The new old Hollywood
Tinseltown is much changed since the heyday of the big stars but as LA evolves into a serious cultural capital vestiges of the old glamour can still be found.
These days, Hollywood Boulevard looks more like the site of a comic-book convention than the celebrity-studded thoroughfare it once was, when you might have spotted Myrna Loy and William Powell arm in arm, dressed to the nines and off to the Vine Brown Derby for a nightcap.
The scrum of Marvel and Disney characters is at its most annoying outside the famous pagoda-shaped Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, where Cecil B de Mille once premiered his biblical epics. On one visit to Hollywood, I foolishly chose to walk along this people-dense side of the road and found myself embroiled in a turf war between Spiderman and the Incredible Hulk, who were vying for the dollars of the tourists who flock there for autographs. (Surely they know it’s not the real Spiderman?)
The Walk of Fame, which was established in 1927 after theatre owner Sid Grauman accidentally stepped in wet concrete, can barely be seen now for the sneakers tramping over it. The 7.5km-long boulevard is no more salubrious further along, as it stretches from the Hollywood Hills district south-east to Los Feliz. Populated by psychic’ss parlours, smoke shops, escape rooms, boarded-up stores and shabby tequilerias, it’s no one’s idea of a glamorous place to visit. Despite this, I’ve always preferred the tawdriness of Hollywood Boulevard to the bland, sanitised pavements of Beverly Hills. (Sunset is pretty fabulously tawdry too.)
As Los Angeles transforms itself from a film industry town to a serious cultural capital, old Hollywood is getting a new lease of life. Its decline, which started in the 1980s when many landmarks were threatened with demolition, has been halted. There are some fashionable new hotels, such as the glitzy Dream Hotel and PROPER Residences; some restorations, including an expensive revamp of the legendary Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel; and some repurposing of unloved buildings – the 1920s Wilcox Hotel in a forgotten part of town has been reincarnated as the groovy Mama Shelter.
Hollywood itself, a separate municipality from its neighbours West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, is bordered by the Hollywood Hills, Los Feliz, Hancock Park, Fairfax and Larchmont – a charming residential area of modest houses dating from the 1920s where studio workers and some of the lesser-known stars might have lived. The Hollywood hills and canyons have some beautiful residential pockets, but much of the municipality is formed by long boulevards where there once were studios and warehouses.
Famous intersections such as Hollywood and Vine are fairly dispiriting, especially as the tourists cluster on the corners looking for something worthwhile to photograph. Most gravitate towards the Hollywood & Hyland Center, a shopping and entertainment complex with multiple food outlets and many souvenir stores that has turned this block of the boulevard into a suburban shopping mall, albeit with giant elephants on pillars, de Mille style. “Hollywood” is also an imaginary place, of course, and these visitors are looking for its renowned glamour in all the wrong places. They’ve found themselves on the boulevard of broken dreams.
But there are pockets of old Hollywood to be found, especially if you look up at the architecture. While storied establishments such as Chasen’s, Café Trocadero and Mocambo – a nightclub with interiors by Tony Duquette – and glassed-in aviaries of exotic birds, have long gone, the Musso & Frank Grill at 6667 Hollywood Boulevard, once a favourite hangout of Hollywood’s writers (it was across the road from the Writer’s Guild Office), is as busy as it was when Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Hellman and Hammett held up the bar. It’s worth a visit, and a century on is still serving its famous flannel cake. No one much recommends the food, but the bar is fun and authentic.
The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel was built between 1927 and ’29 by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks as a place where the new studios could lodge their stars. It hosted the first Academy Awards ceremony in its Blossom Room, with a $5-a-head dinner of chicken or fish, green beans and potatoes, and vanilla or chocolate ice cream. Shirley Temple learned to tap dance on the tiled staircase in the lobby, and Clark Gable and Carole Lombard had a love nest in the penthouse. For many years, Eartha Kitt performed a cabaret in the hotel’s theatre. In 1988, artist David Hockney painted a multi-million-dollar mural on the bottom of the rooftop Tropicana Pool.
As with the boulevard, the hotel’s fortunes have changed over the decades. It was almost knocked down in 1980 before being named a historic landmark in 1985. It had its first renovation at this time, a charmless one that covered up the ceilings and tiles. Finally, in 2015 the architects Yabu Pushelberg were engaged to restore and revitalise the old dame, returning it to its Spanish Colonial roots, while redesigning the cabana rooms by the pool to reflect the hotel’s mid-century era. Coming full circle, those hotel rooms facing Hollywood Boulevard that have a great view of the Dolby Theatre, where the Academy Awards are now held, are sold out for Oscars night years ahead.
One famous place that no longer exists is the world’s first tiki bar, Don the Beachcomber, which started life as a bar just off Hollywood Boulevard in 1933. By 1937, Don Gantt, the owner, had moved it across the road and opened a restaurant, decorated in Polynesian style and introducing dishes such as pu pu platters and Scorpion Bowls. It was immensely popular with celebrities, who would be given individual chopsticks stored in holders tagged with their names. If a chopstick was missing from its holder everyone knew that star was in the room.
The chopstick holders are still there, but these days they are displayed in a cabinet at Lono, 6611 Hollywood Boulevard, a tiki bar that pays homage to Don, in a location not far from the original. Full of Don memorabilia, including a peacock chair and some of the dollar notes soldiers would sign and stick on the ceiling (for their return from war), Lono has a lively Polynesian-style front bar serving Zombies, a restaurant by chef David Lespron that serves new versions of the tiki classics (Kaui fried chicken with huli huli sauce, lava salt potatoes), a Shrimp Shack open after 10pm, and an elegant skylit back lounge that’s very Casablanca in mood. Diners can order a Hawaiian Luau with 48 hours’ notice.
