STAR OF STAGE AND SCREAM HART'S GHOST: NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON'T.

Byline: Sharon Cotal Staff Writer

NEWHALL - When William S. Hart died in 1946, he left his beloved Newhall mansion filled with all of his earthly belongings to Los Angeles County to be used as a museum.

The question is, did the silent movie star stick around to oversee the care of his precious collections of American-Indian artifacts, weapons of the Old West and Western paintings and sculpture?

During the years since his death, Hart has been spotted reading the newspaper in the mansion living room, standing by his desk chair in his bedroom and hanging out in the room occupied by his beloved harlequin Great Danes, known as the ``dogs' room''.

``Hart spent a lot of time in the dogs' room, and he did a lot of work at his desk in his bedroom,'' said museum director Janis Ashley, but she debunks any claim that the mansion is haunted. ``I'm the biggest skeptic in the world. I've been here at night and I've been here alone, and I've never seen anything.''

But other people think they have.

The museum keeps a file of unexplained sightings with reports, some dated and some not, from museum administrators, volunteers and visitors who have seen or felt, not just Hart, but his sister, Mary Ellen, and the dogs.

A visitor to the museum in 1992 claimed to have seen Hart standing by the brown chair in front of the French doors in the dogs' room, and later on the tour spotted Mary Ellen looking out the back window of her room toward the sun deck area.

A volunteer felt something brush against her and instinctively began making a petting motion toward it, only to realize that nothing was there. She presumed that it had been one of Hart's beloved dogs.

The most recent sighting occurred in 1998, when a security guard making his last patrol of the museum for the night looked into the window of the dogs' room and saw a white-colored dog moving through the room from left to right.

Ashley calls the sightings a ``self-fulfilling prophesy'' for people who come to the museum expecting to see something.

``If you want to see something, you'll see something. If you think it's haunted, you're going to find ghosts,'' she said.

Admittedly, the mansion does have a rather spooky atmosphere at times. The ultraviolet coating on the windows cuts out sunlight to protect the valuable contents, making the rooms darker than they were in Hart's day.

And with all of Hart's possessions still lying around on tables and chairs as if the man were just in the room, it's easy to see how visitors' imaginations could be inspired.

``He left everything to the county to be preserved exactly as it was,'' Ashley said. ``That's what he wanted.''

So if the Newhall resident does decide to return to his old digs, his slippers are still resting by his bed in the bedroom, a box of cough drops are on the bedside table, and the desk is still stocked with paper, envelopes, and a quill pen in case he might wish to ``contact'' someone.

``I think that since all of his things are here, some people think he might still be here, too,'' Ashley said.

Richard Senate, historian for the city of Ventura by day and psychic researcher on the side, has visited Hart Mansion with his ``ghost hunting'' equipment and says he got several strange readings indicating a supernatural presence in the house.

``I would dare say that what they've got is just the tip of the iceberg. Lot's of people who have toured that place have probably had experiences and just never told anyone,'' Senate said.

Senate says that longtime museum workers who have never seen anything may not be receptive to psychic energies, or perhaps were just not in the right place at the right time.

``Just because you've never seen anything doesn't mean that nothing is there,'' he said. ``We're left with a lot of enigmas, and that's what ghost hunting is all about.''

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- ran in SAC edition only) The spectral image of cowboy silent film star William S. Hart is re-created in his bedroom at the Newhall mansion.

(2 -- ran in SAC edition only) Some reports even include a ghostly sighting of Hart's sister, Mary Ellen, re-created here.

Photo illustration by David R. Crane/Staff Photographer

(3 -- 4; 4 -- ran in SAC edition only) Screen star William S. Hart, top, and his sister, Mary Ellen.