Hollywood Handbook

By Andre Balazs

Book Overview

The come-back of the year Available again for the first time since 1996. This is Hollywood through the prism of its most legendary dormitory.

"The story of the Chateau Marmont parallels the story of Hollywood so thoroughly as to be inseparable from it...It's possible that no hotel in America inspires so much nostalgia, speculation, and sheer devotion."
-- VANITY FAIR

As happens in literature, where the hero sooner or later turns up at a hotel, so it happens that seemingly every creative talent in Hollywood eventually checks in at the Chateau. To paraphrase Somerset Maugham, speaking of another illustrious hotel in the Far East, the Chateau stands for all the fables of exotic Hollywood. Call it the vantage from the Citadel of Boh me. The result is not only an extraordinary oeuvre of films, music, and literature created in and about the Chateau, but also an attitude and a perspective of the surrounding culture.

THE CHATEAU MARMONT'S HOLLYWOOD HANDBOOK, a classic edited by Andr Balazs, is now available for the first time since the late 1990s. Between these covers is a collection of facts and fiction about a certain place, throughout nearly a century. It is about the icons of an evolving neighborhood, the ethos of an evolving culture. The result is not only an extraordinary oeuvre of films, music and literature created in and about the Chateau, but also an attitude and a perspective of the surrounding culture.

"Checking into the hotel is like stepping into a living history. It's out of time, suspended from the constraints, the issues, the concerns of the real world...In a city without a center, you could call this spot the epicenter: this is where deals are made - where love is won or lost - sometimes all in one night."
- AM HOLMES

LEGENDARY LITERARY CONTRIBUTORS: Blaise Cendrars, William Faulkner, Budd Schulberg, Lillian Ross, Azel Madsen, Gore Vidal, Eve Babitz, Jill Selsman, Anthony Haden-Guest, Jay McInerney, Bertram Fields, Dominick Dunne, Francis Ford Coppola, Harold Brodkey, and Mike Davis, and more

LEGENDARY ART & PHOTOS: Chuck Boyd, Sofia Coppola, Todd Eberle, Robert Gober, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, David Hockney, Dennis Hopper, Jean Howard, Spike Jonze, Martin Kippenberger, Annie Leibovitz, McDermott and McGough, Roddy McDowall, Camilla McGrath, Patrick McMullan, Helmut Newton, G rard Nicolas, Jack Pierson, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Art Streiber, David Salle, Julian Schnabel, Tim Street-Porter, Wolfgang Tillmans, Ellen von Unwerth, Christopher Walken, & Bruce Weber.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0789300230
• ISBN13: 9780789300232
• Release Date: October 1996
• Publisher: Universe
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.39 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 1.0" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Intriguing and Legendary like the Chateau Marmont Itself

Well, I am proud to say that I have been to the Chateau Marmont on many occasions. In fact, I even spent my 29th birthday there in a bungalow with its own koi fish pond!!! I listened to the Beatles White Album and hung out on my very own patio, what a treat! This book is a wonderful escape into the private and not so private life of the Chateau. This wonderful hotel still has its 1926 flavor, yet with a hip new twist. The drawing room is still the most wonderful place on the premises and many stories in this book revolve around that very room. Legends, baby! This book, like the Chateau will never die, I will see to that. I agree with the last reviewer, Dominic Dunne writes about his experiences living in the Chateau's Hughes penthouse in the early 1970s. Truly magical, this book will delight and intrigue anyone who reads it. I love and miss the Chateau and plan to return very soon! Great book, great place!

Entertaining History of One of Hollywood's Landmarks

I picked up this colorful trade book in a bookstore and had to have it. A collection of stories, rememberances, photos and facts about one of Hollywood's more interesting landmarks--the Chauteau Marmont. I had never heard of it before, but now I understand it's place in LAs history. If you love to read Vanity Fair, this is a book for you. (Especially the article by Dominick Dunne.) I work in the publishing industry, and I have to say that the books' designer and editor both deserve great praise for the care and sophistication with which this book was put together