Wikipedia

Ciro's

For the London nightclub, see Ciro's (London).

Ciro's (later known as Ciro's Le Disc) was a nightclub on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California owned by William Wilkerson.[1] Opened in 1940, Ciro's became a popular nightspot for celebrities. The nightclub closed in 1960 and was reopened as a rock club in 1965. After a few name changes, it eventually became The Comedy Store in 1972.

Ciro's
Ciro's neon sign, 1955
Map
Location8433 Sunset Boulevard
West Hollywood, California
United States
Coordinates34°05′42″N 118°22′26″W / 34.094990°N 118.373806°W / 34.094990; -118.373806
TypeNightclub
Opened1940
Closed1957

History

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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."[2]

The building was remodeled, and, in January 1940, Ciro's was opened by entrepreneur William Wilkerson at 8433 Sunset Boulevard.[3] In 1934, Wilkerson had also opened Cafe Trocadero, 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.

In November 1942,[4] Wilkerson leased Ciro's to his longtime right-hand man Herman Hover,[5] who would make sure Ciro's was an important Hollywood hotspot until 1959.

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.[6] On April 8, 1947, Frank Sinatra slugged "one of the most abusive"[7] Hearst gossip columnists, Lee Mortimer, outside Ciro's.[8]

Among the galaxy of celebrities who frequented Ciro's were Marilyn Monroe,[9] Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Frank Sinatra,[10] James Dean, Ava Gardner, Sidney Poitier, Anita Ekberg, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Spencer Tracy, Joan Crawford, Betty Grable, Marlene Dietrich, Clark Gable, 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.[11]

In December 1951, Herman Hover, owner of Ciro's, was involved with the Lili St. Cyr's indecent exposure case. She was defended by Jerry Geisler. She was accompanied by Armando Orsini, her husband.[12]

Herman Hover filed for bankruptcy in 1959, and Ciro's was sold at public auction for $350,000.[13]

In 1965, Ciro's reopened as the rock club Ciro's Le Disc. Ike & Tina Turner performed at the newly opened club with Jimi Hendrix as part of their band.[14] The Byrds got their start at Ciro's Le Disc in 1965.[15] Accounts of the period (reproduced in the sleeve notes to The Preflyte Sessions box set) describe a "church-like" atmosphere, with interpretive dancing. The club also served as the host during the recording of the 1965 Dick Dale album Rock Out With Dick Dale & His Del-Tones: Live At Ciro's. Two years later, it was renamed The Kaleidoscope. In 1968, the club was called It's Boss. In 1969, it was known as Patch 2.[16] The site of Ciro's became The Comedy Store in 1972.[3]

Notable performers

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Ciro's club and restaurant chain

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The name Ciro's comes from Italian-born Egyptian Ciro Capozzi who founded the first Ciro's bar in Monaco around 1892,[17] next to the café Riche in the newly built Galerie Charles III. According to the story of James Gordon Bennett Jr., having a difference about a table on the terrasse, he bought the café Riche and gave it to Ciro who named it the Ciro's.[18] In 1911, Ciro Capozzi sold the name to an English consortium (including William Poulett, 7th Earl Poulett as main investor,[19] and Clément Hobson[20]) who open the Deauville Ciro's (still existing as a restaurant belonging to the Groupe Lucien Barrière), the Paris Ciro's in 1912,[21][22] and the London one in 1915. Ciro's became a European high society restaurant chain with branches in Monte Carlo,[23] Paris, London[24] (where Audrey Hepburn danced before her film career[25]), and Deauville. Bartender Harry MacElhone, famous for Harry's New York Bar, first worked at Ciro's in London after World War I.[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]

"Ciro's was a hip London establishment (before another popular one opened up in Los Angeles in 1940), that had as their bartender Harry McElhone (author of ABC of Cocktails), at which Jimmy took over when Harry went off to Paris. ..." (Ross Bolton)[35]

"Louis Adlon, grandson of the proprietor of Berlin’s Hotel Adlon opened Hollywood’s first iteration of Ciro’s in 1934[36][37] (with Erich Alexander[38] and George Sorel[39]) Located on Hollywood Boulevard, the club was informally part of a chain with locations in London, Paris and Berlin. The Hollywood Ciro’s was not a success, apparently, because it soon folded."[4]

"...At one point in the late 1930s there were wildcat Ciro's operating in Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami Beach (designed by George Farkas[40][41][42]), Honolulu, Acapulco, Mexico City, and a host of other places..."[43]

