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Jean & Chloe: Secrets of Fox Hills Drive
One of the most enduring romantic relationships in Hollywood history was between a silent screen actress and a Broadway showgirl.
STORY BY
STEPHEN MICHAEL SHEARER ARCHIVES PHOTOS BY ©STEPHEN MICHAEL SHEARER ARCHIVES
The relationship between former silent screen actress Jean Acker Valentino and Broadway showgirl Lillian Chloe Carter lasted over 50 years. Born Harriet Ackers on October 23, 1893, in New Jersey, Harriet changed her name to Jean Acker and began appearing in vaudeville in the early 1910s. By 1918 she was in motion pictures. The young woman soon caught the eye of actress Grace Darmond, who became her mentor and lover.
Jean was featured in such silent pictures as Checkers (1919), The Round Up (1920) with “Fatty” Arbuckle and See My Lawyer (1921) with her former lover Grace Darmond. Eventually Jean began a brief aff air with Russian actress Alla Nazimova.
Nurtured by Nazimova, Jean was part of the “Sewing Circle,” a group of lesbian and bi-sexual women forced in that era to hide their secret lives. At such a gathering Jean met struggling actor Rudolph Valentino. They married in November 1919, their wedding night a disaster. Jean locked her bridegroom out of their hotel bedroom, and the marriage was never consummated. (Jean later
confided to Patricia Neal that Rudy had gonorrhea.) Fleeing back to Grace Darmond, Jean eventually divorced Rudy in 1922, keeping the name Jean Acker Valentino. She lost her savings in the Crash of 1929. By 1930 she was broke and began taking bit and extra roles in fi lms.
Lillian Chloe Carter was born June 21, 1903, in Tennessee. In New York she had danced in the chorus of three editions of “The Ziegfeld Follies.” Under the name Cleo Cullen, she was part of the ensemble in innumerable shows in the Roaring 20s. During the run of “She’s My Baby” in 1928 Chloe met songwriter Harry Ruby, who penned such hits as “Who’s Sorry Now?” (1923), “I Wanna Be Loved by You” (1928), and “Three Little Words” (1930). They wed in 1930. Eventually Chloe fi led for divorce from Ruby, and it was granted in 1934. She told the court Harry had struck her. This was corroborated by her one witness, Jean Acker Valentino.
Jean and Chloe by now were lovers. In a period when women in same-sex relationships could not maintain high fi lm profi les, both kept working as extras or bit players from 1933 to 1950. Jean was such pictures as Camille (1937) and A Star is Born (1937). Chloe danced in musicals such as The Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935), The Great Ziegfeld (1936), The Wizard of Oz (1939).
They purchased a two-story home at 2148 Fox Hills Drive near 20th Century-Fox. Both loved dogs and raised dachshunds and Scottish terriers over the years. Eventually they divided their home into a duplex to supplement their income, theirs 2146 Forest Hills Drive, and as a rental 2148. In the mid-40s until 1948, 2148 was rented by Tyrone Power for his lady love actress Linda Christian.
Arriving into Hollywood with a Warner Bros. contract, 22-year-old Broadway actress Patricia Neal rented the recently vacated 2148 when her second fi lm The Fountainhead (1949) began shooting. Jean and Chloe spent hours with the young actress sharing their Hollywood stories and advising her the pitfalls of the industry. In 1942 Chloe received a beautician license, as she and Jean continued their extra work at the studios.
Patricia eventually introduced them to her lover actor Gary Cooper. Though public socializing was kept to a minimum, Patricia had studio arranged
dates with such actors as Kirk Douglas and Farley Granger. Gary, however, was married and had a young daughter. “Jean and Chloe were the only ones who knew the truth,” Patricia once candidly remarked. “They never questioned our relationship, and Gary and I never questioned theirs. We quietly cheered each other’s team, knowing we were all in murky waters.”
When Patricia was forced to fi lm The Hasty Heart (1950) in England, Jean and Chloe were the “go-between” for her and Gary, keeping him company while she was away. However, Cooper was Catholic, and there would be no divorce from his wife. And then tragically Patricia and Gary became pregnant. They knew it would ruin both their careers. In October 1950, Chloe and Gary drove Patricia to a seedy area of Los Angeles and
Patricia slipped into a doctor’s offi ce. “The three returned to Fox Hills Drive,” I wrote in my biography Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life, “where she and Gary spent the rest of the afternoon weeping together on the fl oor, Jean and Chloe bringing in a pillow and blanket for them to rest upon.”
At the end of the aff air Patricia Neal left Hollywood and returned to New York where she met and married writer Roald Dahl. She did not contact Jean and Chloe for many years. Her duplex, 2148, was subsequently rented to actor Lex Barker. He had just divorced actress Arlene Dahl. Before he wed his next wife Lana Turner, while away fi lming,
Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal in The Fountainhead (Warner Bros., 1949). Their tragic love affair nearly cost them their careers.
Chloe Carter, c. 1934. She still danced, and in some of Hollywood’s most classic 1930s musicals.
The legendary Rudolph Valentino (1895-1926), the “Great Lover” of the silent screen. Jean and he remained friends until his early death. His desk to Jean now sits in the author’s home.
2126-2148 Fox Hills Drive in the 1940s. The mysteries it contained were many.
Barker sent cards to his dog Monique, asking her to be good to her “Aunt Jean” and “Aunt Chloe.”
Jean and Chloe were eventually contacted by Patricia in late 1955. As I wrote in my book, Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life, Patricia wrote why she had not written them before, “…you must understand how painful that period was for me and how closely – unfortunately – you were connected in my memory.” Patricia would remain in touch with them until their deaths, through the birth of the Dahl children, the tragedies of Theo’s accident, Olivia’s death, and Patricia’s illness, and beyond. Patricia once lovingly said how Chloe was always very much “the actress” and she would subtract ten years off her real age. Jean had spoiled Chloe, even generously allowing Chloe the admiration of attractive young men. The two women were devoted to and loved each other until their deaths.
Jean Acker Valentino died on August 16, 1978, and Chloe was made executrix of her estate. Before her death on October 28, 1993, Chloe had purchased the adjoining plot next to her beloved Jean, and there her ashes are laid to rest. Their graves are located at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, both marked with matching “White Rose Cross” block headstones. STEPHEN MICHAEL SHEARER is a fi lm historian and Hollywood biographer. Shearer is the author of Beautiful - The Life of Hedy Lamarr (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press-Macmillan, 2010) and Gloria Swanson - The Ultimate Star (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press-Macmillan, 2013). As a fi lm historian he has appeared in numerous television and feature fi lm documentaries including Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story. The feature fi lm An Unquiet Life, based on his fi rst book, stars Hugh Bonneville, Keeley Hawes and Sam Heughan (as “Paul Newman”), and is to be released at the end of 2020. He will soon be seen in an upcoming feature documentary entitled Boulevard: A Hollywood Story based in part on his third book on Swanson. Prior to his life as an author, Shearer did live and print modeling extensively in Minneapolis, Tulsa, Dallas, and New York. He did extra and under-fi ve work in numerous fi lms and television shows such as Split Image (1982), Handgun (1982), The Cotton Club (1984), and various episodes of Dallas (1981-82), and Central Park West (1995). Over the years he has appeared in numerous community and off-Broadway theatrical productions, such as Luigi Januzzi’s “The Appointment” in New York which won the Samuel French Award in 1994. Shearer has written fi lm and fi lm book reviews published in national publications, and he contributes research to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Library. Shearer resides in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, and is currently working on two new books.
