Stork Club: Difference between revisions
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==External links== |
==External links== |
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* [http://www.geocities.com/sylvanspoon/storkpics.html Inside the Cub Room at the Stork Club] |
* [http://www.geocities.com/sylvanspoon/storkpics.html Inside the Cub Room at the Stork Club] |
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* [http://images.google.com/images? |
* [http://images.google.com/images?q=%22stork+club%22+source%3ALIFE+eisenstaedt Alfred Eisenstaedt's 1944 Stork Club photos for LIFE magazine] |
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* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=5097 Sherman Billingsley's gravesite at Find a Grave] |
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=5097 Sherman Billingsley's gravesite at Find a Grave] |
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* [http://www.americanbreweriana.org/history/storck.htm History of the Storck Brewery] |
* [http://www.americanbreweriana.org/history/storck.htm History of the Storck Brewery] |
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Revision as of 02:29, 27 August 2009
40°45′37″N 73°58′32″W / 40.76028°N 73.97556°W The Stork Club was a nightclub in New York City from 1929 to 1965. From 1934 onwards, it was located at 3 East 53rd Street, just east of Fifth Avenue. The building was demolished in 1966 and the site is now the location of Paley Park, a small vest-pocket park.
History
The Stork Club was owned and operated by Sherman Billingsley (1896-1966), an ex-bootlegger who came to New York from Enid, Oklahoma. [1] From the end of Prohibition in 1933 until the early 1960s, the club was the symbol of café society. Movie stars, celebrities, the wealthy, showgirls, and aristocrats all mixed here. Other New York City clubs had the sophistication (El Morocco) and drew the sporting crowd (Toots Shor's Restaurant), but the Stork Club mixed power, money and glamour.
The Stork Club first opened in 1929 at 132 West 58th Street [2], just down the block from Billingsley's apartment at 152 West 58th Street[3]. Prohibition agents closed the club on December 22, 1931, and it moved to East 51st Street for three years [4]. In 1934, the Stork Club moved to 3 East 53rd Street, where it remained until it closed on October 4, 1965.
According to Ralph Blumenthal in his 2000 book Stork Club, another New York nightclub owner named Tex Guinan (Mary Louise Cecilia Guinan) introduced Billingsley to her friend, the entertainment and gossip columnist Walter Winchell in 1930. In Winchell's column in the New York Daily Mirror, he once called the Stork Club "New York's New Yorkiest place on W. 58th".
The activities of the "boldface" celebrities at the Stork Club were chronicled by the "orchidaceous oracle of cafe society", Lucius Beebe, in his syndicated column "This New York". Notable guests through the years included:
- Lucille Ball
- Tallulah Bankhead
- Charlie Chaplin
- Frank Costello
- Bing Crosby
- the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (once given the cold shoulder there by Winchell)
- Brenda Frazier
- Judy Garland
- Ernest Hemingway
- J. Edgar Hoover
- Dorothy Kilgallen
| class="col-break " |
- the Harrimans
- the Kennedys
- Dorothy Lamour (who was turned down as a club singer by Billingsley early in her career)
- Marilyn Monroe
- the Nordstrom Sisters
- Erik Rhodes
- the Roosevelts
- Frank Sinatra
- Elizabeth Taylor
- Gene Tierney
- Gloria Vanderbilt
|}
The sanctum sanctorum the Cub Room ("the snub room"), was guarded by a captain known to everyone as "Saint Peter" (for the saint who guards the gates of Heaven).
Billingsley's mistress for a number of years was Ethel Merman.[citation needed]
Controversies
One oft-repeated story involved Billingsley's alleged prejudice against non-white patrons. Arriving at the club with singer Lena Horne on his arm, actor George Jessel was stopped by Billingsley who was said to have inquired, "And just who made your reservation?" Never at a loss for words, Jessel replied, "Abraham Lincoln did".
In 1951, Josephine Baker made charges of racism against the Stork Club after she ordered a steak and was still waiting for it an hour later. Actress Grace Kelly, who was at the club at the time, rushed over to Baker, took her by the arm and stormed out with her entire party, vowing to never return (and she never did). [5]
Television and Movies
The Stork Club was a television series hosted by Billingsley, who circulated among the tables interviewing guests at the club. Sponsored by Fatima cigarettes, the series ran from 1950 to 1955.
The Stork Club was also featured in several movies, including The Stork Club (1945), Executive Suite (1954), and My Favorite Year (1982).
In All About Eve (1950), the characters played by Bette Davis, Gary Merrill, Anne Baxter and George Sanders are shown in the Cub Room of the Stork Club.
The Alfred Hitchcock film The Wrong Man (1957) starred Henry Fonda as real-life Stork Club bassist Christopher Emanuel Balestrero, who was falsely accused of committing robberies around New York City. Scenes involving Balestrero playing the bass were actually shot at the club. The film's screenplay, written by Maxwell Anderson, was based on a true story originally published in Look magazine.
The Stork Club was featured in the second season episode of AMC's dramatic television series Mad Men titled "The Golden Violin". The club provided the setting for a party attended by characters Don and Betty Draper in celebration of comedian Jimmy Barrett.
Miscellaneous
Storck Brewery, of Slinger, Wisconsin, produced a beer throughout the 1950s bearing the label "Storck Club". This was highly controversial, and although it was not spelled the same as the famous Stork Club of New York City, the Club eventually brought a lawsuit forcing the brewery to stop production. The labels are highly sought after by collectors today, since they were produced in very limited quantities.
References
- ^ Nichols, Max (July 13, 2000). "Oklahoma, Bootleggers, and Cafe Society". The Journal Record. Retrieved June 24, 2008.
- ^ Blumenthal, Ralph (July 1, 1996). "Look who Dropped in at the Stork". The New York Times. Retrieved June 24, 2008.
- ^ 1930 United States Census: State, City, and County of New York, Enumeration District 31-567, Sheet 21A.
- ^ Hamill, Pete (May 7, 2000). "The 'In' Crowd". The New York Times. Retrieved June 24, 2008.
- ^ Transcript of Larry King Live (September 3, 2003). "A panel of Friends and Family Members Remember Princess Grace of Monaco". CNN. Retrieved August 7, 2008.
Further reading
- Blumenthal, Ralph. Stork Club: America's Most Famous Nightspot and the Lost World of Café Society. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2000. ISBN 0-316-10531-7
- Allen, Mearl L. Welcome to the Stork Club (a memoir by the maitre d' of the club during its final years). San Diego: A. S. Barnes & Company, 1980.
- Beebe, Lucius. The Stork Club Bar Book. New York: Rinehart & Company, 1946.
- Caspary, Vera. The Murder in the Stork Club (novel). New York: Walter J. Black, 1946.