 Garbo and her close friend Mercedes de Acosta would spend time at Hauser and Brown's houses in Los Angeles, Palm Springs, and Italy.After purchasing a villa in Taormina, Sicily in 1950, Hauser spent much of his time there with Frey Brown.After Brown's death in 1979, Hauser sold the villa and returned full-time to Hollywood, where he remained in vigorous good health until shortly before his death on 26 December 1984 from complications of pneumonia.