The Hollywood Library is hosting a special presentation, Dining With the Stars, on Ivar Avenue in Los Angeles this Saturday, July 20, at 2 pm.
“Historian Mary Mallory takes attendees on an oral and visual tour of vintage Tinsletown while lounge singer Will Ryan provides a side of period songs. Learn about the local haunts frequented by golden age stars and all the lore, glitz, and glamour. Fans of the podcast You Must Remember This and The Star Machine by Jeanine Basinger will get a kick out of this event. Archival menus and photographs will be presented for viewing. A selection of titles about 20th-Century actors, the history of cinema, and social life in Los Angeles will be available for checkout after the program.”
Marilyn is shown above right at the Cocoanut Grove, a legendary nightclub then located in the basement of the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard, on January 1st, 1953. The hotel – which also housed the Blue Book Model Agency, where Marilyn’s career began – was demolished in 2006.
On that New Year’s Day more than 70 years ago, Marilyn was attending a celebratory party for Cinerama, the spectacular widescreen process that aimed to revitalise moviegoing in the age of television. Of course, she was soon to appear in How to Marry a Millionaire, the first film shot in CinemaScope. This rival technology, developed by Twentieth Century-Fox, ultimately proved more successful.
Marilyn was escorted to the event by future husband Joe DiMaggio, in one of their rare appearances together in Hollywood. Her fellow guests included Donald O’Connor (below, second from right), whose love interest she would play in 1954’s There’s No Business Like Show Business; and songwriter Cole Porter (at Marilyn’s left), whose song, ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy,’ she went on to perform in Let’s Make Love (1960.)
Mary Mallory’s books include Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays (see below, at top), which shows Marilyn and Betty Grable in cheesecake poses for Valentine’s Day; and Hollywood at Play (at bottom), which includes an early modelling shot of Marilyn ‘skiing’ on sand in a two-piece bathing suit.
The Marilyn Report 