An interesting article in today's LA Times magazine section
about the 81-year-old Musso & Frank restaurant, described
as a favorite haunt of Hollywood stars and writers like
Fitzgerald, Chandler and Jim Thompson. A selection:
> Two remarkable bookstores within a block or so
of
> Musso's made the Grill an even more
attractive
> hangout for writers. Faulkner, Chandler and
Aldous
> Huxley often browsed at Louis Epstein's
Pickwick
> Bookshop (opened in 1938). Stanley Rose's
store,
> literally next door to Musso's, was a more
social
> place, where writers drank whiskey and
swapped
> stories with the Texas-born bookseller.
Musso's
> served as the Rose store's unofficial
banker;
> patrons of both establishments moved back and
forth
> freely in (as Starr wrote) "a nonorganized
movable
> feast."
>
> An earlier store in which Rose had been a
partner,
> the Satyr Bookshop on Vine, was busted
for
> pornography; it inspired the salacious
Bennett's
> Bookshop in Raymond Chandler's 1939 novel, "The
Big
> Sleep." (Rose's defense lawyer on the porno
charge
> was Carey McWilliams, whose nonfiction
work
> "Southern California Country: An Island on the
Land"
> in 1946 inspired its own L.A. fictions,
notably
> Robert Towne's script for "Chinatown" in
1974.)
>
<SNIP>
>
> Thompson, the pulp-noir master ("The Killer
Inside
> Me," "The Getaway"), lived four short blocks
from
> Musso's and used the Grill as a virtual
office
> throughout the '60s, according to biographer
Robert
> Polito. The old writer favored the pot roast
special
> and the zucchini Florentine, washing them down
with
> Jack Daniel's and Heineken chasers. At
Musso's,
> Thompson played the hard-bitten raconteur,
spinning
> tough yarns to an eager audience of one or two.
And
> in a booth at Musso's, he made deals and
signed
> papers with sharp young producers, acts he
later
> regretted.
The entire article can be found at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/timesmag/20000206/t000011895.html
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