Night Clubbing With The Italian Crooners!  5/21/2023

Did You Know? - Club Seville opened New Year's Eve 1935. It featured a "crystal dance floor with subsurface fish, fountains and colored lights in its Crystal Marine Room."

The building was remodeled and Ciro's was opened in January 1940 by entrepreneur William Wilkerson at 8433 Sunset Boulevard.[3] Wilkerson had also opened Cafe Trocadero, in 1934, and the restaurant La Rue, both on the Strip, and would later originate The Flamingo in Las Vegas, only to have control of the resort wrested from him by mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.

Wilkerson sold Ciro's to his longtime right-hand man Herman Hover, who would make sure Ciro's was an important Hollywood hotspot until 1959. Hover filed for bankruptcy in 1959, and Ciro's was sold at public auction for $350,000.[4] Ciro's combined a luxe baroque interior and an unadorned exterior and became a famous hangout for movie people of the 1940s and 1950s. It was one of the places to be seen and guaranteed being written about in the gossip columns of Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, and Florabel Muir.

Did You Know? - The supper club scene prospered for 40 years until the 1960s. Times changed and business started to dissipate -- marking the end of an era. Many supper clubs closed permanently, but a few remain. The Rainbow Room sits atop the 65th floor at 30 Rockefeller Plaza and still offers a formal supper club experience in one of the most breathtaking settings around. Sadly, this supper club may cease to exist in a few short months. Just this year, the Cipriani family, who currently run the establishment, announced they would relinquish the Rainbow Room restaurant and banquet hall by August 1, 2009.

Did You Know? - During the 1930s and 40s, the golden age of supper clubs, Hollywood royalty and high society frequented New York's famous Rainbow Room, Copacabana, and El Morocco. They enjoyed fine American cuisine and performances by some of the world's best known jazz artists. Performers such as Louis Armstrong, Tony Bennett and big bands like the Tommy Dorsey and Count Basie Orchestras were known to make appearances.

Did You Know? - Among the galaxy of celebrities who frequented Ciro's were Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Frank Sinatra, James Dean, Ava Gardner, Sidney Poitier, Anita Ekberg, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Joan Crawford, Betty Grable, Marlene Dietrich, Ginger Rogers, Ronald Reagan, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Mickey Rooney, Cary Grant, George Raft, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Judy Garland, June Allyson and Dick Powell, Mamie Van Doren, Jimmy Stewart, Jack Benny, Peter Lawford, and Lana Turner (who often said Ciro's was her favorite nightspot) among many others. During his first visit to Hollywood in the late 1940s, future President John F. Kennedy dined at Ciro's.