"The world that we used to know, people tell me it don't turn no more."
--Donald Fagen
The wood-panelled old lady bar in the back of the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills is now closed. Discreet, fusty, stagnant with the ancient exhalations of old William Morris agents and the voluptuous sillage of unneccesarily enormous floral arrangements; the young and itinerant screenwriter used to be able to sit here for hours and eat free cashews, bread sticks and hot Japanese peas based on the purchase of a single martini.
Okay, so it wasn't Cafe de Flore...but I went tonight and there was a new, trendy crowded restaurant--with an outdoor patio on Wilshire--quelle horreur! The back bar I speak of was shuttered, under construction by Richard Meier for a new Wolfgang Puck restaurant.
For years, Warren Beatty lived in the penthouse suite of this hotel, Dashiell Hammett wrote "The Thin Man" here. Back in the late 1950's, Elvis Presley lived at the hotel for several years while making movies at nearby Paramount Studios.
A decade later, John Lennon stayed here for several months while he was estranged from Yoko. He chose the hotel because he knew Elvis had lived here.
Tonight, none of these men were anywhere to be found. That said, I stuck around anyway. The service was excellent.
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