In keeping with the boulevard’s raffish mood, Black Rabbit Rose at 1719 N.Hudson Avenue is a new bar that might have been there for decades. There’s a tiny burlesque Rose Theatre out back and the dark and sexy front bar, Black Rabbit Lounge, is devoted to all things magic. That means you’ll be accosted by a magician doing tricks for you at your table and the cocktails will bubble, smoke or fizz. But if that thought fills you with dismay, never fear,s it’s fabulous fun. Our magician, Robey, was brilliant, and the cocktails we tried (Smoke & Mirrors, Dark Arts, a convulsive Honey Bunny) were truly delicious. The historic apartment building is said to be haunted by previous residents, which included Rudolph Valentino.
Just down the road, the funky little Snow White Cafe, a dive bar at 6769 Hollywood Boulevard, is worth a look. It dates from 1946 when Walt Disney used to brainstorm ideas there, and the walls are covered with murals by Disney cartoonists. The Frolic Room in the beautiful Pantages theatre at 6245 Hollywood Boulevard was established in 1934 and is still going. The notable neon sign was added by Howard Hughes, who operated it in the 1940s and ’50s.
The 101 Coffee Shop, at 6145 Franklin Avenue in the Best Western motel, has been a landmark since the 1960s. You have to walk under a freeway to find it, but it’s worth the visit for anyone who loves retro diners with Formica tables and rock-veneer walls. Restored in 2001, it serves homemade corned beef hash, waffle brownie sundaes, silver dollar pancakes and coconut cream pie. It’s open until 3am. Through the motel reception there’s a fantastically glamorous little bar, The MiniBar, with a Mad Men ambience.
Also harking back to that era, Paley, in Columbia Square at Sunset Boulevard and Gower, is a mid-century-feel restaurant and bar that’s an homage to former CBS CEO William Paley and his stylish wife Babe, who was one of Truman Capote’s “swans”. From 1937, CBS broadcast popular radio and TV shows such as I Love Lucy from there, and the complex was Paley’s vision. It’s an elegant, soaring space, lined with cosy booths and an open kitchen serving modern twists on shrimp cocktail and strawberry shortcake. What to drink? The Babe, of course, a concoction of vodka, lychee and lavender bitters.
What has dramatically changed the landscape of the eastern end of Hollywood is the arrival of a number of new hotels to this scruffy neighbourhood. Mama Shelter, 6500 Selma Avenue, opened in 2015 in the down-at-heel 1930s Wilcox Hotel, later a Scientology building, completely revitalising the neglected location. The new hotel has kept some features of the past, such as the 1927 elevator and the same room size and configuration, but the hoteliers have introduced many quirky contemporary features: movie scripts in each room, free porn on the TV, and a marvellous chalkboard ceiling, illustrated by five local artists downstairs over the long bar and café. It’s now a really happening, affordable hangout, with a sensational rooftop lounge and bar that has almost 360-degrees views of Los Angeles.
Across the road, the new Dream Hollywood at 6417 Selma Avenue opened a couple of years after Mama Shelter with an entirely different clientele in mind – a younger Hollywood crowd with names that mostly start with K. The modern building encompasses so many fashionable lifestyle brands it’s a bit dizzying – Soul Cycle, Equinox (gym), Beauty & Essex (bar as high-end pawn shop), food and drink by TAO. The gym is designed by Gunnar Peterson, who trains Khloe Kardashian. The hotel’s 198 rooms are sleek and stylish, but a bit characterless, the polar opposite of Mama across the road. While Mama’s guests are probably happy to explore the dive bars in the ’hood, the Dream’s guests would rather top up their tans by the (admittedly gorgeous) rooftop pool, where cabanas rent for up to $US5000 a day.
The Beautiful People also hang out on the new Filifera Rooftop Bar and Lounge atop the Kelly Wearstler-designed Hollywood PROPER Residences, 1550 N. El Centro Avenue, near Columbia Square, where furnished one-bedroom apartments rent for more than $US10,000 a month. On the 22nd floor of the building, Filifera is Hollywood’s highest rooftop bar and has some knockout views of the hills, the Hollywood sign and the Griffith Observatory. There’s a very nice pool up there, with climbing roses covering the cabanas, attractive mid-century furnishings and some well-crafted cocktails. Try the Passionfruit Fizz.
Also in the neighbourhood is the new Kimpton Everly, a lifestyle hotel at 1800 Argyle Avenue that got the message: it features a rooftop pool and bar, the Skyline Sundeck, with great views of downtown and the hills. (All the rooms have views – I like the ones at the back that look across the iconic freeway.) Less funky than Mama Shelter, less of a scene than Dream, it’s a hotel that appeals to the young creative classes that are flocking to LA, with a great workspace lobby and a popular café, Jane Q, that serves Lamill coffee and wholesome Italian-inspired meals.
But there’s probably no place in Hollywood that better represents the way the old is becoming new again than the Museum of Selfies, 6757 Hollywood Boulevard. It’s an immersive experience that helps visitors create their own “eye-popping” images (for a $US25 entry ticket): “Turn your dreams of being the next Instagram celebrity or the next Kim Kardashian into reality!” Maybe the selfie is a democratisation of the old Hollywood glamour shot and fans now dream of being KK as they once fantasised about being MM. But they’d be wise to remember this is still the boulevard of broken dreams.
The writer travelled to LA courtesy of American Airlines. aa.com
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