It ended at a spot on a sidewalk in Los Angeles. That spot is now next to a Burger King. It involves the troubled daughter of one of the most powerful men in Hollywood.
The story begins with sheepherders in Greece.
Skourochori, Greece is a nice place, tiny, inland, and near Pyrgos. With a few hundred people then, Skourochori was no place to be in 1910 if you had ambition.
So, the brothers Spyros, Charles, and George Skouras migrated to the United States: first Charles, then Spyros and George. They settled in St. Louis, Missouri.
The Skouras brothers worked in hotels and restaurants. After four years, they invested in a single-screen theater, The Olympia, with 823 seats. Within ten years, they expanded to 30 theaters.
The Move West
Spyros Skouras is remembered not for owning a regional Midwest theater chain but for his long run as the highly influential president of 20th Century Fox. Skouras doesn’t have the name recognition of a Mayer, Warner, or Goldwyn, but he was one of the most important men in Hollywood at the time. If anything, he’s known as the man who merged Fox Studios with Twentieth Century Pictures to make Twentieth Century Fox.
During Skouras’ management, the studio produced hundreds of classics, and he signed Marilyn Monroe.
The Fox West Coast Theater chain was located in the Boulevard Theatre building in Vermont and Washington, Fox West Coast Theaters, 1609 West Washington Blvd.. Los Angeles, California
Dionysia “Chickie” Skouras
Dionysia Skouras, known as Chickie, was one of five children of Spyros Skouras and his wife, Sarolla: Dionyisia, Homer, Plato, Spyros, Diana, and Daphne.
Dionysia Skouras was pure second-generation immigrant wealth. Growing up in Rye, New York, Chickie Skouras’ life was one of country clubs and private schools.
We find Dionysia Skouras at the 1947 wedding of her sister Daphne to Oren Root, Jr.
Chickie Skouras’ Police Shooting
It was later described as a “wild, bullet-punctured automobile chase along the Boston Post Road” by The Los Angeles Times. It began, said Dionysia’s father, when she left home late at night to get something to eat.
At his Rye (N.Y.) home, Skouras…said she had been ill recently, adding that the family assumed she had been cured. He did not identify the ailment.
She was wounded:
Miss Skouras was wounded superficially by a shot fired from a policeman’s revolver during the chase. Dr. Allan Ross, police surgeon, said a bullet passed between Miss Skouras’ ring and middle fingers of the right hand, inflicting a slight wound. Bruised severely about one shoulder was Patrolman Gerald Allen, a member of the Greenwich Police Department. Allen was dragged several yards when his sleeve caught on a door handle of the fleeing automobile after it had halted momentarily at nearby Stamford.
Committed to the Sanitarium
After the incident, Dionysia Skouras was committed to the Hall-Brooke Sanitarium in Westport for an ‘indefinite period.’ Probate Judge Earl H. Jagoe committed her by request of her father.
Hall-Brooke is still around, though in a different capacity. The original buildings were torn down, and the hospital was named Hall-Brooke Behavioral Health Services, now named St. Vincent’s Behavioral Healthcare Services, Westport Campus.
The Suicide in Los Angeles
Los Angeles Herald Examiner Photo Collection
Finally, Dionysia’s troubled life would come to an end. She had been sent to Los Angeles to live with her uncle, Charles P. Skouras.
At around 9:15 am, on Tuesday, July 18, 1950, she jumped off of the roof of the Fox West Coast Building, located at 1609 West Washington Blvd., Los Angeles, California. The jump happened on the west side of the five-story building.
She was taken to the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital. Her uncle attended to her bedside, but she quickly died.
