On the green baize of that table some of the best, and some of the worst, pool players in Hollywood restore their virility.
Of an evening, one may see aging matinee idols in the company of sleek, well-fed women, doffing their suit jackets and sighting down the shanks of pool cues like Minnesota Fats, preparatory to demonstrating to their paramours and the gathering-at-large that they are as good as they ever were.
But when the duffs and the spastics cease showing off, some of the most bravura stickwork in the L.A. area may be seen executed on that sloping, rutted, butt-burned table by the likes of Peter Falk, Omar Sharif, Richard Conte, Telly Savalas and Leo Durocher, who is so adept he can let you win, out of general all-around kindness.
(Vignette the Second: Paul Newman is playing eight ball. He shoots and stands silently waiting his next turn. He loses. He loses handily. He goes into the bar and sits down to have a drink. A young man, watching the game with wide eyes and closed mouth, follows him.
("Mr. Newman," the boy says politely, at the elbow of the star of The Hustler. Newman half turns and looks. It is the same pale-blue-eyed polar ice chill stare Newman gave Minnesota Fats, just before the pool marathon known to millions of people around the world as the penultimate moment of truth contest. "Mr. Newman," the boy says again, with difficulty, looking as though someone had dumped it on him, "you're the greatest disappointment in my life."
(He walks away. Newman stares into his drink.)
The chandelier room, the barroom, with its antique mirrors and antique ceiling fixtures, leads off from the poolroom, past the private party room and the phone booth where the legend SUZANNE SIDNEY WAS HERE AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT! remained unerased for several months on the blackboard beside the telephone. An interesting—and possibly apocryphal—sidelight is that the private party room, which was originally conceived for any large name guest who might want to have an intime gathering without the bother of the general clientele looking over his shoulder, has seldom been used. It would seem no one wants to miss out on the action in the big room.
The chandelier room, containing the bar, is 25? wide by 75? long. It is filled with tables that clog the center of the room and line the wall.
And directly ahead, is the main room, the dance floor room, where the major activity takes place. And it is from here that one receives the first totally overwhelming assault of sensory impressions. A dark, kaleidoscopic and somehow vegetable movement of bodies in motion, a noise level of voices that runs subcurrent to the aural slam of rock music blared through a P.A. system at full gain.
Martha and the Vandellas are singing "Jimmy Mack" on the Gordy label.
Waiters ply back and forth at top-point efficiency through aisles clogged with dancers and talkers and gawkers and a surfeit of the beautiful people. Tables that were built for four or six are jammed with eighteen and twenty. One clique here, another there, laughter skirling up from the center like smoke in the Abner Dean cartoon of the few close friends left after the party, their arms umbilically joined, the fire burning in their center and their statement "Ain't we great!"
A lush redhead elbows past on her way to the little ladies' sandbox. Her step is wavery, but the movement is pure MGM circa 1935. And you realize all at once that there are more beautiful women gathered here than you have ever seen before. Not just in one place, at one time, but in your whole life, all counted, from the moment you hit puberty. Tall, short, blonde au naturel and blonde by bottle, dark-eyed or smoldering, these women are the true artifacts of our culture. They spend most of their days and nights keeping their bodies in fine tune, like a birdcage Maserati. There is no dust on them, no slightest hint of chrome rust, no vaguest sign of tackiness or impoverishment or loss or stricture. Only platinum and alabaster and lapis-lazuli. When our culture has gone ten million years into the slag-heaps of eternity, and the aphids that will inherit the planet do their archaeological restorations, surely these . . . these slim-limbed creatures of exquisite emptiness . . . these will be rebuilt molecule by molecule and put on display in the plasteel showcases, as the finest, highest achievement of a society dedicated to gorgeousness.
The Turtles are singing "Happy Together" on the White Whale label.
You sit down at a table in the back, near the tiny room where the disc jockey puts his sides on the turntable. You stare through the steel mesh curtains at the empty patio outside, where it is much cooler, where the press of bodies is so much less, which you wouldn't think of patronizing, for fear of missing something here in Valhalla.
