Of All the Gin Joints
Page 2
It was not surprising that, over time, such debauchery started catching up to Barrymore. And thus, by 1942, did he find himself confined to bed in his Tower Road home, forbidden all drink, with a quite large nurse barring all visitors. The only exceptions were his brother Lionel, his daughter Diana, and doctors. Then there was the insurance adjuster who showed up one day dressed in the black flannel suit of a pallbearer and introducing himself as Harleigh P. Wigmore. The nurse led the man into Barrymore’s room. No sooner had she left, than poor, haggard Barrymore brightened, “What is this, a dress rehearsal for my obsequies?” The adjuster smiled back and pulled something out of his briefcase: an ancient bottle of Napoleon cognac. The man was, in fact, Barrymore’s close friend, director Raoul Walsh, who’d concocted the ruse to get past the nurse.
* * *
The nurse had been sternly advised that any friendly visit would involve the smuggling of alcohol, and that she couldn’t have. Alcohol, after all, was the very thing that had brought him to death’s door.
* * *
“Ingenious,” Barrymore told him, as they sat sharing a bottle for what would be the very last time. Barrymore was now more animated than ever. He told Walsh that he’d be donating his liver to Smithsonian, “for their Civil War display.” When the nurse suddenly returned, Barrymore alerted her as to exactly who the “insurance man” was. Then he blew a kiss, exclaiming, “If only I were ambulatory, I would spring from this bed of thorns and pay you my praise in the coinage of rapture.” The woman left, blushing, and Barrymore raised the bottle of cognac to his friend. “My farewell performance as Don Juan,” he toasted.
H. L. MENCKEN ONCE DECLARED, “I’m ombibulous: I drink every known alcoholic drink and enjoy them all.” A nice sentiment, but John Barrymore put Mencken to shame, such was the breadth of his taste for alcohol. When Barrymore’s second wife broke every bottle in their house, he drank all of her perfume. When he embarked on a 1935 boating trip with their daughter and discovered (once at sea) that the ship had been stripped of booze, he siphoned a pint of the engine’s coolant. Two wives later, he drank a goblet of boric acid intended to soothe his sunburn.
Perhaps Barrymore mellowed as he aged, though the stories argue otherwise. For the last two years of his life, he was a permanent guest on the radio show of singer Rudy Vallée. And every day at 4 p.m., on his way to the studio, he’d stop at St. Donat’s Bar on Sunset and order his favorite drink: a Pimm’s Cup. You can’t get more civilized.
PIMM’S CUP
2 OZ. PIMM’S NO. 1
3 OZ. FRESHLY SQUEEZED LEMONADE
1 LEMON-LIME SODA SUCH AS 7UP OR SPRITE
2 CUCUMBER SLICES
1 MINT SPRIG
ASSORTED FRUIT OPTIONAL: ORANGE SLICE, APPLE SLICE, STRAWBERRIES
Pour Pimm’s and then lemonade into a chilled highball glass filled with ice cubes. Top off with soda. Stir. Garnish with cucumber and mint, additional fruit may be added. Serve with straw.
the AMBASSADOR HOTEL
3400 WILSHIRE BLVD.
FIRST OPENING ITS DOORS on New Year’s Day 1921, the posh Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire quickly overtook the Alexandria as the ne plus ultra destination for Hollywood elites, visiting dignitaries, and clandestine lovers.
The hotel would host six Academy Awards ceremonies and the first Golden Globes. Marilyn Monroe got her start at the poolside modeling agency, Blue Book, and the jury for the Charles Manson case stayed there during his trial.
So frequently was the hotel used as a set in both films and television, it was nicknamed the “Ambassador Studios.” Some titles include: A Star Is Born, The Graduate, Rocky, Pretty Woman, Hoffa, Apollo 13, and Forrest Gump.
But in real life, the Ambassador’s most storied parties took place in the tropically themed supper club and dancehall, the Cocoanut Grove. Decorated by palm trees inherited from the set of the Valentino silent The Sheik, the Grove was unique among hotspots because it hosted constant performances. These eventually became de facto auditions. Bing Crosby and Merv Griffin first sang there. Judy Garland recorded her comeback album there. And a host of young female superstars were first discovered dancing there: Carole Lombard, Loretta Young, and Joan Crawford (who won over a hundred dance trophies). Years later, the Rat Pack adopted it as their haunt of choice, and in 1963 Sammy Davis, Jr., even recorded a live album there.
