Welcome to the Birthplace of the Oscars

Wendall--every other Thursday

Since the 96th Academy Awards are airing this weekend, I thought it might be a good time to post about the place they were born: The Biltmore Hotel (now the Millennium Biltmore) in downtown Los Angeles. 

 

The Galleria of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel

  

The Founding Banquet for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, 1927.

Happily, since my journalist husband, James Bartlett, has often written about the hotel and is somewhat of an expert on its history, he’s allowed me to quote from some of his pieces, so the quotes in italics are his.

 

“The Biltmore was actually the first home of the Oscars. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences was founded over lunch in the Crystal Ballroom in May 1927, and it’s said that MGM art director Cedric Gibbons sketched the design for the Oscar statue on a napkin.”

 

It's said the original design for the Oscar statuette was sketched on a napkin in the Biltmore's Crystal Ballroom.

 

“Eight Oscar ceremonies were held in the Biltmore Bowl room in the 1930s and early 1940s, and in 1977 Bob Hope hosted the Academy’s 50th Anniversary here.”

 

Oscar Banquet 1937. So many famous faces. Look for Henry Fonda and Walt Disney down front.

Oscar Banquet 1939.

Best Actor winner Clark Gable in the ballroom in 1935.

Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis winning in 1939.

The hotel opened its doors to the public on October 2, 1923 and was considered “as beautiful, as colorful, as vibrant as the city with which its destiny is linked.”  

Opening program from 1923.

The Crystal Ballroom, empty, in 1923.

 

“Visitors and guests still marvel at its murals, marble floors, wood paneling, frescoes, fountains, and chandeliers, and it is said you can find 1000 “Biltmore Angels” (representing the City of Angels) everywhere from the carpet to the ceilings.”

 

Angels, angels everywhere.

Including on the glass door.

Rendezvous Court from the stairs. It was the original lobby.

Looking the other way. I get to stand on the staircase Betty Draper came down in Mad Men.

The current lobby used to be a restaurant.

 

The original Gallery Bar. Gimlets, anyone?

 

You’ve seen glimpses of this amazing hotel in more films and television shows than you may realize. It’s appeared in the original Ghostbusters, Chinatown, Vertigo, Beverly Hills Cop, The Sting, Splash, Bugsy, Spider Man, and In the Line of Fire, and this year’s Oscar nominee Oppenheimer, to name a few. 

 

Peter Venkman has arrived!

They used the side of the hotel to shoot the scene where Evelyn Mulwray hires Jake Gittes in Chinatown.

Eddie Murphy checks out the scene in Beverly Hills Cop.

It’s also stood in for a myriad of locations in Mad Men, Bosch, The Catch, Glee, The West Wing, Columbo, and dozens of other shows. 

Mad Men shot all around the hotel.

 

Harry Bosch waiting for trouble in the Gallery Bar.

And, though I hesitate to give Taylor Swift more oxygen than she already has, her music video “Delicate” was shot in the hotel and offers great views of the lobby, ballrooms, and central hallway. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCXGJQYZ9JA). 

You can find a more complete list of Biltmore appearances by scrolling down on its Wiki page: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Biltmore_Hotel)

It's also a part of Los Angeles history in many other ways. It dedicated its second floor for military personnel during WWII, hosted the Democratic National Convention in 1960—where John F. Kennedy was chosen as candidate—boasted a Beatles stay during their first US tour in 1964, and was headquarters for the Los Angeles Olympic committee in 1984.

 

JFK was nominated from here.

The hotel also has a crime—and crime fiction—connection, since it was here that the victim of Los Angeles's most famous unsolved murder, Elizabeth Short, was last seen alive on January 9, 1947. 

 

Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia.

 

Her gruesome murder a few days later became Hollywood’s most notorious after she was nicknamed the "Black Dahlia." The Gallery Bar, which until about five years ago still felt like a place you could drink a gimlet with Raymond Chandler, now has mounted television screens which kill the illusion a bit, but its design is still stunning-- and you can lift a Black Dahlia cocktail to Elizabeth Short and the LA that used to be. 

The Black Dahlia cocktail: Citrus Vodka, Chambord, and Kahlua.

 

We were beyond privileged to be invited to its 100th anniversary black tie celebration in the Crystal Ballroom last October, where, as noted above, the idea for the Oscars was born. 

The stage in the Crystal Ballroom awaits its Big Band.

Getting ready in our room!

 

This involved our finding a tux for James in the local store “It's a Wrap!,” which features second hand film and television costumes, and my digging out a 1920s beaded top. The hotel was kind enough to give us a room. 

Our table.

The ceiling!

 

In addition to cocktails, dinner, and a live big band, the event sought to recreate the famous black and white photo of the ballroom's opening in 1923. We can't believe we are in it!

