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RELICS AND RUINS
OF THE GOLDEN ERA:
AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL TOUR OF
OLD HOLLYWOOD
I
’m sitting in booth number one at Musso & Frank,
Hollywood’s oldest restaurant, quietly demolishing
a late breakfast of flannel cakes and coffee. Since
1919, this grill has been a Tinseltown fixture. But
in the early days, a no-name nobody like me wouldn’t
have been seated in this corner booth. It was reserved
exclusively for Charlie Chaplin.
The silent film star and his friend Rudolph Valentino
used to race their horses down Hollywood Boulevard, tie
them up in front of the restaurant, and step into Musso’s
clubby realm of mahogany paneling and red leather.
Only one booth had a window where they could check
on their horses, and this morning it’s mine.
I prefer not to look through the blinds, though, at the
throng of tourists and Hollywood weirdos. Instead I gaze
right past the modern world, peering into the long-ago.
This booth is the first stop on an archaeological tour of
Old Hollywood that’ll have me searching out the sacred
relics and ruins of a golden age. Musso’s is the perfect
place to start, a bridge between Movieland’s present
and its legendary past.
This restaurant has always lured a star-studded cast.
It wasn’t unusual to see Greta Garbo talking over a new
script with Gary Cooper or writer Dashiell Hammett
dining with Humphrey Bogart.
Waiter Sergio Gonzalez, wearing a short red jacket
with a white towel over his arm, is the picture of dignity,
a man who has done a job with pride and tradition for
41 years. But he’s also got a twinkle in his eye and a
stock of stories about patrons who became his friends
over the decades – everyone from Peter O’Toole to a
munchkin from
The Wizard of Oz
.
One special friend is Johnny Depp, who at the
wobbly launch of his career used to hover at the back
of the restaurant near a wooden telephone booth. “He’d
winter
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