But over time the Ambassador Hotel would earn its place in history more through tragedy than celebration. In 1968 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, fresh from his victory speech in the California primary, was shot in the pantry area of the hotel’s kitchen.
The death of Kennedy, along with the deterioration of the surrounding neighborhood, marked the beginning of the end for the hotel. Drugs and gang warfare, already on the rise, would soon flood the area. In 1971 an attempt was made to renovate the Cocoanut Grove, overseen by none other than Sammy Davis, Jr., himself, but the effort only led to such seemingly incongruous bookings as the Grateful Dead and Sly Stone. The credits were already rolling.
The Ambassador heaved its final sigh and closed its curtains in 1989, then languished behind weeds and chain-link fences as a movie location for more than a decade longer. In 2006, it was demolished. The only bright note to its unhappy demise was that the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools rose out of the ashes, a complex of six public schools in downtown L.A. Designed loosely on a modern interpretation of the hotel, a 582-seat school theater now stands in the footprint of the original, a showplace for a new generation of performers.
IT WAS PERHAPS the most glamorous nightclub ever. Beneath the palm trees and coconuts, watched by the mechanical monkeys with their glowing eyes, the world’s biggest stars laughed and danced and above all else drank.
There is the story of a young Tallulah Bankhead enamored with a much older John Barrymore. After a night at the Grove and one too many, she sneaked into Barrymore’s Ambassador Hotel bungalow and hid under the sheets to wait for him. Back from the club and three sheets himself, upon discovering the naked starlet, Barrymore just groaned “Tallu … I’m too drunk and you’re too awkward.” It was a hell of an offer to turn down. Their cups truly overflowed.
COCOANUT GROVE COCKTAIL
2 OZ. DRY GIN
½ OZ. MARASCHINO LIQUEUR
¼ OZ. FRESH LIME JUICE
¼ OZ. GRENADINE
ORANGE WHEEL
MARASCHINO CHERRY
Pour all of the liquid ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice cubes. Shake well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with orange wheel and cherry.
CLARA BOW
1905–1965
ACTRESS AND SEX SYMBOL
“We did as we pleased. We stayed up late. Today, they’re sensible and end up with better health. But we had more fun.”
Clara Bow was the first celebrity described as the “It Girl” (a phrase from her best-known film, It, 1927). Bow’s unaffected screen persona as a dancing, singing party girl captivated audiences but led to an undeserved off-screen reputation as a tramp from the slums of Brooklyn. She did in fact grow up in poverty, moving to Hollywood in 1923. Studios thought Bow vulgar and actors thought her talentless, but her sincere and uninhibited performances struck a chord with moviegoers. (F. Scott Fitzgerald said she could “stir up every pulse in the nation.”) While her starring roles made tons of money, Bow’s harsh Brooklyn accent didn’t translate well to sound. And she hated learning lines. After a few mildly successful talkies, Bow retired, in 1933.
IT WAS OCCASIONALLY SAID, but mostly understood, yes, Clara Bow was the most famous actress in the world. And yes, she was always incredibly sweet, professional, and beloved by the film crews she worked with. But she was not to be invited to parties. At least the parties of anyone who wished to remain among the respectable Hollywood elite.
This saucy teenager was from (gasp) Brooklyn, her mother was insane, and her father a lecherous hanger-on who was bleeding her dry through a series of failed business ventures. And Bow herself was so licent
ious that she could shock even jaded old-Hollywood types. As Budd Schulberg, son of Paramount president B. P. Schulberg and later a gifted screenwriter (On the Waterfront) recalled, “They all thought she was a low-life and disgrace to the community.”
But the truth about Bow was simpler. She was a scared twenty-year-old tomboy with little formal education. Her childhood friends were boys, and as a result, the things she enjoyed doing were almost exclusively reserved for men: drinking, gambling, swearing, and screwing. She was also completely sincere.
