The Polo Lounge in The Beverly Hills Hotel--enduring, unchanged, a Hollywood landmark. Refurbish it if you must, but please don't update it. Let it remain as it is, timeless and one of my very favorite places to visit.
I bring personal and sentimental baggage to this work. As a guest, I have felt at home in the bungalows of The Beverly Hills Hotel for many years. As a stargazer, I have always enjoyed the unique showcase that is the Polo Lounge. Stars here have left a very special imprint on my memory. So there was something magical for me in creating this sampling of Hollywood's elite. As a rule, I rarely work from photographs, but since movie greats are ageless only on film, and since I have neither met nor sketched many of my choices live, I felt that photos were the best medium to use for research. From those photos, I painted my Polo Lounge "wish list." Movie stars and film makers, Hollywood movers and moguls, all with one thing in common--they have frequented this legendary pink-and-green Mecca on Sunset Boulevard. Here, then, is my imaginary assemblage: Bogart and Bacall, fresh, perhaps, from sharing the tropical breezes of Key Largo; a debonair Cary Grant and Errol Flynn, the swash buckling ladies' man; Marvin Davis, a former owner of 20th Century Fox and of The Beverly Hills Hotel, with his charming wife, Barbara; Garbo, alone, by choice; W. C. Fields, a bit topsy-turvy but always at home in a drinking establishment; Gable, always Rhett Butler; Elizabeth Taylor, the queen, soloing between husbands and lovers; Johnny Carson, Mr. Late Night himself--these are a few of my lasting impressions. These are some of the stars who shone, and shine on, at the Polo Lounge.
