sometimes go off, seemingly at random.

“There have been times when I have been at the sign and the motion detectors say that someone is standing five feet away from me . . . only there’s nobody there,” he said.

Many people use the trails in Griffith Park for their daily exercise routine. Megan Santos is among them. 

She was jogging one evening in 2013 when she was suddenly hit by a sneezing fit.

The scent of gardenias filled the air and she was overcome by a very odd feeling.

“And then, there was this woman with blond hair and she seemed to be, like . . . walking on air,” Santos recalls.

“I immediately ran the other way.”

Beachwood Canyon resident Devin Morgan was out getting a little exercise one morning when she noticed another woman on the trail.

But something seemed odd about her. 

When Morgan got to the spot where she had seen the figure, the woman had vanished, leaving the scent of gardenias in the air.

“She looked very strange to me,” she said. 

“She had a very etheric quality. Instead of walking, she seemed to almost glide.

“She wasn’t floating . . . she didn’t look like she was a ghost, but there was something very, very strange about her, and very soft looking.”

A team of ghost hunters took some equipment with them on a 2013 trip to the sign on the anniversary of Peg Entwistle’s death.

They conducted audio and dousing rod tests, but were unsure of their results.

However, everyone in the group claimed to experience a sudden spike in temperature at one point while walking on the trail.

Several people report seeing a woman standing on top of the letter H on the Hollywood sign. 

In fact, she seemed so real, they called police in fear that she would jump.

Others claim they actually did see the figure jump, but she disappeared before she hit the ground.

Paranormal experts believe Peg is stuck in her final moments, and has been repeating her walk from her uncle’s home to the Hollywood sign for decades.

Larry Montz, parapsychologist and head of the International Society for Paranormal Research, believes people’s experiences with Miss Entwistle are interactions with a residual rather than a haunting from a ghost.

“At the Hollywood sign, people report seeing a residual of the actress jumping, if they see anything at all,” he said. 

“The energy of that event is so intense that an image remains, and it plays sort of like a videotape.

“People who visit Gettysburg often report seeing soldiers fighting in battle on the field, but ghosts do not re-enact their own murders or deaths.”

Griffith Park is in an area plagued by frightening tales that go all the way back to 1863. 

That’s when Dona Petronilla cursed the land after learning her uncle did not intend to let her inherit it. 

Fires, droughts, a major storm (during which people claimed to see the ghost of Dona Petronilla), and lots of people shooting one another ensued. 

Dona’s uncle, Don Antonio Feliz, is also a widely seen ghost, as is Colonel Griffith J. Griffith, who once owned the park as well.

Other ghosts claimed to inhabit the park are two young lovers who were crushed by a tree falling on their picnic table, a disappearing man who descends the stairs by the merry-go-round, and a terrible beast with red hair and green skin.

The famous sign was built in 1923 to create publicity for the new homes for sale in the Hollywoodland subdivision. 

It was cheaply made and was not intended to last very long.

It was originally fitted with light bulbs to shine down over the town, but they were either broken or vandalised.

The sign eventually fell into disrepair after all maintenance stopped in 1939.

Ten years later, the “land” section was taken off and the letters were half-heartedly repaired.

Finally, in 1978, the sad-looking sign was replaced with all-steel letters that still stand to this day, stretching 137m long and 150m tall along Mount Lee.

Peg’s tragic story is now being made into a Netflix series, starring Kirsten Dunst as Peg.

 

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