A fun-loving innocent, at first Bow behaved no worse than a typical twenty-year-old. Sure, she had parties with USC undergraduates, but they only ended in front-yard wrestling matches, like an eleven-year-old on the streets of Brooklyn. Sure, she kept the back door open so cops could stop by and grab a beer. Who wouldn’t?
* * *
Her childhood friends were boys, and as a result, the things she enjoyed doing were almost exclusively reserved for men: drinking, gambling, swearing, and screwing.
* * *
But Clara Bow had so few friends that she usually played cards with her maid and cook. She ended her multiple affairs with powerful men before they got bored and told her what they really thought. One such powerful man was the elder B. P. Schulberg himself, who—in addition to keeping Bow as a mistress—had her under contract at Paramount.
However much Schulberg enjoyed the pleasure of Clara’s company, he needed her to appear less scandalous. In an effort to clean up her image, he made her hire a female secretary/chaperone. The woman promptly eloped with Bow’s father. In an attempt to see her through a nervous breakdown, he sent her off to Reno. She returned with $100,000 in gambling debts.
Once, in 1928, Schulberg made the mistake of agreeing to host Bow for dinner. The other prominent guest was Judge Ben Lindsey, a close friend of Schulberg’s wife. The judge had recently been kicked off the bench in Denver after championing premarital sex as a way to reduce the exploding divorce rate. That’s right, in 1928 premarital sex was a big no-no in most of the United States. Not in Hollywood though. And Judge Lindsey, hoping to revive his career amidst the more forgiving celebrity culture, came out to interview Clara Bow as part of a Vanity Fair magazine series called “Impossible Interviews.” It’d be perfect—a judge interviewing a law-breaking tramp!
Bow, clearly uncomfortable at the prospect of dinner with her ex-lover and boss, showed up late and tipsy. Her first move was introducing herself to Judge Lindsey with a French kiss, which he pulled away from quickly—probably because his wife was standing next to him. Even so, Clara soon wrangled him into a dance. As the judge awkwardly complied, she deftly unbuttoned his shirt. Then, arriving at his pants, she didn’t hesitate and began to unzip them, too.
Suddenly, the permissive judge became a scared teenager and jumped away, putting his arm around his wife. Ushered out of the room, Bow was taken to task by B. P. Schulberg.
Clara was confused by the judge’s double standard—“If he likes all that modern stuff,” she asked her boss, “how come he’s such an old stick-in-the-mud?”
MONTMARTRE CAFÉ
6763 HOLLYWOOD BLVD.
A BLOCK AWAY FROM the Hollywood Hotel, the Montmartre Café was Hollywood’s first see-and-be-seen nightclub. Catering to the celebrities it fed, it opened in 1923 graced with imported chandeliers and carpets, and Romanesque architecture. (It was actually on the second floor of the building; the first, appropriately, housed a bank.)
Regulars included Mabel Normand, Joan Crawford, Valentino, Gloria Swanson, John Barrymore, and Marion Davies. The maître d’, Bruce Cabot, went on to star in King Kong. There was dancing, even at lunch; women without partners could take their pick from “the Bachelors’ table,” reportedly well stocked with handsome men. The wife of airplane manufacturer Jack Maddux started a tradition called “Flying Luncheons,” in which she’d take her friends to the Montmartre for lunch, and then into an airplane for an hour or two of cards and conversation while circling the city.
Founder Eddie Brandstatter, hit by the stock-market crash and a series of other bad investments, was forced to sell it in 1932. The building has since run through scores of owners with bad ideas, but managed to preserve its onetime glamour. Today it’s part private-party space, part Hollywood nightclub. And the bank below has become a convenience store.
LOUISE BROOKS
1906–1985
ACTRESS AND MEMOIRIST
Asked why Hollywood kicked her out: “I like to drink and fuck too much.”
