In the earliest days of the motion picture industry, those who were involved in filmmaking were not considered to be as “respectable”as those performers who appeared on the legitimate stage. In fact, the entire film industry was considered to be somewhat disreputable, in part due to the transient nature of their work. However, this proved to be a somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy, as many realtors and landlords refused to rent or sell property to actors and actresses, and they were compelled to live in hotels. Accordingly, many of the hotels that we now consider to be most associated with their famous film guests acquired their reputations as a result of their policies; some of the most successful early hostelry operations in Hollywood and Los Angeles became so precisely because they permitted actors as guests when few places would.

At the same time, the motion picture business didn’t begin to generate significant profits that were passed on to the players until almost the mid-1920s; until that point, many early players could not escape the paranoia associated with their earlier, more itinerant careers - that their success could could disappear tomorrow. As a result, many stars were reluctant to invest in real estate until the industry became more established and their ongoing salaries became more certain.

By the late 1920s, it was much more common for Hollywood stars to rent or own their own residences. While many working actors resided in relatively modest houses in middle-class or upper-class neighborhoods, some of the industry’s most prominent figures had begun to net substantial profits from their work, particularly as they began to establish their own production companies. The new wave of income within the highest echelons of the film community prompted the construction of expansive and well-known estates, such as Douglas Fairbanks’ and Mary Pickford’s Pickfair, and Harold Lloyd’s Greenacres.

While these homes have become synonymous with the Golden Age of Hollywood, the trend of hotel living for less-established actors and actresses persisted, for multiple reasons. For those who possessed the good fortune to be working regularly, the growing trend of location shooting meant that many performers were rarely “home.” Hotels provided a convenient and full-service alternative at a fraction of the cost for a permanent residence that would never be occupied. For those just starting out, at the other end of the spectrum, their often-irregular salaries did not allow for the purchase of a home. Contract players had the best hope of securing the kind of stable income that would allow for investment in real estate, but even then employment arrangements could be ephemeral. Furthermore, many of these performers had recently relocated to film industry hubs like Los Angeles from other locales, often arriving with very little in the way of personal effects, and lacked both the financial and physical resources to set up permanent housekeeping. As people continued to flock to Hollywood to follow their dreams - a trend which has never truly abated - it created a constant demand for accommodation, and hotels offered a convenient option for those unprepared to make a more permanent financial commitment. In addition, hotels of the period in general - particularly in Los Angeles - were more residential in function and character, so taking up residence in one did not possess the same associations or stigma that we might assign today. However, one important factor to note in this regard was that longterm hotel residency was largely limited to single or unwed actors and actresses; societal expectations usually necessitated the acquisition of an actual residence upon marriage.

Expanding on the question, it's not just Hollywood stars that are noted for living in hotels and I'd be interested in knowing more about the economics of residential hotels in the early to mid-20th century. As a single example that springs to mind, many of New Yorker writer James Thurber's stories describe people living in hotels, or maintaining a hotel room as an in-city residence complementing their suburban primary residence. What similarities and differences existed between "hotels" and "apartments" during that period as opposed to now?

A follow-up question: how did they deal with housekeeping?

By living in a luxury hotel, the following is/would at the time have been possible:

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- You have what amounts to a staff of servants without having to personally spend time overseeing a large household. Why oversee the hiring of a chef, maid, laundry service, pool boy, cocktail party wait staff, etc. when you can stay in a hotel and they just provide all that stuff for you? Especially if you're only one person or a couple.

- You have spaces to entertain guests without needing to do things like pay electric bills for a huge mansion (I suppose a hotel room rate would cover that in a certain sense, but again this is more convenient because it's one charge rather than needing to pay someone to deal with the household accounts).

- You have the freedom to be bicoastal, or even to move around internationally. It's interesting that you mention Marilyn Monroe, who lived in both Los Angeles and New York at various points in her career. Why own and maintain a mansion in Bel Air and a penthouse on Park Avenue when you could live at the Beverly Hilton or the Sherry Netherland and let other people deal with everything? If you're an actor, you might find yourself starring in a Broadway show for several months and then being cast in a movie in Hollywood later that year for several more months. Or even filming on location elsewhere, spending time abroad for various reasons, etc. All of these places have luxury hotels which can cater to your every whim, so why bother to buy real estate everywhere you might lay your head for a few months?

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By the 1940s and 50s, it's absolutely not the case that actors and Hollywood types were considered "disreputable" and no one would sell property to them. That may have been true in the silent era, but by midcentury a great many Hollywood actors who weren't inclined to live in hotels owned large homes in prestigious Los Angeles neighborhoods.

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It's also entirely possible that the hotels that claim famous residents way back when are speaking on a technicality, and the property in question was converted into a hotel after previously being an apartment building or private home. So technically whatever celebrity "lived" there, but they didn't specifically live at that hotel under its current management. They lived inside that structure in some capacity. For example, what is now the Scientology Celebrity Center in Hollywood was built as Chateau Elysee, a luxury apartment building and residential hotel where, over the years Bette Davis, Carole Lombard, and George Burns (among others) lived. If Scientology were to sell the building to the Hilton, and the Hilton claimed that these people lived on the premises, they wouldn't have literally lived at the Hilton, they would have lived in an apartment that was part of Chateau Elysee.