Save The Viper Room!

And yet another Hollywood/Los Angeles landmark appears to be poised to bite the dust. The infamous Viper Room on Sunset Boulevard has apparently been slated for the wrecking ball. I learned about this from the IG account of CC Devere. From her Save the Viper Room webpage:

The 101-year-old building started as a grocery store, then began to feature live music in the 1940s. It has been the Cotton Club, the Greenwich Village Inn, the Rue Angel, the Melody Room, Filthy McNasty’s (the façade was recently recreated at the Viper Room for filming of “Daisy Jones and the Six”), the Central, and, since 1993, the Viper Room. 

The club has appeared in music videos (Go-Go’s, “Our Lips Are Sealed”) and on film (“The Doors”, “Valley Girl”). Some of the world’s greatest musicians have played at the Viper Room: Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, Courtney Love, Lenny Kravitz, Sheryl Crow, Bruce Springsteen, Natalie Cole, Weezer, Pearl Jam, Queens of the Stone Age, and the list goes on…

And yes, it is notorious for Molly Bloom’s poker game (“Molly’s Game”) and for the tragic death of River Phoenix.



The Viper Room is an irreplaceable part of West Hollywood’s history. A reconfigured club in a new building is just not going to be the same - part of the Viper Room experience is in navigating the club’s labyrinthine, two-level layout. The plan for 8850 Sunset has also been linked to possible corruption.

We are asking the property owners and the City of West Hollywood to treat the Viper Room with the respect it has earned - ideally by leaving it alone (the proposed 15-story development will dwarf everything in West Hollywood), or, failing that, by incorporating the existing building into the new one (the Coca-Cola bottling plant was created by combining four older buildings).

The Viper Room is simply too important to lose.

Here’s a short list of some of the other Sunset Boulevard landmarks that have met the wrecking ball. The Mocambo Club:



The Garden of Allah Hotel complex:



Schwab’s Pharmacy and Googies Diner:



And while it wasn’t on Sunset Boulevard, this L.A. landmark was just as important:



Let’s get real; re-created history is not the same is REAL history! Please be sure to sign the petition to help save the Viper Room!

See more Sunset Boulevard photos at my main website.

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.

Welcome to the Academy

After a number of delays (some COVID related, some not), the Academy of Motion Pictures has announced an opening date of September 30, 2021 for their new museum located on Wilshire Boulevard, aka Museum Row, aka the Miracle Mile. The building it will inhabit was originally the historic May Company store, built in 1939 and designed by Albert C. Martin, Sr. (designer of the Million Dollar Theater and Los Angeles City Hall). Sadly, the Academy’s website ignores the history of this building, which has been renamed “The Saban Building,” because apparently the wealthy donors felt their name was more important than honoring the original legacy of this Streamline Moderne classic. An additional slap to Martin is that the only designer credited on the Academy website is Renzo Piano. Since he was born in 1937, he obviously had nothing to do with the original May Company.

Maybe this funky little space-age pile at the back of the building is his?

Just across the street is Johnie’s Coffee Shop (circa 1956), an example of Googie Architecture. Closed since 2000, it is only used as a film location and apparently, a campaign headquarters for good old Bernie Sanders.

Also nearby is the Petersen Automotive museum, which was apparently redesigned with this “unique” façade in 2015 as part of a $125 million renovation.  Huh.

If you want to get more information about the Academy Museum, you can visit the Academy website. Warning: it takes awhile to load, so if you don’t have a great internet connection, get ready for an exercise in frustration. See more Los Angeles photos at my main website.

Judy Garland and the Wilshire Ebell

On a recent trip to LA I discovered the Wilshire Ebell Theatre on Wilshire (naturally!) Boulevard. In continuous operation since 1927, the Wilshire Ebell Theatre (originally called the Windsor Square Playhouse) opened with the west coast premiere of Sigmund Romberg’s successful Broadway operetta “The Desert Song.”



At some point I'd love to go back and explore the inside, as I’m sure the interior is even more interesting than the outside!



...and I HAVE to get a nighttime shot of the signage!



At the Judy Garland News website I discovered that Judy Garland and her sisters, Mary Jane and Virginia, appeared here on December 8, 1934.



According to legend, this is the appearance that MGM director George Sidney saw Judy and got her a screen test at MGM.



W.E. Oliver of the “Los Angeles Evening Express” raved about Judy’s performance:

12 Year Old Girl Is Sensation At Frolics

“Little Frances…sang in a way that produced in the audience sensations that haven’t been equaled in years. Not your smart, adult-aping prodigy is this girl, but a youngster who had the divine instinct to be herself on stage, along with a talent for singing, a trick of rocking the spectators with rhythms, and a capacity for putting emotion into her performance that suggests what Bernhardt must have been at her age. It isn’t the cloying, heavy sentiment her elders so often strive for, but simple, sincere feeling that reaches the heart. The three girls together are an act anyone would want to see. Frances alone is a sensation, and last Saturday’s audience realized it by the way they encored. Much of her individual style of singing was culled by the little girl from her parent’s old act, although she must have the divine spark to be able to sing as she did…she would make any show.”

See more Wilshire Boulevard photos at my main website.