References

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  1. ^ "Photographic image" (JPG). 3.bp.blogspot.com. Retrieved October 24, 2018.
  2. ^ "Early Views of West Hollywood". Water and Power Associates. Retrieved January 31, 2022.
  3. ^ a b Lord, Rosemary (2003). Hollywood Then and Now. San Diego: Thunder Bay Press. p. 87. ISBN 978-1592231041.
  4. ^ a b "1940: Ciro's Opens". Playgroundtothestars.com.
  5. ^ "Ciros Hover". Getty Images. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  6. ^ "Early Views of West Hollywood (1920 +)". Water and Power Associates. Retrieved October 24, 2018.
  7. ^ Wiener, Jon (June 15, 2009). "Frank Sinatra: His Way". thenation.com. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  8. ^
  9. ^ "Marilyn Monroe at Ciro's". alamy.com. Retrieved July 20, 2023.
  10. ^ "Ciros Angeles". Getty Images. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  11. ^ Katie (February 27, 2013). "Ciro's". Old Hollywood Glamour.
  12. ^ "Indecent exposure case, 5 December 1951. Lili Saint Cyr, defendant". Getty Images. Retrieved August 3, 2024.
  13. ^ "Photographic image" (JPG). I424.photobucket.com. Retrieved October 24, 2018.
  14. ^ Roby, Steven; Schreiber, Brad (August 31, 2010). Becoming Jimi Hendrix: From Southern Crossroads to Psychedelic London, the Untold Story of a Musical Genius. Hachette Books. p. 103. ISBN 978-0-306-81910-0.
  15. ^ Hjort, Christopher. (2008). So You Want To Be A Rock 'n' Roll Star: The Byrds Day-By-Day (1965-1973). Jawbone Press. pp. 27–30. ISBN 978-1-906002-15-2.
  16. ^ Serrapica, Pasquale Vincent. "Rocco (Pat) Photographs and Papers". oac.cdlib.org. ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, USC Libraries, University of Southern California. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
  17. ^ "M. Ciro, Italian born Egyptian founder of Ciro's restaurant in Monte Carlo, pictured on the French Riviera in 1909. He sold the restaurant in 1911 to an English syndicate which included the Earl of Rosslyn and Clement Hobson. Other branches were opened in London, Paris and Biarritz". alamy.com. 1909. Retrieved July 20, 2023.
  18. ^ "Ciro, Paris 1923 Menu Art". Vintage Menu Art. Retrieved July 20, 2023.
  19. ^ "Journal de Monaco" (PDF). Journaldemonaco.gouv.mc. pp. 3–6.
  20. ^
  21. ^ "The interior of Ciro's restaurant, Rue Daunou, Paris". agefotostock. Retrieved July 20, 2023.
  22. ^ "The Classy Ciro's Restaurant Chain". Jazz Age Club. February 17, 2010. Retrieved July 20, 2023.
  23. ^ "Sem on the Riviera - the famous caricaturist's very latest impressions. A page of caricatures by Sem (Georges Goursat) taken on the French Riviera. Clockwise from top left, Lord Howard de Walden, Mr Gordon Bennett, the millionaire newspaper proprietor at Ciro's, Monte Carlo, Lord Wandsworth, Lord Savile, Lord Westbury, all at the Hotel de Paris, Monte Carlo, M. Santos Dumont, M. Henri Rochefort and the Duc de Dino all at the Hotel Metropole, Monte Carlo and the Grand Duke Michael of Russia". alamy.com. 1913. Retrieved July 20, 2023.
  24. ^
  25. ^ "Audrey Hepburn: 'Roman Holiday' Star Started as Nightclub Dancer," December 16, 2020, Variety (recapping July 5, 1950 Variety review of her dance show), retrieved February 5, 2022
  26. ^ "Andrew MacElhone Dies". New York Daily News. September 20, 1996.
  27. ^ Pathé, British. "Ciro's Club". Britishpathe.com.
  28. ^ British Pathé (April 13, 2014). "Ciro's (1953)". YouTube. Archived from the original on December 21, 2021.
  29. ^ Aaron1912 (September 20, 2010). "A Night At Ciro's (1932)". YouTube.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)[dead YouTube link]
  30. ^ Williams, Olivia (2014). Gin Glorious Gin:How Mother's Ruin Became the Spirit of London. London: Headline Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-4722-1534-5.
  31. ^ Hindson, Catherine (June 1, 2016). London's West End Actresses and the Origins of Celebrity Charity, 1880-1920. University of Iowa Press. p. 198. ISBN 9781609384258 – via Google Books.
  32. ^ "Ciro's Club Coon Orchestra". Redhotjazz.com.
  33. ^ "Audrey Hepburn exhibition staged at National Portrait Gallery". Independent.co.uk. December 3, 2014.
  34. ^ "The Coming of Ciro's to London - THE INTERACTIVE WAR NEWS". Illustratedfirstworldwar.com.
  35. ^ "JIMMY" LATE OF CIRO'S LONDON (1930). Cocktails. Philadelphia: David McKay. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
  36. ^ "Hollywood Filmograph". Hollywood Filmograph. 1934. Feb. 17, 1934 ... Ciro's (formerly the Club New Yorker) threw its doors open Wednesday night to the public. It was one of the swellest turn-outs we have seen in some time. Harold Lloyd dropped in with his wife, Mildred, and ... Mrs. Buckley's party. Mario Alverez's orchestra furnished the music. The place is being operated by Erich Alexander, George Sorel and Louis Adlon, Jr.
  37. ^ "VM-175B". Historic Films. HOLLYWOOD 1935 - 03:11:50 - Montage, Hollywood Landmarks: Ciro's, Earl Carrol Theater, Cocoanut Grove.
  38. ^ "Erich-Alexander Winds". IMDb.com. Retrieved October 24, 2018.
  39. ^ "George Sorel". IMDb.com. Retrieved October 24, 2018.
  40. ^ "'Miami Swank—and Its Opposite' By Thomas Hine". Archived from the original on December 10, 2017. Retrieved May 1, 2014. Interior designer George Farkas ... designed Miami Beach's Ciro's nightclub
  41. ^ "Ciro's". Meditations on a Widening Circle: Miami Beach.
  42. ^ "Nightclubs: Long Ago On Miami Beach, "Ciro's: At Alton Road and Dade Boulevard"". Archived from the original on May 2, 2014.
  43. ^ Wondrich, David; Rothbaum, Noah (October 21, 2021). "Ciro's". The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-931113-2. was a chain of restaurants that from the 1890s through the 1950s...With outposts in Monte Carlo, Paris, London, the French resorts of Deauville and Bagnères de Luchon, and eventually Berlin, Hollywood, and New York...in the late 1930s there were wildcat Ciro's operating in Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami Beach, Honolulu, Acapulco, Mexico City, and a host of other places.
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