The Yates Family Connected West Islip to Hollywood

West Islip had a connection to early Hollywood thanks to the Yates family. The head of the family, Herbert J. Yates, was the founder and president of Republic Pictures which produced movies in many genres, but were best known for westerns and dramas.

Yates was born in Brooklyn in 1880. Not much is known about his early life, but after high school he attended Columbia University. His first job after college was in a cigarette company's advertising department. At first, he used the movies for investment purposes only, but eventually he started his own movie processing company called Consolidated Film Laboratories. Sometime in the mid 1930s, he took over several small financially strapped film studios and formed Republic Pictures.

Yates' company was best known for low budget B-movies in all types of genres, and as his reputation grew so did his wealth. By the early 1940s, he signed actor John Wayne to a contract, and several of his biggest movies were made at Yates company: "Rio Grande," "The Quiet Man," "Angel and the Badman" and "The Sands of Iwo Jima."

But just over a decade later, Republic Pictures was losing movie goers to television and by 1959 the company ceased operations.  Yates sold the company's name and movie library to National Telefilm Associates which is known today as Republic Pictures Entertainment.

A lot of Yates' personal life remains a mystery, and precise information about when his West Islip estate was built or sold is not readily available.  What is known is that he had four children from his first marriage: Herbert Jr., Douglas, Richard and Elsa.    Additional information was found only for Herbert Jr., since he was the vice president and treasurer of Republic before it was sold. When the West Islip estate was sold, he moved to Port Washington where he died in 1959 at the age of 55.

When Yates left New York for permanent residency in California with his second wife, a Czechoslovakia skater-turned-actress Vera Ralston, his children and grandchildren continued to live in his West Islip estate. It was located on Montauk Highway, where St. John the Baptist High School and Our Lady of Consolation Rehabilitative Home are located. 

 "I believe Yates owned the land from Beach Street to Snedecor Avenue," said Rose Ramaikas, a West Islip resident since 1935, who still lives a few blocks east of where Yates estate was on Montauk Highway. "The house was so big and there was very tall grass in front of it on Montauk Highway. 

"One time I saw Zsa Zsa Gabor's maroon Lincoln convertible getting gas at the station on Oak Neck Road, where the Shell station is now, after leaving Yates' home."

Another West Islip resident, Ann Gilmore, recalled her experiences at the Yates estate for the West Islip's Library oral history in 1982.  "The Yates estate encompassed the whole area from Montauk Highway down to the Bay where the two elementary schools, Captree and Bayview, are," she said.  "It was not infrequent to be picked up from the Babylon grade school in 7th grade with Dickey Yates, who was in my class by the chauffeur who would bring us home for a wild game of kick the can and then bring me home afterwards.

"When we were teenagers, Mr. Yates would come home in the summer with some of his Hollywood cronies.  Quite often Gene Autry would appear, Roy Rogers with some of the celebrities, and they would have parties outside of the pool. The pool was magnificent and they would have buffets with enormous plates of incredible foods and music. And the parties were something that I had never seen before. They were beautiful parties with all kinds of wonderful people."

Yates died in February 1966 at the age of 85.  He is buried in the Yates family mausoleum at the Oakwood Cemetery in Bayshore.

This week's trivia question: What was the original location of the West Islip Library? The answer in next week's column.

The answer to last week's trivia question is: As outlined above, the Yates family lived on the property that is now home to St. John Baptist Diocesan High School.