GEORGE CHRISTY
Edward Hemingway
George Christy
The Hotel Bel-Air terrace where the rich and famous schmoozed and boozed is among the hangouts described in Of All The Gin Joints: Stumbling Through Hollywood History
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f you get in trouble, do it at the Chateau Marmont.” Columbia Pictures boss Harry Cohn advised contract players Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak. Harry often bitched about movies being overly long, yelling, “This film needs four asses to get through it!” (Haven’t we all been there?)
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he Chateau was an early hangout on the Sunset Strip. In our Beverly Hills Courier column last weekend, we focused on the hot and heavy tipplers of Tinsel Town. This time around, we’ll describe their hangouts from Of All The Gin Joints, Stumbling Through Hollywood History, an informative and entertaining book with a title inspired by Humphrey Bogart’s “gin joints” dialogue from Casablanca (1942). Anecdotes abound, thanks to the impressive researching about the silver screen’s rich and famous by local author Mark Bailey with saucy illustrations by Edward Hemingway.
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o this day, the “Chateau,” popular for its oldfashioned bungalows and secretive staff, was modeled after the Chateau d’Amboise in France’s vineyard-growing Loire Valley, where peripatetic Carole and Bill Haber possess a royal estate. A founder of the Creative Artists Agency with Ron Meyer and Mike Ovitz, Bill refers to the estate as “the farm” with its collection of Joan of Arc memorabilia. And where the Habers’ adorable pet pigs undergo cosmetic surgery to repair the pigs’ heavy, sightobsuring eyelids.
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he Chateau bedded lovemates Clark Gable and Carole Lombard; roues William Holden and David Niven with their ladies; Montgomery Clift recuperated at the Chateau Page 6 | February 6, 2015
from his disfiguring car crash in 1956; Garbo said it was the only hotel where songbirds serenaded her near the windows; Jim Morrison, Led Zeppelin, and Jay McInerney were the hotel’s Party Hearty guys.
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hen there was Ciro’s on the Strip, with its glass floor laid over a pool filled with live carp. Glamourati poured in, with Xavier Cugat conducting on the bandstand with sexy Latin rhythms, and Lana Turner (“I’d rather rhumba than read”) swaying on the dancefloor with lover Tyrone Power or one of her handsome swains.
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or eleven years, Mocambo became the hottest stop on the Strip, written about as a mad “mix of Imperial Rome and Salvador Dali,” including a huge aviary of 21 parakeets, four macaws and a cockatoo. Designed by artistic genius Tony Duquette to the tune of $l.5 million today.
Trouble
brewed when it was scheduled to open on New Year’s Eve. “Animal–rights advocates worried the birds would be harmed by the excessive noise at midnight, with the owner promising to close the drapes during the day so that the birds would get more sleep.”
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dancer’s p a r a d i s e , Mocambo invited Ella Fitzgerald, Perry Como, Edith Piaf as headliners. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were crazy about the Mocambo and modeled their Tropicana Club in I Love Lucy after it.
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former horse stable, the Hotel Bel-Air was financed in 1946 by Texas investor Joseph
Drown in the heart of the Bel-Air countryside. The hotel attracted Howard Hughes, William Randolph Hearst with his Marion Davies, Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Jimmy Stewart, Robert Redford, the Beatles. Also Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson, who had a knockdown, dragout, public squabble in the dining room.
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lizabeth arrived on time (questionable?) for their dinner, with Michael nowhere in sight for several hours. Elizabeth gorged on caviar and champagne. When Michael finally arrived, she was wild. And even wilder after hearing the reason for his delay. He’d been sitting in the hotel’s parking lot talking to Jackie Onassis for two hours. Elizabeth screamed for all the employees to hear that she “would not play second fiddle to any woman, not even that woman!” To console Elizabeth, Michael reached into his suit pocket and dropped a pair of turquoise earrings ringed with diamonds at her place setting. Scooping up the jewels,
Elizabeth tore off, without uttering a word.
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wned by Hassanah Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei, Hotel Bel-Air’s been renovated at an unconfirmed cost of $100 million, although many believe it cost more.
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house that opened during the thirties. Dave Chasen partnered with New Yorker editor Harold Ross who cautioned that 97-percent of restaurant owners go bankrupt. “But three-percent don’t,” countered Dave, whose hot-to-trot chili and hobo steak took off overnight.
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tories run non-stop through the pages of Gin Joints ... Cole Porter wrote songs on the backs of the menus at Perino’s, the haute cuisine citadel of L.A. ... the Brown Derby’s famous Cobb Salad was created by owner Bob Cobb from leftovers for his daily lunch ... writers gathered at Musso and Frank’s – among them were William Saroyan, Aldous Huxley, John O’Hara, Dashiell Hammett bellying up to the bar, along with William Faulkner, who said, “Isn’t anything I got what whiskey ain’t able to cure!” ... The Polo Bar, originally Le Jardin, changed its name after Will Rogers would relax with a drink after his polo matches ... The Mai Tai was birthed at Trader Vic’s, along with the Navy Grog and the Scorpion, all appealing to Ingrid Bergman, Bob and Rosemarie Stack, Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, Matt Damon, Russell Crowe, Warren Beatty.
here, oh where, are our Alfred Hitchcocks today?
And then there’s Chasen’s,
Online at www.bhcourier.com/category/george-christy
the beloved Hollywood club-
he Shirley Temple cocktail was created here for the childhood star, and Ronald Reagan proposed to Nancy Davis at Chasen’s. In its heyday, Chasen’s served more than 300 dinners nightly.
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ver dinner one evening, Alfred Hitchcock revealed that he liked English mustard with his steak. The dry mustard is usually mixed with water into a paste at table, and when the maitre d’hotel prepared it with vinegar, all hell broke loose. “I’ve always h-a-a-a-t-ed vinegar,” he raged. To calm things down, Dave Chasen brought out a rare Bordeaux. One of Mr. Hitchcock’s favorites: 196l Haut-Brion. And a favorite of ours. We all sipped the fine rare wine happily. With Mr. Hitchcock continuing his fascinating storytelling.
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