CALENDAR E SUNDAY, JANUARY 22, 2017 :: LATIMES.COM/CALENDAR

Hulton Archive / Getty Images THE BEVERLY HILTON opened in 1955 and has been buzzing ever since. “We are the place to go for the entertainment business,” says manager Michael Robertson. CELEB CENTRAL

Welcome to the Beverly Hilton, the hardest-working hotel in show biz, where awards festivities are the norm

BY JEN YAMATO >>> Moments after “Moonlight” won the film drama prize at this year’s Golden Globes, guests rushed out of the Beverly Hilton’s International Ball- room and toward lavish studio after-parties. ¶ Not to the valet, however; instead, it was to wait in long star-studded lines for the elevators. ¶ Most of the post-Globes parties are held a few well-heeled steps from where the boozy awards action happens. The Globes may be a televised dinner party for 1,300 Hollywood elites, but it’s also a multimillion-dollar event that keeps local businesses, contractors and suppliers em- ployed each year, including the 850 employees of the Beverly Hilton on hand to pour 900 bottles of Champagne, serve 11,000 meals and facilitate the night’s festiv- ities. ¶ Indeed, as revelers bounced among competing shindigs on the property grounds, staff were breaking down the ballroom to ready it for business as usu- al. ¶ In the next few weeks alone, the hotel will host the 2017 Academy Award nomi- nees at the official Oscar luncheon as well as the Directors Guild Awards, the Produc- ers Guild Awards and Clive Davis’ annual pre-Grammys gala. More than 150 red car- Keystone / Getty Images MARILYN MONROE receives an award from pet events are held here each year; come summer, the small screen [See Hilton, E5] Rock Hudson at the Globes at the hotel in 1962.

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL Unorthodox methods amid the orthodox

the mikveh [Jewish ritual bath].” A director figures out how He paused thoughtfully. “It’s hard enough to cast your inde- to shoot a scripted movie pendent film when you’re not sub- in the insulated world of merged without clothes in steamy waters.” New York’s Hasidim. Weinstein experienced a series By Steven Zeitchik of colorful moments to craft the low-key authenticity of “Menashe,” his heartfelt gem of a scripted NEW YORK – The secular film- drama that will premiere Monday maker Joshua Weinstein stood on a at the Sundance Film Festival in helter-skelter corner in this ultra- the upstart Next section. At a time Orthodox Jewish neighborhood when television series such as next to shops selling conservative “Breaking Amish” aim to shed light fashions and Internet-disabled on cloistered religious communi- smartphones and pondered his re- ties, “Menashe” harbors similar cent guerrilla shoot. goalsinafreshcontext:Itseeksto “The strangest casting mo- get behind the veil of New York’s ment, let me think about that,” the Hasidim, people generally de- ‘THE FOUNDER’S’ DRIVE director said, tilting back his head. picted in pop culture as enigmatic “It might be all the times I sat props, when they’re even seen at JOHN LEE HANCOCK’S TALE OF MIDDLE AMERICA through an hour of evening prayers all. because I happened to be talking To make the all-Yiddish-lan- MOVIES, E6 to a potential actor and they guage film, the director used the needed a 10th man for a minyan [a kind of shoe-leather techniques prayer quorum]. Or maybe it was and subcultural curiosity that has Genaro Molina Los Angeles Times when I accompanied the rabbi to given Sun- [See Sundance, E7] LATIMES.COM/CALENDAR SUNDAY, JANUARY 22, 2017 E5

The Beverly Hilton ELEPHANTS steal the show at the Beverly Hilton’s opening in 1955. The hotel has seen many star-studded extravaganzas since, from galas to the Golden Globes. Red carpets and razzle-dazzle

