The San Diego Automotive Museum in Balboa Park has opened an amazing exhibition of elegant, historical cars. Art Deco: The Machine Age in Motion features some of the most fantastic automobiles your eyes will ever admire.
When I noticed one of the beautiful cars, a 1931 Rolls-Royce 20/25 Sedanca de Ville by Barker, was purchased by Hollywood legend Douglas Fairbanks for his wife Mary Pickford, I was immediately intrigued!
Perhaps you know that Douglas Fairbanks was once called the King of Hollywood. He was the first actor to play Zorro. He was a founding member of United Artists as well as the Motion Picture Academy. He hosted the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929.
Here’s a video that explains how he became cinema’s first action hero.
Do you also know that he and his famous actress wife, Mary Pickford, owned a 1237-acre tract of land east of Del Mar, south of the San Dieguito River? The community is now gated and called Fairbanks Ranch.
Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were divorced in 1936 and their property was abandoned. Their “Casa Zorro” home, an intended refuge from Hollywood, was never built.
The museum’s Rolls-Royce is not only amazing, but two of Hollywood’s greatest stars once rode in it. A museum docent told me the car was named Gladys. Gladys Louise Smith was Mary Pickford’s real name.
The historic vehicle also serves as a reminder that, a century ago, the King of Hollywood intended to build his Casa Zorro in San Diego’s North County.
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