Old Hollywood Haunts, Pt. 3: The Hollywood Canteen, 1942 - 1945

Clockwise from top: Bette Davis and John Garfield; Rita Hayworth; Hedy Lamarr and Bob Hope; GIs at the Canteen

 A Very Special "Old Hollywood Haunt"

In her 1987 memoir, This 'n That, Bette Davis remembered a day not long after World War II began when fellow Warner Bros. star John Garfield sat down next to her in the studio commissary. He told her he'd been thinking about all the GIs who were then streaming through the area and said he thought Hollywood ought to do something about welcoming and entertaining them while they were in town. "I agreed," she wrote, "and then and there the idea for the Hollywood Canteen was born."  Bette approached her friend and agent, Jules Stein, president and co-founder of MCA, with their plan to create a nightclub for servicemen and women and invited him to head its financial committee.

Old Hollywood Haunts, Pt. 2: Charlie Farrell's Racquet Club in Palm Springs

Charlie Farrell, top center; Ava Gardner, bottom left; on the right, Marilyn Monroe and Spencer Tracy

Many years ago, Charlie Farrell was a movie star. He first gained fame as a leading man in the late 1920s when he was in his late 20s. He'd started out in Hollywood as an extra, appearing momentarily in films like the Lon Chaney classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and Ernst Lubitsch's first Hollywood film, Rosita (1923), starring Mary Pickford. After a minor role in DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1923) his career began to build. In 1927 he was cast opposite Janet Gaynor in 7th Heaven. A smash hit, the movie was nominated for the very first Best Picture Academy Award and brought Oscars to director Frank Borzage, screenwriter Benjamin Glazer and to Janet Gaynor, who won Best Actress for this and two other film performances. Charlie would always joke that he was the only one connected with the movie who wasn't nominated for an Oscar. The two luminous, newly minted young stars were then teamed in 11 more pictures between 1928 and 1934 and, as the most popular couple in movies, were known as "America's Favorite Lovebirds."

Old Hollywood Haunts, Pt. 1: A Birthday Remembrance for the Brown Derby on Vine...

I lived in Hollywood, once upon a time, on Poinsettia between Fountain and Santa Monica Blvd., not far from Melrose.  It was the early '80s and I was working at a radio station on Sunset at North Genesee, across from the Screen Actors Guild. Ed Asner was the president of the guild then and I met him one afternoon, along with most of my co-workers, when SAG hosted an open house in the space it had just leased on the second floor of our building. This was around the time I was getting to know the Brown Derby at the intersection of Vine St. and Hollywood Blvd. Known locally as the Hollywood Derby, it was the radio station's go-to spot for good-bye and birthday and bon voyage lunches. The place always seemed to be bustling and I would never have guessed then that it would be gone forever within two or three years.