The Halloween Murder of Ramon Novarro

It was Wednesday, October 30, 1968. In Los Angeles, the temperatures had peaked around 75 degrees — a wonderful autumn day — dropping to 59 degrees once the sun had set. The American Basketball Association, famous for Dr. J and the L.A. Stars, was in town for a brief stop. “Hey Jude” by the Beatles sat atop the record charts and dominated the radio airwaves while Airport by Arthur Hailey was the current New York Times fiction bestseller.

3110 Laurel Canyon Drive was a Spanish Colonial residence designed by Lloyd Wright, son of the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Nestled in the Hollywood Hills, it had been owned since 1927 by former stage, screen and television star Ramon Novarro.

Ramon was now sixty-nine years old, frail, and many days away from his life as an MGM sex symbol, who followed in Rudolph Valentino’s vaulted footsteps after the infamous Valentino had died unexpectedly, and acted opposite such legends as Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer and Myrna Loy. Despite being retired from acting for a handful of years, Ramon had made wise real estate investments with his movie earnings, allowing him to live very comfortably.

On the evening of October 30, Ramon, in a red and blue robe, welcomed brothers Paul and Tom Ferguson, twenty-two and seventeen years old respectively, into his home. The brothers Ferguson had gotten the former star’s phone number from a previous guest. Both hustlers, they knew Ramon Novarro had used agencies for sexual escorts in the past.