Mae West Slept Here

The Avalon Hotel Beverly Hills
9400 W Olympic Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
Phone: (310) 277-5221

Claim to fame: Marilyn Monroe and Mae West lived here in the '50s when it was the Beverly Carlton. The glamour parade subsequently slowed, but it started up again in the late '90s when interior design "it girl" Kelly Wearstler transformed the space into the sublime Avalon Hotel. Designer Randolph Duke has stayed during Oscar season, as have Rupert Everett and model Shalom Harlow.

~ O Q ~ O Q ~ O Q ~ CoMe Up & See Mae ~ O Q ~ O Q ~ O Q ~

Knickerbocker Hotel
1714 North Ivar Avenue,
Hollywood, CA. / (323) 962-8898 (All-StarCafe)

Just looking at this aging, unassuming hotel on Ivar Avenue, you probably wouldn't guess that it had much of a Hollywood history. But you'd be dead wrong.

Today it may be just an apartment house for senior citizens, but back in the 1920's, the Knickerbocker Hotel was at the heart of Hollywood - and it played a key role in Tinseltown history for decades. The Renaissance Revival/ Beaux Arts style structure began life as a luxury apartment building, before becoming a hotel later in its history.
.
Rudolph Valentino hung out at the hotel bar, and reportedly liked to tango dance here. Other stars who lived at the Knickerbocker include Mae West, Frank Sinatra, Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner, Larry Fine of the Three Stooges, and Cecil B. DeMille.
.
The hotel lobby features a large crystal chandelier, which cost $120,000 in the 1920's - which would be over $1 million today's dollars. It is under this very chandelier that epic film director D.W. Griffith ("Birth of a Nation," "Intolerance") died of a stroke on July 21, 1948.