The Ambassador Hotel Lives On!

Two recent acquisitions show the fabled (and now defunct) Ambassador Hotel, once located on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. An American Airlines plane has touched down on the front lawn in the first photo.

In this color 1960’s image, John Gray is performing at the hotel’s famous Cocoanut Grove nightclub, with “extra added attraction” Peter Duchin Orchestra. Reminds me of a story from the old days of radio that my dad told me about. The script for the announcer listed the “George Cates orch.” The announcer apparently was ignorant to the fact that “orch” was short for “orchestra” and announced “George Catesorch.” Cates was known as the sometimes conductor of the Lawrence Welk orchestra. That was a long digression…

Even though the hotel closed in 1989, it was still very much alive in 1994, thanks to movie magic. Hollywood often used the building as a film location, including Jim Carrey’s entrance to the Coco Bongo club in “The Mask”:

Yup. That’s the Ambassador.

Three years earlier in Steve Martin’s “L.A. Story,” the Ambassdor was used for a variety of scenes, including the entrance to L’Idiot, the snobby restaurant where Patrick Stewart was the Maitre D’ and Chevy Chase was the abused patron.

More on both of these recently rediscovered (to me) movies in future posts.

See more Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel photos at my main website.