The maître d', George Samama—who started out working steamships and prior to coming to The Daisy did ten years at La Scala Restaurant—has led you to your table. He smiles and asks if this table is all right. If it isn't, he will change it. Unless it happens that you want one of the tables with the phoney setups on it, the tables reserved for the cliques that have declared them private turf.
You look around and receive the distinct impression that you are in the eye of a hurricane. There is movement from every corner. Not merely the movement of dancers doing the watusi, the jerk, the stroll, the shotgun, the fish, the Philly dog, the monkey, the backbone slip, the slop, the hitchhiker, the James Brown walk, the long tall Sally, the bomp, the Hully-Gully, the swim, walkin' the dog, the Slauson and that poor old arteriosclerotic septuagenarian over there with the chick in the floral-patterned, bell-bottom hip-huggers and Courreges boots, who is pathetically doing a Cro-Magnon twist with softly vanishing hopes of having enough left to hustle that fine young body jerking and shimmying in front of him.
But the movement is a deeper, more oiled, roiling presence. The sway and pulse of bodies leaning into and away from the essences of the room. The sound of voices raised in anger pulls everyone southwesterly, leaning into it, sniffing the aroma of frenzy, harkening to the possibility of actual, authentic reality in the raw, as fist meets jaw. The tinkle of uncontrolled laughter pulls the crowd northeasterly, as they struggle with eardrums stretched taut to catch the bit of gossip or newest joke in from the Via Veneto. And there is the movement of history in the room. The history that was this room when it belonged to Prince Mike Romanoff during its heyday in the shadows of World War II. The history of the ten years it was The Friars Club before Jack and Sally Hanson spent a quarter of a million dollars to buy the property. History in the ghostly sighs of the vanished—Bogart, Cooper, Lombard, Power, Gable, Don "Red" Berry, Monty Woolley, S. Z. Sakall, and even all the bright, pretty, ankle-strap wedgie'd starlets who found a moment within these walls when the dream-dust settled on their shapely shoulders. All gone now, replaced by the new generation, the new fastback breed of Hollywood famous, all moving, moving around you as you drink your drink and drink in the sight of grandeur.
The Lovin' Spoonful is singing "Darlin' Be Home Soon" on the Kama Sutra label.
Upstairs there is a ping-pong room. It is very hot up there, no air-conditioning. Only one of the glossy and indolent children of the Beverly Hills wealthy, conditioned to retain their cool through Armageddon if need be, can play a game there and not come downstairs totally unstarched.
In back there is a huge kitchen. It is unused. Jack Hanson does not believe the beautiful people wish to watch other beautiful people eating, so no food is served at The Daisy. Beautiful people are not beautiful when eating. This is a corner of the Hanson/Daisy philosophy, of which more later. Bear it in mind.
There are thirty-eight tables in The Daisy. The legal room capacity is three hundred people, all breathing at once. Yet on a weekend night it will seem that all of the 350–400 customers are jammed on that 30? × 75? dance floor all at once, and wondrously, no one perspires. They certainly don't sweat. Perhaps one of the less classy ladies will "glow" a bit, but the house rules prohibit anything that smacks even faintly of crassness.
Bodily functions, not to mention reality, are suspended during a night at The Daisy as
The Seekers sing "Georgy Girl" on the Capitol label.
Despite Hanson's aversion to people stuffing th
eir faces with food, empty stomachs receive a passing nod by the serving of pies, cheesecake or a fruit plate featuring apples and cheese.
There are no bowls of peanuts and popcorn, by which absence we discover a laudable and significant keynote to the Hanson conception of what The Daisy means in terms of monetary return:
On many occasions, not the least of which was this author's interview with the Hansons, they have said again and again that the primary motive for opening The Daisy was not to make money. When one considers the incredible payoff the place has made, this remark seems suspect. But when laid against something as bone-marrow basic as the lack of salty incentives to drinking more and spending more money, the remark must be believed.