Helter Skelter Tour

My friend and fellow Shirley Temple admirer Melissa’s (aka “The Colonel”) trip to Hollywood wasn’t all about Shirley. No...we took a bit of a detour and checked out the Helter Skelter tour given by Scott Michaels. If you were alive during the 60s, “Helter Skelter” needs no explanation. It was the name of a song by the Beatles and also a term referring to an apocalyptic war arising from racial tensions between blacks and whites used by the criminally brainwashing Charles Manson. The brutal murders committed by Manson’s gang spread fear throughout Los Angeles and caused many a window to be sealed by metal bars.

Our tour began at the Dearly Departed Office/Museum on Santa Monica Boulevard. Candles honoring famous dead legends could be found on the shelf.



A road marker from the site where James Dean fatally crashed his Porsche:



Our tour guide, Scott:



While those who thrived in the 80s may remember this location as the exterior used in “Melrose Place,” those who lived during the 60s might remember it better as the place where Rose LaBianca’s daughter, Suzan Struthers/, lived. Years later, Suzan testified for the parole of Tex Watson, the man who killed her parents. Not for any of the other Manson-zombies...just Tex. BTW: Tex lived about 200 feet away from Suzan’s “Melrose Place” apartment; coincidence?



The wall in front of the LaBianca home where it all happened:



At the time of the murders, photo from The Manson Blog:



Along the way we passed the 1930 Cedars of Lebanon Hospital on Fountain Avenue, located near the Paramount Studios lot. This is the place where Marilyn Monroe had her appendix removed in 1952. Apparently she taped a note to her abdomen asking the doctor to cut as little as possible: "I know it seems vain…please do whatever you can to prevent large scars." Once, when Elizabeth Taylor was staying on the fifth floor, Richard Burton had Chasen's send over dinner as well as a pair of the restaurant's tuxedoed violinists to play. Now THAT’S love!



Cedars is also the birthplace of Manson disciple and murderer Patricia Krenwinkel (thanks Scott for sending this!):



In 1976, The Cedars of Lebanon Hospital moved out of this building into a new hospital complex near Beverly Hills, becoming Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Today the old Cedars of Lebanon building is now the Church of Scientology. Yikes.



The El Coyote Mexican Restaurant, location of Sharon Tate’s last meal before being brutally murdered along with her unborn baby by the Manson gang. At the time of the murders, the restaurant staff could recall very little about Tate’s visit; today they know exactly which booth she sat in.



A rest stop at the Farmers Market located in the Grove Shopping Center on Fairfax.



In the Taschen bookstore, Melissa snapped me next to the recently released Disneyland coffee table book, “Walt Disney's Disneyland” that Taschen published:



See my name in the credits?



The CBS studios are located next door:



Back to the tour. The Chateau Marmont hotel on Sunset; my favorite spot as well as the former home to Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski.



Room 54 is where the couple lived from February 1968 until February 1969, when the pregnant Sharon wanted to move into a house. “If it weren’t for the baby, we would stay. But I want my little boy or girl to be born in a house, not in a hotel.”



The couple posed for photographer Terry O’Neill on November 3, 1968; the photo is not labeled as being shot at the Marmont, but the distinctive window hardware certainly looks right:



Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, where Tate was murdered along with her friend and former lover Jay Sebring, a noted hairstylist; Polanski's friend and aspiring screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski; and Frykowski's lover Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folger coffee fortune.



The home that Tate and Polanski rented is no longer there; it was replaced by this monstrosity:



An alternate view of Benedict Canyon:



The tour was pretty damn amazing. The amount of information that Michaels has amassed is incredible. As you can imagine, given the subject, this tour is not for the faint of heart. It does take you back to the 1960s and provides a vivid depiction of what the times were like and how the Manson murders changed things forever. Highly recommended.

See more Helter Skelter tour photos at my main website.

The Woolsey Fire

Almost a week after it started, the horrendous Los Angeles Woolsey fire is only at about 57% containment. The loss of lives and property is devastating to the residents of Malibu and surrounding areas. The Woolsey Fire is now one of the largest on record for Los Angeles County, dating back more than 100 years. The fire has destroyed at least 504 structures, damaged 96 others, and burned 98,362 acres according to the L.A. County Fire Department. Approximately 57,000 more are still threatened.

The cause of the Woolsey Fire remains under investigation.

See more Los Angeles photos at my main website.

Cruising with MONA, Pt. 1

One of the things on my bucket list was the MONA (Museum of Neon Art) Neon Cruise. I am happy to say that I have now checked it off...for now, at least. Beause I had so much fun I want to do it again!

Designer and neon aficionado Eric Lynxwiler was our tour guide, and I can't imagine a better or more entertaining host. We boarded the double-decker bus and had unparalleled views of Los Angeles. Just watch out for those tree branches, folks!





The former Tower Theatre, which is about to find new life as an Apple Store.



The Golden Gopher Sign was one of my faves.



This restaurant near Union Station is supposedly the original home of the French Dip sandwich.



Eric dropped us off in Chinatown so that we could feast our eyes upon all the vintage neon signs and trim that highlighted the buildings. To quote Eric, it was FAAAAAAAABULOUS!











This one cries out for a detailed view:





Hop back on the bus tomorrow for more vintage neon wonders!

See more MONA Neon Cruise photos at my main website.