The Castle on Sunset (Discussion Questions)

The Castle On Sunset (Discussion Questions) 1. What is the central idea discussed in The Castle On Sunset? What issues or ideas does Shawn Levy explore? Are they personal, sociological, global, political, economic, spiritual, medical, or scientific 2. What kind of language does Levy use? Is it objective and dispassionate? Or passionate and earnest? Is it biased, inflammatory, sarcastic? Does the language help or undercut the Levy’'s premise? 3. What are the implications for the future? Are there long- or short-term consequences to the issues raised in the book? Are they positive or negative...affirming or frightening? 4. How controversial are the issues raised in the book? Who is aligned on which sides of the issues? Where do you fall in that line-up? 5. Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...? What was memorable? 6. What have you learned after reading this book? Has it broadened your perspective about a difficult issue—personal or societal? Has it introduced you to a culture in another country...or an ethnic or regional culture in your own country? https://www.litlovers.com/run-a-book-club/questions-for-nonfiction The Castle On Sunset (About the Author) Shawn Levy is the former film critic of The Oregonian and KGW-TV. His writing has appeared in Sight and Sound, Film Comment, American Film, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Hollywood Reporter, and The Black Rock Beacon. He is the bestselling author of Rat Pack Confidential, Paul Newman: A Life, and Dolce Vita Confidential. He jumps and claps, and sings for victory in Portland, Oregon. http://shawnlevy.com/ The Castle On Sunset (Reviews) “The Castle on Sunset is stitched through with savory anecdotes that navigate us through an ever-shifting city, as the building’s own story arc mirrors Hollywood’s various transitions.” Los Angeles Times “[An] engrossing account of the L.A. hotel’s 90-year history of decadence. Weaving together historical research and firsthand accounts, the author examines the transformation of the high-end apartment building into a world-famous hotel often inhabited by itinerant Hollywood directors and actors This eye-popping … and entertainingly lurid tale of Hollywood scandal and intrigue will delight readers." Publishers Weekly “In his latest foray into Hollywood history, [Shawn Levy] explores one of Los Angeles' most famous landmarks, the Chateau Marmont hotel A genuinely … fascinating look at how Hollywood supports its stars.” Booklist "A fabulously fizzy account." Vanity Fair In his latest, biographer Levy (Dolce Vita Confidential: Fellini, Loren, Pucci, Paparazzi, and the Swinging High Life of 1950s Rome, 2016, etc.) turns to an inanimate subject as colorful and outrageous as some of the living subjects he’s covered—e.g., Paul Newman, Porfirio Rubirosa, and the Rat Pack. The author chronicles the history of the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, suggesting that its story “parallels the story of Hollywood so thoroughly as to be inseparable from it.” Levy’s history is both staid and juicy. Kirkus Reviews https://www.amazon.com/Castle-Sunset-Scandal-Hollywoods-Chateau/dp/0385543166 The Castle On Sunset (Enhancements) The Chateau Marmont is a hotel located at 8221 Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. The history of bad behavior at the Chateau dates to shortly after its founding as a hotel in the 1930s—it was originally built in the 1920s as Los Angeles’s first earthquake-proof apartment building (and would eventually become Los Angeles’s first Lindsay Lohan-proof building). Studios rented apartments and rooms for the express purpose of having someplace safe for their stars to engage in whatever nasty little habits they had. The famous example being Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures, telling two of his randiest young stars, William Holden and Glenn Ford, “If you must get into trouble, do it at the Chateau Marmont.” The hotel’s reputation as the place to go to misbehave dates back to the days of the Motion Picture Code of the 1930s and the purity seal of 1934. The code specified not only what could and could not be shown on screen, but also its expectations of a star’s behavior off camera. Breaking the code of discretion can get plebs banned, by the way, so it would be entirely impossible to chronicle every misdeed or sad story that’s ever gone down at the Chateau Marmont, and probably half of these stories are apocryphal anyway. NPR's Scott Simon discusses the glamorous LA hotel Chateau Marmont with Shawn Levy, author of The