For every liquor distributor who deals with The Daisy has urged Hanson to add these loss-leaders; people who jam peanuts and other thirst quickeners into their mouths through the course of a long evening, in a bar without food, invariably up the bar take by twenty percent. But Hanson has passed this traditional trick of the trade. It would seem he is sincerely not in the business of mulcting his customers.
Then what, precisely, motivated a successful clothing merchant and his attractive wife to embark on a financial venture that costs them three hundred dollars every time they open the door? (Computed conservatively—on the basis of salaries paid to maître d', three bartenders, a doorman, a record jockey, between five and nine waiters, a gardener, a maid and janitor, and a bookkeeper.)
Now we plunge headfirst into The Hanson Philosophy.
It provides an answer, of sorts.
The Rolling Stones are singing "Ruby Tuesday" on the London label.
"Sally and I feel this: The time when an individual in our culture can be sustained merely by communication between himself and his mate is past. We find ourselves living in a time when religion, social contacts, the family unit, all of them have undergone a metamorphosis. Inhabitants of almost every social strata have places to go where they can meet with people of similar backgrounds and tastes, to express themselves, to release their tensions and feel they belong. We looked around and were surprised to see that many of the people we considered valuable and interesting had no such place. So we conceived The Daisy. We never thought for a moment it wouldn't succeed, but making money was the smallest part of the original conception."
(Vignette The Third: The Daisy will be two years old on October 15th. When the first invitations went out, to anyone the Hansons thought would fit into their world view of The Beautiful People, the cost was $200 plus $40 Federal tax, merely for membership plus $10 per month dues plus $2 Federal tax plus the bar bill per visit. Drinks are $1.50 each. For the first two months after mailing, they had only one member—and he lived in New York. Jack Hanson, dressed in tennis sweater, white ducks and sneakers, walks up Beverly Drive, on his way to lunch at La Scala Boutique. A multimillionaire contractor leans out of his Imperial's window, paused at the stoplight on the corner of Santa Monica. "Hey, Jack!" he yells. "How's it going with the Daisy?" Hanson grins his infectious, ageless grin "Terrific!" he yells back. "We're going to have to close off membership in about two weeks, we've got almost four hundred now." He waves and jogs on toward lunch. The contractor in the Imperial sits at the light, lips pursed. The cars behind him honk angrily. He takes off in a hurry. That night he returns his membership blank, with a check.)
Even knowing that Hollywood folk are legendary for not wanting to be associated with a flop (as in the expression "flop house"), Hanson had invested another hundred thousand dollars to remodel the old Romanoff's. Black and rust walls, fireplace in the main room, heavy liquor stock, because he was also aware that these same tippy-toe types from the Land of Trepidation are petrified not to be associated with success.
While he only had four members, he was announcing he had four hundred. And soon, myth became reality. Open from nine to two, seven nights a week, even at prices only the leisure class would consider reasonable, The Daisy's membership is now relatively sealed up. It now costs $500 to join, though the Federal taxes have been removed. Uh, sealed up, that is, unless you happen to be Julie Andrews, who recently became a member. Says Hanson, "There are some people you have to let join, even if you're booked solid. The other members like to be around them, to be where the famous hang out." And if you happen to be a Mrs. Stockmeier the polite reply is, "We have over three hundred people waiting to join." Polite, but firm.
The Beatles are singing "Penny Lane" on the Capitol label. Harper's Bizarre is singing "Feelin' Groovy" on the Warner Bros. label. Billie Holiday is singing "Night and Day" on the Vocalion label. (Who??)
But when one talks at greater length with the Hansons, one realizes that what they are postulating is not merely a village cracker barrel scene for the very rich, but a totality—an empire of many-dimensioned sensuality; a pleasure dome that reaches The Beautiful People on many levels. They sell the special Jax clothes to a certain kind of woman, with the accent on the legs and backside. And those Beautiful Women wear those Jax clothes to The Daisy where they build their social scene and talk about Daisy-oriented topics. And they read Cinema magazine (a recent Hanson acquisition, a Hanson "hobby") where they find the Daisy-oriented things to talk about. And they play softball on Sunday at Barrington Plaza Park with Hanson, where they can look at the women who wear Jax clothes sitting in the bleachers, and think about getting invited to the Hansons' after-hours sessions at the big house in Beverly Hills where they'll play "sardines" and "kick the can."
