Before The Hollywood Reporter’s owner, Billy Wilkerson, opened the Café Trocadero on the Sunset Strip on September 17, 1934, the place was a warehouse that he was using to store his alcohol after Prohibition was repealed (and perhaps before…?) He decided to turn it into a black tie, French-inspired nightclub and then claimed it was sold out for the weeks. The ruse took guts but it worked because the place soon became the hottest nightclub in town. Judging from the 1938 De Soto taxi out front, this photo is probably late 1930s, by which time Wilkerson had sold it to a gambler named Nola Hahn who relaunched the place with a gala dinner that included a performance by new singing sensation, Mary Martin.
Before The Hollywood Reporter’s owner, Billy Wilkerson, opened the Café Trocadero on the Sunset Strip on September 17, 1934, the place was a warehouse that he was using to store his alcohol after Prohibition was repealed (and perhaps before…?) He decided to turn it into a black tie, French-inspired nightclub and then claimed it was sold out for the weeks. The ruse took guts but it worked because the place soon became the hottest nightclub in town. Judging from the 1938 De Soto taxi out front, this photo is probably late 1930s, by which time Wilkerson had sold it to a gambler named Nola Hahn who relaunched the place with a gala dinner that included a performance by new singing sensation, Mary Martin.
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