Julia Faye’s Time in the Palisades

A Hollywood Mistress Quietly Spent Her Last Years in The Bluffs

By MICHAEL OLDHAM | Contributing Writer

Silent film era actress Julia Faye’s screen career would be a mere Hollywood history footnote without her ties to legendary director Cecil B. DeMille. Without Faye’s decades-long romance with the married director of the 1956 film “The Ten Commandments,” there wasn’t much of a noted offscreen life for her, either.

And while Faye’s ties to DeMille began in Hollywood, her final connection to the director ended on Seabec Circle, in The Bluffs neighborhood of Pacific Palisades.

Faye called Seabec Circle home beginning in 1963. In 1915, nearly 50 years before moving onto the sleepy cul-de-sac, Faye was headed for an ordinary life.

After being schooled at Illinois State University, both her mother and stepfather had hoped for Faye to become a teacher. But, Faye was no ordinary young lady. She had other plans and higher-profile dreams that would move her away from St. Louis, Missouri, where she was raised.

A marriage in 1913 may have briefly interrupted Faye’s future, but little is known about this event.

Either way, Faye came to Hollywood in 1915 to visit friends. But, through luck and circumstance, she made a Hollywood studio connection. And with the reluctant approval of her mother, Hollywood became Faye’s permanent home.

Born in Virginia in 1892, Faye was in her early 20s when she capitalized on her initial studio connection. The gumptious young lady landed some bit parts in moving pictures. She played Dorothea in the 1915 film version of “Don Quixote.”

Faye’s Hollywood big film career break, it was said, may have resulted from the exposure she gained, not as actress, but as a fashion magazine model.

Faye’s magazine photo shoots highlighted her favorable physical qualities—namely her signature legs or striking “pegs.” For she, as a model, was called “the girl with the perfect legs.” Her modeling work also led to her being tagged with having “the prettiest feet and ankles in America.”

But the five-foot-two-inch-tall Faye had more to offer the screen than her legs: The actress had a lovely face. She also had captivating dark-brown eyes that complemented her black, wavy head of hair.

With a turn of the head, Faye could go from a look of innocence to one of mystery to one of simple beauty.

Keystone Studios boss Mack Sennett knew an attention-grabbing face and beach-quality figure when he saw one. In 1916, Sennett made Faye one of his famous Bathing Beauties for his movie going comic fans to both adore and laugh with. On the set, Faye would perform her own stunts.

But Faye’s career and her fate offscreen would change in 1917. This was the year she met DeMille.

Faye’s slim figure and the magazine pages displaying her unique beauty had caught the eye of the famous film director. DeMille cast Faye in his 1917 Aztec romance film, “The Woman God Forgot.”

Though Faye was not a woman DeMille would ever forget.

The actress would be a constant in the films DeMille directed for the next several decades. DeMille would keep Faye busy with either big parts, such as her role as a gypsy in the 1926 film “The Volga Boatman,” or small parts or even bit parts. This would continue until DeMille’s passing in 1959.

DeMille did not only cast Faye into his films—with the cameras off, the director, apparently from the get-go, had cast Faye as his mistress.

As such, the loyal DeMille would help support Faye’s career. He would give her film work, long after the heyday of her film career had faded to nearly black, when sound films took over Hollywood in the 1930s.

DeMille’s support of Faye did not end with the charitable acting work he offered her on the big screen. DeMille did not let Faye’s brief marriage in the 1930s to writer and fellow-actor Walter Merrill break up the bond he enjoyed with the actress.

The director financially helped the actress long after her Hollywood money had left her purse. This financial help from DeMille is what ultimately landed Faye on Seabec Circle, four years after the director’s passing.

In his will, DeMille had left some money to Faye. Four years after his passing, part of DeMille’s handed-down fortune was used to buy the out-of-work actress a house.

Though Faye would not gain ownership of the 1924-built Spanish-style mansion, she was able to live out her remaining days there.

The 3,600-plus-square-foot house still stands. Today, it sits on a lot of that is just over a quarter acre.

Moving into the multi-roomed home, the backside of which stands high above Temescal Canyon Road, Faye had seemingly come full circle. The house that ultimately was bought with DeMille’s money, stood within miles of the Santa Ynez Canyon and Santa Monica film locations of “The Woman God Forgot.”

The Seabec Circle home would be Faye’s final one—the actress passed away in obscurity in 1966.