Louise Brooks was popular but only mildly successful in her day. She appeared in twenty-four films, the best being Pandora’s Box (1929), Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), and Prix de Beauté (1930). Brooks didn’t help her career by turning down the lead in the Cagney classic The Public Enemy to visit her married lover in New York. She claimed she was blacklisted in Hollywood after refusing to sleep with studio head Harry Cohn (Columbia Pictures) and retired from film in 1938. Brooks first moved home to Kansas, then to New York, where she worked as a salesgirl at Saks Fifth Avenue. In 1955, she was unexpectedly championed by new wave filmmakers and became an international cult figure, celebrated for her realistic acting style, her flapper bob haircut (“The Black Helmet”), and her open disdain for Hollywood studios. In 1982, at age seventy-five, Brooks published her critically acclaimed memoir, Lulu in Hollywood, about her time in Hollywood, which is still considered one of the best inside accounts of American film.
NOW THAT SHE THOUGHT ABOUT IT, of course she would stay. Three days earlier, Louise Brooks and her then-husband, director Eddie Sutherland, had arrived at the Ranch for a getaway weekend.
“The Ranch” was everybody’s nickname for San Simeon, the estate of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. The 250,000-acre, ten-home expanse had become a nexus of Hollywood social life, courtesy of actress Marion Davies, Hearst’s mistress. Eddie Sutherland declared it all very boring, unless you worshipped opulence or celebrities. But Louise Brooks had found a third object of worship: Pepi Lederer, Davies’s seventeen-year-old niece. Pepi lived at San Simeon; she and Brooks became fast friends, and the teenager implored Brooks to stay a day or two longer without her husband. It ended up being three weeks.
Brooks was only twenty-two, but already she’d been notorious for almost a decade. She stood up to studio heads. She turned down choice parts. She had affairs with men and women alike, and spoke frankly about sex. When she was eighteen, she had a two-month fling with Charlie Chaplin, and she loved telling friends the glowing red penis story: Apparently, Chaplin had heard that a drop of iodine on your penis could prevent venereal disease. During a three-day sex bender with Brooks and another couple, he decided to be extra cautious. He emerged from the bathroom naked, with an erection, his storied “eighth wonder of the world” penis completely covered with red iodine. He proceeded to chase the screaming girls around the suite.
* * *
Brooks was only twenty-two, but already she’d been notorious for almost a decade. She stood up to studio heads. She turned down choice parts. She had affairs with men and women alike, and spoke frankly about sex.
* * *
Brooks herself drank inconceivable amounts of gin. In fact, her lifelong dedication to a good drink was so unwavering that she actually got kicked out of the Algonquin Hotel during the Round Table years. And during her San Simeon stay, gin was again her biggest problem. Specifically, that she couldn’t find any. Famously concerned about his mistress Davies’s drinking problem, Hearst had forbidden almost all spirits on estate grounds, rationing one cocktail at meals, some sherry and champagne here and there, or a few bottles at a business meeting. But while the teenage Pepi could get champagne easily by flirting with Hearst’s assistant, Brooks preferred gin.
One afternoon, Brooks and Pepi were carousing in the swimming pool, drinking and “fooling around a bit,” when word came that a group of Hearst newspaper editors were in one of the outbuildings for a meeting. Brooks knew what that meant: real liquor. Good liquor. Within m
inutes, she, Pepi, and eight teenage girls, all in bathing suits, danced in a line through the meeting-room door. The men were seated at a table, well fortified with booze and cigars. As the parade of flesh shimmied past, startling, distracting, and entrancing the men, ringleader Brooks snatched a few bottles from the table. Their mission accomplished, the line of girls left as hastily as they had come.
The door closing, one confused newspaper editor turned to a housekeeper. “Does Mr. Hearst know these people are here?”
PRIX DE BEAUTÉ (1930)
When Italian director Augusto Genina began shooting the French noir film Prix de Beaute, he could scarcely believe the daily schedule of Louise Brooks, the American actress who, twenty-five years later, would become history’s most revered flapper. Then she was just a stunningly pretty second-tier Hollywood actress with a work method that, had he not already fallen in love with her, Genina would never have tolerated.
This would be Brooks’s last European film and first talkie, although since she hardly spoke a word of French, all her dialogue and singing would be dubbed—probably a good thing, given her lifestyle. Brooks woke up at 4 a.m. and drank a bottle of champagne. She’d be asleep again by six. At which time a small crew would enter her hotel room and carry her, asleep, to a car. The car was driven to the lot. She was then carried, still asleep, to the makeup room.