Biltmore opening Gala, 1923

100th Anniversary Gala 2023 (see red arrow).

If you’re visiting Los Angeles, I highly recommend a drink or high tea in the hotel, or better yet, a stay in this part of movie history.

---Wendall

Queen For an Hour and a Half

 Wendall -- every other Thursday

 

Living in Los Angeles has many delights, not the least of which is frequently passing, or entering, famous movie locations.

The Bradbury Building from the top floor.

 

I will never forget my first time inside the legendary Bradbury Building in downtown LA. You may recognize it from Blade Runner, The Artist, 500 Days of Summer, or, if you are a cop and you’ve done something dodgy, the former offices of Internal Affairs for the LAPD. This building deserves its own post, which I will write another day, and was inspired by a message on a Ouija board.

 

The Bradbury, halfway down.

I’ve had waffles in the coffee shop from Swingers, martinis in the Pretty Woman hotel, high tea in the Biltmore (recognizable from Ghostbusters to Mad Men),

 

The lobby staircase in the Biltmore Hotel. Betty Draper came down these stairs in Mad Men.

green corn tamales at El Coyote from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, dumplings at The Prince (Chinatown and Thank You For Smoking), and driven past the Hightower Apartment Buildings from The Long Goodbye and Dead Again—Michael Connelly also lived there.

 

The Hightower Apartments

 

Buildings on my street have appeared in Mulholland Drive and Lethal Weapon and my first LA apartment’s lobby appeared in Body Double.

 

The list goes on and on.

 

However, last week in Key Largo, Florida, I experienced something infinitely more profound, at least for me. I took an hour and a half cruise on the honest-to-god African Queen. 

 

At the dock.

Yes, the actual boat used in the 1951 film itself. The movie, based on the novel by C. S. Forester, garnered Bogart his only Oscar and is one of my favorites.

 

The original novel.

 

So, sitting on the same bench where Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart( and wife Lauren Bacall), and director John Huston once sat, moved me more than I expected.

 

 

We arrived on a windy day, which limited how far we went out into the Atlantic. We did travel far enough, though, for me to realize how low it sits in the water and to appreciate a bit of what it must have been like for those actors.

 

Sitting in front on a choppy day and James holding onto his bottle of gin. My hair is in the lower right.

 

According to Captain Dave, our host, the boat still used a steam engine until recently. The apparatus is still there, but he says it’s a lot quieter now. It still has a bell, that cranky engine, the original black mahogany benches, and permission from the Royal Navy to fly a torn Union Jack.

 

Captain Jack, James, and that bell.

 

The engine, sadly not the original, but still...

Not every boat gets to rip the Union Jack.

 

The boat has quite a history. It was built in England in 1912 for the East Africa British Railways company and carried hunting parties, missionaries, and supplies across Lake Albert and down the Victoria Nile in the Congo, until it was bought by John Huston for the film. According to Katherine Hepburn’s account in The Making of the African Queen or How I went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and almost lost my mind, the boat actually sank to the bottom of the Ruiki river during filming.

 

John Huston delivered the news to Hepburn, saying “she’s at the bottom, just the top of the boiler showing.”  When Hepburn asked what happened to the man who was guarding it, Huston told her that when he saw it was leaking, he got off.

 

Crew pulling the boat out. Copyright Horizons Mgmt.

 

Apparently it took the entire cast and crew, pulling on a cable wrapped around a tree, to pull up the boiler. As that was the heaviest part, once it was ashore, the boat resurfaced, but it took two days to bail her out. Then they cleaned up the mud and removed and restored the engine while the boat dried. Eventually, they were able to resume shooting.

 

After the film, the boat, now officially named The African Queen, stayed in service in Africa until 1968, when she was bought by a San Francisco restaurant owner for charter tours. In 1970, it was bought for charters in Oregon and was so successful there that owner Hal Bailey brought it to Florida for year-round tours.

 

Eventually it went out of service and was found in a Florida cow pasture by the late attorney Jim Hendricks, Sr.—a Bogart fan. Hendricks restored this piece of film history and started tours running out of the Key Largo Holiday Inn in 1982. 

 

On the Thames.

 

In New York and Sydney.

He also shipped it all over the world—for the Queen Mother’s 90^th birthday celebration and the 50^th anniversary of Dunkirk, and to Ireland, New York, and Sydney. Its original engine lasted until 2001.

 

Dunkirk Plaque.

 

The current lease holders, Captain Lance and Suzanne Holmquist of Calypso Sailing, restored it for its hundredth anniversary. It is now registered as a National Historic Site, albeit a floating one.

 

There are many famous film items in the new Motion Picture Academy Museum—E. T. , Dorothy’s shoes, the model shark from Jaws—but none that let you climb aboard.

 

Worth the trip.

 

 -- Wendall