 Ciro's neon sign, 1955 | |
 | |
| Location | 8433 Sunset Boulevard West Hollywood, California United States |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 34°05′42″N118°22′26″W / 34.094990°N 118.373806°W /34.094990; -118.373806 |
| Type | Nightclub |
| Opened | 1940 |
| Closed | 1957 |
Ciro's (later known asCiro's Le Disc) was anightclub onSunset Boulevard inWest Hollywood, California owned byWilliam 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 becameThe Comedy Store in 1972.
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 openedCafe Trocadero, and the restaurant La Rue, both on the Strip, and would later originateThe Flamingo inLas Vegas, only to have control of the resort wrested from him by mobsterBenjamin "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 luxebaroque 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 thegossip columns ofHedda Hopper,Louella Parsons, andFlorabel 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 ofcelebrities who frequented Ciro's wereMarilyn Monroe,[9]Humphrey Bogart andLauren Bacall,Frank Sinatra,[10]James Dean,Ava Gardner,Sidney Poitier,Anita Ekberg,Lucille Ball andDesi 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 andGracie Allen,Judy Garland,June Allyson andDick Powell,Mamie Van Doren,Jimmy Stewart,Jack Benny,Peter Lawford, andLana Turner (who often said Ciro's was her favorite nightspot) among many others. During his first visit to Hollywood in the late 1940s, future PresidentJohn F. Kennedy dined at Ciro's.[11]
In December 1951, Herman Hover, owner of Ciro's, was involved with theLili St. Cyr'sindecent exposure case. She was defended byJerry 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 withJimi 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 toThe Preflyte Sessions box set) describe a "church-like" atmosphere, with interpretive dancing. The club also served as the host during the recording of the 1965Dick Dale albumRock Out With Dick Dale & His Del-Tones: Live At Ciro's. Two years later, it was renamedThe Kaleidoscope. In 1968, the club was calledIt's Boss. In 1969, it was known as Patch 2.[16] The site of Ciro's becameThe Comedy Store in 1972.[3]
The name Ciro's comes from Italian-born Egyptian Ciro Capozzi who founded the first Ciro's bar inMonaco around 1892,[17] next to the café Riche in the newly built Galerie Charles III. According to the story ofJames 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 (includingWilliam 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 theGroupe 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 inMonte Carlo,[23] Paris, London[24] (whereAudrey Hepburn danced before her film career[25]), andDeauville. BartenderHarry MacElhone, famous forHarry's New York Bar, first worked at Ciro's in London afterWorld 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 theproprietor 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]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)[dead YouTube link]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.
HOLLYWOOD 1935 - 03:11:50 - Montage, Hollywood Landmarks: Ciro's, Earl Carrol Theater, Cocoanut Grove.
Interior designer George Farkas ... designed Miami Beach's Ciro's nightclub
was a chain of restaurants that from the 1890s through the 1950s...With outposts in Monte Carlo, Paris, London, the French resorts of Deauville andBagnères 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.