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Before the Coconut Grove and before the Rosevelt Hotel, where did Hollywood go?

To the Palm Court Ballroom at the Alexandria Hotel.

Here are a couple of YouTube videos showing the current state of this 1906 Hotel, the first luxury hotel in Los Angeles.





The skylights are Tiffany.

From what I have read, Chaplin and Louis B. Mayer had a fistfight in this Hotel.

The creation of United Artisits was announced from here too.

Does anyone know of any photos of the silent stars that were taken here?

"The Alexandria Hotel, at Fifth and Spring...was the most popular eating and drinking place. The stars ate at the Indian Grill downstairs (now the Guv'nor's Grille [1971]) or at the Franco Italian Dining Room. In 1920 Wallace Reid, the actor who would die of his drug addiction three years later, held a theatrical charity ball at the Alexandria. The same year, Mary Pickford went to the hotel and auctioned off four dolls to help the Actor's Fund. The rooms upstairs, too, were used by the stars. Once Sid Grauman rented a room for a joke on Chaplin. He put two nude women in a bed and led Chaplin through the door. The nudes turned out to be store window mannequins..."

This is clip #10 of the Windsor tapes.

I can't figure out what they called the tea dances. Claire calls them "tea dance anse" or something. Any ideas?

According to a publicity item, a scene from the 1915 film The High Hand was filmed in the lobby of the Alexandria Hotel, with filming taking place after midnight.

cawkercitykid wrote:

This is clip #10 of the Windsor tapes.

I can't figure out what they called the tea dances. Claire calls them "tea dance anse" or something. Any ideas?

Thé dansant. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictiona ... %20dansant" target="_blank" target="_blank

cawkercitykid wrote:"The Alexandria Hotel, at Fifth and Spring...was the most popular eating and drinking place. The stars ate at the Indian Grill downstairs (now the Guv'nor's Grille [1971]) or at the Franco Italian Dining Room.

There is a good restaurant in the Alexandria Hotel now, The Gorbals. It's very trendy and their clientele is mainly downtown's burgeoning hipster population, but the food is creative and good, and they have a great combo specializing in 20s music in the evenings.
http://thegorbalsla.com/" target="_blank" target="_blank

It has been difficul to find any historic photos online of the place during its heyday. I am also still a little confused as to where the people went to dance. Was a section of the Franco Italan Dining Salon reserved for dancing? Or was the second floor ballroom open to the public for dancing? Did this act as the common dancing area for all the other restaurants in the hotel? People came to the Hotel to "see" and "be seen" so if there was a common dancing area, as long as you were properly dressed of course, you could mingle with people from any social class. This would have been almost revolutionary given the social etiquette of the Edwardian era.

I wonder if the peacock fountain still exists. Was it in the Peacock Tea Room, or in the "Palm Court Ballroom," the later name of the Franco Italian Dining Salon?

From the video you can see that there are still photos of the silent stars on the walls. I wonder if these will be removed in the present renovations of the building.

There is also a fascinating story about the neighboring property which was built as a partner's portion of the hotel. The narrrow building was an extension of the original hotel and the hallways were just extended to gain access to the addition. At least until there was a falling out between the owners and the hallways were simply bricked up at the property line. The upper floors of the addition had no independent stairways, so the upper floors were completely inaccessable!

so much history...

cawkercitykid wrote:It has been difficul to find any historic photos online of the place during its heyday. I am also still a little confused as to where the people went to dance. Was a section of the Franco Italan Dining Salon reserved for dancing? Or was the second floor ballroom open to the public for dancing? Did this act as the common dancing area for all the other restaurants in the hotel? People came to the Hotel to "see" and "be seen" so if there was a common dancing area, as long as you were properly dressed of course, you could mingle with people from any social class. This would have been almost revolutionary given the social etiquette of the Edwardian era.

I wonder if the peacock fountain still exists. Was it in the Peacock Tea Room, or in the "Palm Court Ballroom," the later name of the Franco Italian Dining Salon?

From the video you can see that there are still photos of the silent stars on the walls. I wonder if these will be removed in the present renovations of the building.

There is also a fascinating story about the neighboring property which was built as a partner's portion of the hotel. The narrrow building was an extension of the original hotel and the hallways were just extended to gain access to the addition. At least until there was a falling out between the owners and the hallways were simply bricked up at the property line. The upper floors of the addition had no independent stairways, so the upper floors were completely inaccessable!

so much history...

Did you check the LA Public Library photo database? They have quite a few of the Alexandria, although they are mainly exteriors: http://photos.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/phot ... ageADV.jsp" target="_blank" target="_blank You might check with LAPL's HIstory Department anyway, they may have information not readily available online.

Arcadia Publishing has a book, Historic Hotels of Los Angeles and Hollywood, which may have info on the Alexandria.
http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/978073 ... -Hollywood" target="_blank" target="_blank

The LA Conservancy may also be able to steer you in the right direction for information:
http://www.laconservancy.org/" target="_blank" target="_blank

Thanks for the link to the photo collection at the L. A. Library!

Also, thanks for the translation--I learned German at Baylor, not French! (While waiting at the information counter in the train station in Bordeaux, a snoody French lady asked why I had not learned to speak French and I replied that I learned German because it was more useful for me. Then when I mentioned that as an American, if I hadn't learned German I would have chosen Spanish because it would be more practical than French, she amost went into a tizzy. )

I'm glad to hear about the 1920's music at the Gorbals. I hope some day to get to visit L.A. again. I know so much more about the area now and the Alexandria is one of the things on my list.

It looks like not much has been done to any of the special rooms that were redecorated in the 1970's. This is a recent photo of the Valentino room seen in the brochure in my slide show. Still the same "Victorian Bordello" decorations, only more creepy now.

cawkercitykid wrote: It looks like not much has been done to any of the special rooms that were redecorated in the 1970's. This is a recent photo of the Valentino room seen in the brochure in my slide show. Still the same "Victorian Bordello" decorations, only more creepy now.

Iconic LA Times columnist Jack Smith wrote a piece about attending the reopening celebration for the restored Alexandria, along with several aged silent film stars. The essay is collected in one of his books, but I'm darned if I can remember which book.

We were given two reels of 8mm film of Claire at the opening of her room at the Alexandria as well as of Alan Dwan and wife at Claire's home. I found an 8mm film projector and made a video tape of the projected footage. Despite the poor quality, I would like to get the raw footage up on YouTube but can't figure out how to convert a VOB file to MOV without spending a lot of money. If we could raise the money, we can have it scanned professionally and see if we couldn't improve the quality some. I wish I knew someone in the Dallas or Austin area who could help us. I'll be heading that way soon and would take the reels with me.

cawkercitykid wrote:...I would like to get the raw footage up on YouTube but can't figure out how to convert a VOB file to MOV without spending a lot of money...

The site http://www.convertfiles.com" target="_blank will do it for free.

You can also use the free program, Freemake Video Converter to convert the files. It's pretty easy to use.

I am still having difficulty getting my DVD video of the 8mm footage converted into something useful for YouTube. I chopped the video up into 24 smaller segments, but was only able to get the DVD title page to download and convert. The individual VOB segment files did not even appear separately from which to pick and choose.

The date on the film is April 9, 1972. Claire passed away in October of that year. I guess you could say these are Claire's last silent films! The footage is of Claire in her room at the Alexandria and at the reception that day. Other footage is of her home at 202 Orange Drive with Vivian Burgoon. There is even footage of director Allan Dwan and wife at Claire's home. Ghosts from the past...