The Six Degrees of Dwight Anson Whiting

Perhaps you’re wondering what that photo of the smiling man with the horn-rimmed glasses is doing here at El Toro & Before.

If you’re a silent-movie buff you know he’s comedian Harold Lloyd, whom film historians consider to be right up there on a par with Buster Keaton and even Charlie Chaplin.

Which is all very well and good, you may be saying, but what does Harold Lloyd have to do with El Toro?

That’s what I would have said, too, until a week ago last Saturday. On that particular day I stopped by Heritage Hill Historical Park’s Reference Library, run by the Saddleback Area Historical Society, and through sheer serendipity learned about El Toro’s connection to Hollywood via the Whiting family.

My original plan had been to check on a number of topics ... but definitely not the Whitings! After all, I’d already devoted articles to , , ,  and , Fruit Farming for Profit in California. It was time to move on to other topics.

Then Saddleback Area Historical Society members Keith and Heather Melford, who were staffing the library that afternoon, handed me a newspaper clipping from the Whiting file displaying the following headline—Hal Roach Remembers El Toro, the Movie Set—and yours truly, the lifelong film fanatic, was hooked!

After all, it was Hal Roach who produced the much-beloved Our Gang comedies, many of the classic Laurel and Hardy films, and, from 1915 until the mid-1930s, most of Lloyd’s immensely popular comedy shorts and feature films.

Once I began reading the article, however—dated “March 22, 23, 1989,” from page 15 of “The News”—I began to question what much of the reporter, Charles Teitel, had written ... and some, as well, of what Mr. Roach was quoted as saying.

The Whiting Connection

Teitel begins by stating that “esteemed and legendary producer” Hal Roach—at the time, 96—“thumbed through his memory bank and spoke of El Toro recently.”

Roach is then quoted as saying that around 1908 he’d been hauling lumber by horse and wagon to “booming areas in and around Los Angeles” when he noticed filmmakers shooting a western in the Santa Monica mountains. He said that after being asked to substitute for an actor who had just broke his leg falling from a horse, “I caught movie fever.”

Teitel adds that Roach soon wrote a movie script of his own. The problem, of course, was that he had no funds.

At that point, Roach is quoted as saying, “I recalled unloading logs at a ranch owned by Dwight Whiting in a new community that had a railroad station, El Toro. His vast property included valleys and hills, an ideal shooting area for cowboy films.

“He loaned me the $200 to produce my first film, a 30-minute western, and let me shoot it all on his property.”

Teitel then writes that “Dwight Whiting’s reputation in the Saddleback region was multifaceted: an Englishman of shrewd upbringing, he made his first purchase of acreage in the El Toro area of $2.70 an acre—10,688 acres of barley, corn and beans, wild horses and herds of cattle for $23,000. His home was built on a knoll overlooking a small lake, the exact site of Marie Callender’s restaurant in the Saddleback Plaza. Believing the area best for fruit growing, he returned to England and convinced 10 families to help homestead the area. Two, Charles Bennett and W.K. Robinson, also became large land owners.”

Whew! Where do I begin?

Which Dwight Is Right?

Well, let’s take it from the top. So far, all the biographical information I’ve found states that Hal Roach broke into films after coming into a small inheritance. Still, I haven’t yet exhausted all resources, so I’ll continue to check on that one.

Next, whether Roach shot his first film—according to most sources, a 1915 opus called Why the Boarders Left—well, I’m still in process of hunting that one down as well.

But Teitel’s mini-biography of Dwight Whiting runs contrary to just about everything recorded by Clara Mason Fox, Joe Osterman, and other local historians.

For starters, Teitel seems to be confusing El Toro founder Dwight Whiting with his son, Dwight Anson Whiting, an easy enough thing to do!

But as we’ve learned, the senior Dwight Whiting was not an Englishman, having been born in the Boston area. As for all those acres of barley, corn, and beans—not to mention “wild horses” and cattle herds—well, by the time baby Dwight came along in 1891, certainly much of that was in place in the Saddleback Valley, though perhaps not specifically on Whiting’s acreage.

Next, mention is made of Whiting’s home overlooking a small lake. But all of my sources state it was the home of his in-laws, the Keatings, that overlooked that body of water. Furthermore, although the Marie Callender’s that used to be a part of the Saddleback Plaza is now long gone, I remember it well, and its 23662 El Toro address was definitely not on the “exact site” of the Whiting home. 

Finally, the part about the “10 families” from England is, as we know, , and Charles Bennett was born in Connecticut, not England, as the Tustin Historical Society will be happy to verify. As for W.K. Robinson? I’m still working on that one, so if anyone has any information on the subject, please let me know!

Truth Versus Hearsay

Sorting out what happened 50 or 100 years ago isn’t easy. (Sometimes, as I’m sure many of you will agree, it’s enough of a challenge to remember what happened yesterday!)

Moreover, not all source materials are created equal, and even the reminiscences of a first-person observer can sometimes become a bit skewed.

After researching this subject, however, I’d like to note that a Dwight Whiting is listed at the Internet Movie Data Base and that his birth and death dates, as well as his marriages, tally with all that I’ve learned so far about Dwight Anson Whiting, the eldest son of Dwight and Emily Whiting.

Moreover, the IMDB Dwight Whiting is listed as being the production manager for 62 films, all of which tally with the list produced by Hal Roach from 1915-18, with a significant number starring Harold Lloyd. This particular Dwight Whiting, who lived from 1891 to 1974, is also credited with being one of the founders of the Santa Anita race track and the Santa Anita Turf Club.

Another verified factoid: It’s part of that 73 years ago this month the Whiting brothers—Dwight Anson and his younger brother, George—held a fairly spectacular party on the premises for a multitude of friends who had driven down from Los Angeles. This party, I assure you, will be the subject of a future El Toro & Before ... but only when I can both exhaust and verify my sources!

Until then, it’s fun to think that through the efforts and possible funding of Dwight Anson Whiting, sleepy little El Toro enjoyed some sort of connection—tenuous though it may have been—to the halcyon days of Hollywood.