Castle on Sunset. SIMON: How does the chateau both fit into and stand above the Hollywood landscape? LEVY: Well, physically, it actually stands above the Sunset Strip. It's right on the eastern edge of the strip on a rise, and it's situated at a curve. So if you come toward it from the east - from Hollywood into West Hollywood - it kind of disappears. The road takes you away from it before you quite register it. Spiritually, it's been sort of a hideaway. It was built as an apartment house, so for decades, it didn't have the amenities and public spaces of a hotel. And each unit was very self-enclosed, with a kitchen and your own private entrance in some cases. So it's been sort of an open secret. It's right there in plain sight, but yet, it's a very private locale. SIMON: Let me ask you about one of the names from the early days, too. Nicholas Ray, the film director - I have always thought of him as kind of aloof and moody, almost prohibitively cerebral. But he was a party animal, wasn't he? LEVY: He lived at Chateau Marmont for six years. And during that time, he made a lot of films, and he also entertained a lot of guests. He threw a regular Sunday afternoon soiree that began at the swimming pool and ended in his bungalow with, you know, bongos and reefer, it being the mid-'50s. And during that time, he wrote, cast, rehearsed and directed "Rebel Without A Cause." And much of his cast came around to his hotel. He was sexually involved with his stars Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, both of whom were underage. And what's amazing to me in this day and age is that people knew what was going on in 1954, and nobody sort of blinked at it. SIMON: Yeah. Tab Hunter and Anthony Perkins met by the pool in the days when it would've been dangerous for both of their careers to meet almost anywhere. LEVY: Yeah. The swimming pool was built in 1948, and it was the only public place at the hotel. Again, it didn't have a restaurant or bar. And it became sort of a hardy spot for gay Hollywood. The hotel had this reputation for discretion, so when Tony Perkins was staying there, he was introduced to Tab Hunter, and they began a two-year relationship. They double dated. They had starlets on their arms, but they were sitting next to each other at all these events. And it was kind of a bittersweet romance. I think Tab was really in love, and Tony was kind of a career guy. And when a role came up that they both wanted, Tony took it and ran. SIMON: And this raises questions to me about the, you know, what happens at the Chateau Marmont stays at the Chateau Marmont because famous names were coming and going. Everyone knew that John Belushi was doing hard drugs in his bungalow. By the way, those are illegal, as well as self-destructive. Is there a point when leaving guests to their own business becomes negligent? LEVY: You know, the hotel was not charged with negligence. And the LA district attorney was certainly out for scalps at the time. We don't even know what happens when someone is overserved in a bar and goes out and wrecks their car. We're still not holding bartenders responsible. I think it's a similar case. And in the hospitality business, if you're seen to be monitoring the activities of your guests, you might wind up bankrupt because people won't stay there. SIMON: Ironically or incongruously, is it Belushi's death that fixed the chateau's reputation in the firmament of Hollywood misbehavior? LEVY: Absolutely. When Belushi died, suddenly, people who had driven past it every day for their whole lives and not quite known what it was knew exactly what it was. And some people requested to stay in Belushi's bungalow - the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who himself died of an overdose; Rick James, who was always seemingly in trouble with drugs and alcohol. So for - to the chagrin of ownership and yet to their financial security, because the hotel was kind of wobbly in its finances at that time, it wound up cementing the place in the public consciousness, and business boomed. SIMON: Relatively few rooms at the Chateau Marmont. What's it like to stay there if, say, you're a proctologist from Springfield, Ill.? LEVY: There are 63 rooms, and they start at about 600 bucks a night so... LEVY: And the $600 room is barely big enough for the bed and the legs that you need to walk around it. They've done a wonderful job of suggesting a luxurious past from the 1940s or '50s that actually never existed. Back in those days, it was a cheap hotel. Today, it's a luxury hotel.

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