A couple of months ago, I went to a marvelous exhibit at the Hollywood Heritage museum called Meet The Stars: 100 Years of MGM Studios and the Golden Age of Hollywood. It was so fascinating that when the museum announced their next exhibit – Out with the Stars – focusing on LA’s famed nightclubs, restaurants, cafes, and hotels, I looked forward to it immensely.

I ended up taking nearly 100 photos, but here are my favorite 20 or so.

Naturally, my highest priority was the Garden of Allah Hotel display.

I don’t even know what this is. Cigarette holder? Matches holder? Business card holder? If anybody knows for sure – or just wants to take a guess – I’d love to hear from you. It feels tobacco-related, doesn’t it? Or is that because of the Garden of Allah Hotel box of matches sitting in it?

This was on the underside of the above item. It’s the sticker for the auction house that auctioned off all the Garden of Allah items when the hotel closed down in August 1959.

There were a lot of ashtrays in this exhibit, but none shaped like this one from Garden of Allah Hotel. It’s like it was made for a single cigarette:

And the third Garden of Allah item that caught my eye was this brochure, which used a font I don’t recall seeing before. I suspect this was published late in the hotel’s run, so circa late 1950s? (The hotel closed in August 1959.)

The biggest display was a tribute to the Hollywood Canteen, which was spearheaded by Warner Bros. stars Bette Davis and John Garfield to give servicemen on shore leave in Los Angeles a place to go during WWII where they could be served some food and enjoy entertainment.

All hostesses (i.e. pretty local girls (and famous ones) whom servicemen could dance with while live music played) went through a background check and were given ID cards:

Paper napkins for the boys to clean mustard and chocolate cake off their faces:

These are a bundle of raffle tickets for $25 worth of war bonds. I’m fairly sure they were given out to servicemen at the Hollywood Canteen as a lucky door prize.

And I love this matchbook that says, Please accept these matches with my very best wishes, JOAN CRAWFORD. I can only assume Joan had these made ahead of time and handed them out to servicemen she danced with. It’s a very Joan-Crawford-esque move, if you ask me.

I don’t know who Marcel Rodd was, but with his brochure – SINNING IN HOLLYWOOD – he ensured servicemen had a handy-dandy guide to keep them out of trouble…or get into it.

** UPDATE ** Colin L. said: “Looks like Marcel Rodd might have been in the business of travel pamphlets. I saw a “Marcel Rodd’s This is California” pamphlet for sale on EBay. I also noticed the picture was illustrated by Fritz Willis, a fairly well-known pin-up/calendar girl artist of the 1940s through 1960s.”

** UPDATE ** It looks like ol’ Marcel got himself into hot water after the war. This is from the San Pedro News-Pilot on August 29, 1946.

The next stop on our tour of Hollywood hot-spots is the Cocoanut Grove at the Ambassador Hotel. I’m not entirely sure what this is, but I assume it’s some sort of table decoration. But what were those two little bowls for?

The Brown Derby did a first-class job of merchandising itself with Derby-themed chili con carne seasoning, oval box, and hat-shaped salt and pepper shakers.

Meanwhile at the huge Earl Carroll’s nightclub on Sunset Blvd, your ashtray featured a pair of shapely legs.

Some broken dishes from the Hollywood Hotel were recovered during the excavation for the subway line that runs under the hotel’s former site on the northwest corner of Hollywood Blvd and Highland Ave.)

Meanwhile at Ciro’s, there was no shortage of matches for you:

With all those Ciro’s matches, you need something to light up. How about some “Petites” miniature cigars at the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Blvd, catty-corner from Grauman’s Chinese:

While at the Roosevelt, we’ll dine at the Cinegrill who, it appears, pioneered the art of separating meat from vegetables. Was this where TV dinner companies got the idea?

While we’re in the neighborhood, we can cross Hollywood Blvd and indulge in a C.C. Brown’s hot chocolate fudge sundae, which comes with these mysterious things. I was puzzled about what they did until my pal, Rosanne, who grew up on Vine Street, told me they were on the bottom of the dish that the sundaes were served on. I’m guessing those two side grooves are there to rest your spoon? Or perhaps catch errant drips of hot fudge?

Next up, let’s visit Mae West in her apartment at the Ravenswood where she might let us try on her bedazzled gloves. Your hands need to be quite small, though. You can’t tell from this photo but they’re as petite as the mini cigars you picked up at the Roosevelt.

After that, we can drop in on Norma Shearer and Irving Thalberg and see if we can borrow their snazzy cutlery set:

And the way home, we can stop off at The Broadway-Hollywood store on the corner of Hollywood and Vine for a spot of shopping in the shoe department:

~oOo~