[Hilton, from E1] panding production demands. rules when the two-week Televi- Last year, Robertson clocked 19 sion Critics Assn. press tour fills miles on his pedometer as he moni- the Beverly Hilton with network tored the carefully controlled cha- stars and critics previewing the fall os of Golden Globe night. season. This year, it took a full week of Even after 62 years, there’s no production to put on the evening’s rest for the hardest-working hotel festivities for 4,300 guests, who in Hollywood. were hydrated Sunday night by “We are the place to go for the Moët & Chandon bubbly and entertainment business,” hotel served a multi-course dinner for manager Michael Robertson said which new executive chef Alberico with a smile. It was just two days Nunziata flew in 400 pounds of before the 74th Golden Globes, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese from he looked startlingly relaxed. The Italy. tightly secured complex, on the And unlike the cavernous but other hand, bustled with produc- boxy ballrooms in competing ho- tion crews building red carpet and tels, the Beverly Hilton’s Interna- party set-ups, a crackle of electric- tional Ballroom is artfully de- ity in the air. “I think of the Beverly signed to facilitate awards show Hilton as the epicenter of Los An- class division: A central pit for the geles. Our history is important. beautiful and famous, the better to This is the iconic place to have your catch every tipsy tipple and shade- awards show.” Art Streiber throwing glance for the TV audi- The Beverly Hilton has long THE HOTEL’S International Ballroom is set up for 74th Golden Globe Awards this month. ence watching at home, bounded held a unique position among the by three tiers of table seating for ev- region’s upscale hotels. Conrad eryone else, all the way to the back Hilton opened the Welton Becket- of the room, where journalists and designed property in 1955 during a plebes in borrowed tuxes have to Beverly Hills development boom crane their necks to watch Cecil B. fueled by the motion picture indus- DeMille Award recipient Meryl try, attracting the stars of Holly- Streep anger Trump’s America. wood and Washington alike. At the hotel’s official opening, luminaries ‘A very hot ticket’ were greeted with fireworks, ele- “First of all, it’s the room,” said phants and Champagne fountains. Meher Tatna, vice president of the Then-Vice President Richard HFPA and a member of the organi- Nixon raised the American flag at a zation since 2002. “We haven’t been buzzy opening ceremony and later able to find a similar room any- returned in 1962 to give his famous where else. It’s also the intimate at- “last” news conference, eventually mosphere and the fact that be- reneging on that promise after he cause it’s limited seating, it’s a very was elected president six years lat- hot ticket. It just works to make it er. Kirk McKoy Los Angeles Times Lucy Nicholson Associated Press the party of the year.” A design conducive to discre- “I THINK of the Beverly Hilton as the epicenter of Los Angeles. MERV GRIFFIN holds court Thirty thousand feet of red car- tion may have also helped the Bev- Our history is important,” says the hotel’s Michael Robertson. in 2003, when he owned hotel. pet winds from the arrivals scrum erly Hilton become a hot spot for to the ballroom, outfitted with top- President John F. Kennedy, who, of-the-line screens projecting the hotel insiders like to confide, used stage all the way to a smoking patio to sneak in Marilyn Monroe overlooking the hotel pool. The ge- through employee hallways, away ography is unrivaled at any other from prying eyes. local venue. Walkable after-parties The place has had no shortage mean the Globes ecosystem keeps of scandal since: Sen. John Ed- its glamorous guests on the prem- wards’ extramarital affair, exposed ises longer, which means that more by tabloid reporters the night of photos of partying stars will circu- the annual TCA Awards, Holly- late through the media for days, wood madam Heidi Fleiss’ “busi- weeks, months and beyond. ness” dealings, Whitney Houston’s At an “intimate” scale of 1,300 2012death in a luxury suite bathtub guests, the hot Golden Globes the weekend of Davis’ Grammys ticket is relatively exclusive com- party. pared to the Oscars, where the film academy packs more than twice as The biz of show biz many attendees into the 3,400-ca- But a constant in the hotel’s cli- pacity Dolby Theatre. But there’s entele has always been the busi- no temptation to turn the Globe ness of show business, even long party into more of an Oscar event, before “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of said Tatna. “It’s a dinner party, it Fortune” mogul Merv Griffin has to be relatively small. We have bought it for more than $100 million no plans to expand it.” in 1987. (Current owner Beny And yet, she admits, HFPA or- Alagem snagged it from Griffin in ganizers are not wedded to the ven- 2003 and is constructing a Waldorf ue that’s been synonymous with Astoria sister hotel on adjacent the Golden Globes for more than a grounds, to open in late April.) half-century. Soon, they’ll hold During his tenure, Griffin lined Kirk McKoy Los Angeles Times their Globes postmortem, prep- his office at the Beverly Hilton with FABULOUSLY GOWNED STARS line the red carpet for the 70th Golden Globes in 2013. ping for their 2018 show and dis- his Emmy statues and lunched secting major snafus like last year’s poolside with Hollywood friends. events. The Four Seasons on Do- the Sunset Strip, siphons precious rooms equipped with state-of-the- Shuttlegate, when new security He kept a special place in his heart heny, an institution so fluidly in- famous faces from the Beverly art technology offer more than protocols left party-bound stars for black-tie soirees at the hotel, grained into the celebrity machine Hilton even on Globes night, away 60,000 square feet of intercon- and studio execs stranded for which “was the scene of one of the that it has a downright mannerly from the official after-parties. nected event space on the ground hours in an unglamorous parking greatest nights of my life,” he wrote relationship with the paparazzi It’s part legacy, part geography floor, all of which is needed for garage. in his 2003 memoir, recalling a bash who lurk outside the valet stand, that keeps Hollywood coming back sprawling events like the TV tour. “We talk about it all the time, thrown in his honor that saw the waiting for celebrities, holds a mo- to the Beverly Hilton to throw its Still, the hotel’s prized gala re- and once in a while we go and look International Ballroom trans- nopoly on studio press junkets on most important events outside of mains the Golden Globe Awards, at other hotels,” Tatna says. “But formed into the old Cocoanut any given weekend in Beverly Hills. the Academy Awards. Celebrity and the feeling appears to be mutu- we always come back to the Grove nightclub. The dauntingly exclusive Chateau guests make use of the lavish pri- al: The Hollywood Foreign Press Hilton.” There’s plenty of competition Marmont and its private bunga- vate suites upstairs to primp and Assn. has re-upped every year for angling to host the industry’s most lows, where the rich and famous pre-party before big bashes. Three 42 years through several owner- [email protected] exclusive — and lucrative — party in hillside seclusion just off of ballrooms and a wing of meeting ship changes, hotel facelifts and ex- Twitter: @jenyamato