Photo: 1206 N. Kingsley Drive via Google’s Street View.
I was watching a certain film the other day and what should flash by but a California driver’s license. Google would reveal the answer, so the character’s name has been snipped. Who lived at 1206 N. Kingsley Drive?
As Arye Michael Bender realized, this is the 1944 film “Murder, My Sweet.” This is the driver’s license of a white male, a blonde with blue eyes, who is 5-11 and weighs 145 pounds. That excludes Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell), Jules Amthor (Otto Kruger) and Moose Malloy (Mike Mazurki).
It is, in fact, the license of the character Lindsay Marriott, played by Douglas Walton. Congratulations to Greg Clancey, LC and Mary Mallory for figuring it out.
What interested me about the license is that Elizabeth Short’s father, Cleo, lived on Kingsley. At first I thought it would be a great coincidence if they used the address of the apartment house where Cleo Short was living in 1947. But they didn’t.
In the film, the shot isn’t on the screen long enough to be read, which is probably why the prop master used an actual address.
Also in the film, Marlowe uses the Los Angeles City Directory (notice the edge printing!) last published in 1942, to look up the address of Jessie Florian.
This is a fake page inserted into the directory. But the house would have been here.
3744 W. 54th Street as shown in Google’s Street View.
ladailymirror.com 
Jack Mulhall?
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@Mary: This is the driver’s license of a character in a film. I’m looking for the name of the character — or the name of the film.
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Joe Brody? (The Big Sleep)
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@Steve: Good guess! But no.
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‘Murder, My Sweet’ is the film. I believe it was where Philip Marlow lived.
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@Arye: That’s the film…..
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Alan Ladd as Johnny Morrison in The Blue Dahlia.
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Lindsay Marriott
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Lindsay Marriott played by Douglas Walton
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How about Moose Malloy (just because it’s a great character name)?
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@Roget: The individual is 5-11. Not in Moose Malloy territory.
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bret morrison
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in REAL life, in 1942 the residents there were John & Josephine Girard, John being listed as a branch manager for Standard Stations.
http://tinyurl.com/1206NKingsley-1942
The building on the lot at 1206 N Kingsley today was built in 1958:
http://tinyurl.com/1206-today
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Well, the driver’s license states the person was born in 1912 so in 1944 that would make her 32 so is it Claire Trevor in “Murder, My Sweet”?
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@Don: The individual’s sex is M, which would tend to rule out Mrs. Grayle. 🙂
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Duhhhhhh! I never even noticed that!
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Jules Amthor (Otto Kruger)? If it is him, he shaved more than 10 years off his age.
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Dick Powell (Marlowe) in MURDER MY SWEET.
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@Mary: Dick Powell isn’t a blonde. 🙂
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Okay, perhaps this is a tricky question. Maybe it’s the name of a character who doesn’t actually appear in film but is nevertheless pertinent to plot? Like a suspect who has either taken a powder or is dead?
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The Lindsay Marriott character played by Douglas Walton?
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I wonder if Lindsay knew Bronco Billy Anderson?
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Are you sure it’s a fake page, or did they just insert the address? Radford and Farmdale are actual streets in Studio City, and Seward is obviously a real street in Hollywood.
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@Mary: I checked my 1942 L.A. city directory (I have one, doesn’t everybody?) so it’s a fake page. If I have time I’ll check the old city directories online at LAPL.
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Murder, My Sweet was, of course, made at RKO in 1944. I find it interesting that Max Aronson (Bronco Billy Anderson) lived at 1206 N. Kingsley and was right next door at Paramount just a couple years earlier filming a Henry Aldrich vehicle. Could be some weird cross-pollination with the prop departments.
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@Michael: How did you track Bronco Billy to 1206 N. Kingsley?
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Wish I had a good story but the long and the short of it was I actually remembered a Black Dahlia connection to Kingsley Drive and was rooting around for that a few minutes before I realised that would be South Kingsley. Drat. So I googled 1206 N. Kingsley and scanned through several pages (three or four) before I picked up the address in a compilation of western actor’s old residences. Noah Berry, Jr and Charles Starett and then just below, 1206 N. Kingsley and Max Aronson. I knew he’d been out of pictures for a while by 1944 but I pulled up his IMBd page just the same and found he’d done a little walk-on for Jackie Cooper in 1941 at Paramount.
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