The Daisy is the future of the leisure class in microcosm, as the Hansons see it. "Everybody lovely, everybody rich."
The Electric Prunes are singing "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night" on the Warner Bros. label.
(Vignette The Fourth: Two of the Beautiful People, Peter O'Toole and Jason Robards, Jr. come staggering into The Daisy after 2 AM when the fountains stop flowing. They demand liquor. They are refused. They get ugly. They are bounced. They are excluded from The Daisy. "Creative people are often hostile," says Jack Hanson, "and The Daisy is filled with, and caters to, creative people.")
A nightmare night at The Daisy. All the self-conscious cliques finding their strength in numbers, sitting in their corners, looking beautiful. It's jammed. Bodies pressed on bodies. A studio head, deep in his cups, does the watusi on the toes of a man beside him. He is asked to stop it. He gets surly, tells the other man to pack his bags, he'll never work in Hollywood again. A business executive of a smaller television studio comes through the door with his mistress. The night before he was in attendance with his wife. His ego needs the boost so much, he doesn't really care if word gets back through the jungle telegraph to his wife. He plays pool as though his life depended on it; his mistress watches, bemused. Hoagy Carmichael orders another Highland Queen Scotch mist. Donovan sings "Mellow Yellow" on the Epic label.
A conversation is overheard: "We saw Britt Ekland in the new Peter Sellers film." "How did she look?" "Gorgeous." "We saw her on several magazine covers in London, she was on Vogue." "How old is she?" "Twenty-one." "Not quite over the hill yet." The favorite customers of The Daisy move in and out, around and about . . . the Peter Brens; Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and their children; Ronnie Buck who owns the 9000 Building on Sunset and now wants to be known as a film producer; Jack Haley, Jr.; Tom Mankiewicz; Alan Ladd, Jr.; Richard Pryor, the comic; Mike Brown, sitting quietly at the bar, then asking the bartender, Rich, how many boys are working that night, and when told, leaving a heavy sugar tip to be split among them.
And the women. All the long-legged, pale women with their hungry eyes. The movement of the highest-priced pelvises in the world, the swirl of long flat blonde hair, the arch of eyebrows, the salivation of men tied to wives who know they cheat. "Anyone who doesn't have a strong marriage shouldn't come into The Daisy," Jack Hanson says, and he says it soberly. A man could go mad here. The sheer, overwhelming bulk of beauty is gagging. A starving child turned loose in a candy store. The famous, the elegant, the sinewy, they all parade naked to the eyes. Doug McClur
e dances in the very center of the floor with a small girl wearing a white leather Beatle cap. He is the very epitome of a high school girl's image of what a "hero" should be. He is absolutely perfect, formed and molded out of all the perfection dreams of a society that worships beauty. And finally magic becomes reality . . .
(Vignette The Last: Dancing together, there amidst the flotsam and jetsam of Hollywood's glory, is the perfect jewel of meaning that explains what The Daisy is all about.
(A couple. A boy and a girl. Elegant. Poised. They dance in each other's arms. They are Betty Anderson from the little New England village called Peyton Place, and her escort, Batman.
(Barbara Parkins and Adam West are dancing. There in the dimness of a building that was, is, and will always be the very apotheosis of the magic dreams the Beautiful People need to sustain them in a world where tragedy can be as simple as a crow's-foot alongside a dimming eye.)
It becomes clear to all but those hip-deep in the scene that the constitution needed to sustain a life like this, is a rare and remarkable one indeed. Jack Hanson thus assumes the proportions of a man imbued with great kindness, deep perceptivity. He is the keeper of the madhouse. He manages to contain in a red velvet ghetto all the electric insecurities and hostilities of an entire social strata that might otherwise be loosed unsuspecting on the common folk in their dreary streets.
Harlan Ellison's Watching Page 58