![]() Illustration from the cover of a Trader Vic’s menu. Various copycats ensued, including the highly successful Trader Vic’s. She turned out to be twice as savvy as he, and expanded the establishment into a chain, and a popular one at that. Second, while Donn was overseas, his wife Sunny managed Don the Beachcomber (the bar, not the man). Military men brought back coconut shells and grass skirts to their new suburban homes. News of this paradise came back from overseas, and the idea of a tropical vacation began to grow in the American pop culture consciousness. First, thousands of American youth were shipped out to the Pacific, where many of them were seeing palm trees and beaches for the very first time. (Photo: Hawaiian Beachcomber)ĭespite the fact that he himself was drafted, World War II turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to Donn Beach and the tiki craze. ![]() Eventually there would be a myna bird trained to say, “Give me a beer, stupid.”īob Hope learns to hula at Don the Beachcomber in Waikiki. Soft ukulele and “ exotica” music was ever-present, both played live and piped in. Celebrities and civilians alike flocked to the Beachcomber, and Donn knew how to keep them there: knowing customers were more likely to stay for another drink if the weather was inclement, he created his own tropical rainstorm via garden hose on the roof. Gantt cast himself as the master of ceremonies and legally changed his name to Donn Beach. He named it the Beachcomber Café, and he put his all into making patrons feel as though they were in a little grass shack somewhere far off in the Pacific. In 1934 he opened a bar in Los Angeles where he made rum drinks (it was the cheapest liquor he could get) and decorated it with Polynesian flair he had collected, along with buoys and nets he scrounged up from the waterfront. ![]() He worked a number of odd jobs, but having traveled in the Caribbean and Pacific, he found himself successful as a technical advisor on the numerous South Seas films Hollywood was churning out. (Photo: Hawaiian Beachcomber)Įrnest Beaumont Gantt made his way through the Depression as a bootlegger, but when prohibition ended he was out of a job. Don the Beachcomber HUNTINGTON BEACH, CALIFORNIAĮrnest Beaumont Gantt, a.k.a. A kitsch renaissance in the 1990s made way for a number of new tiki bars you can visit today, and a handful of the original vintage locales still exist. Midcentury Tiki culture fetishized island life, to be sure, and it largely faded out when its faux primitivism began to seem tacky.īut American tiki isn’t quite done yet. The palm trees were plastic, the food was Americanized Chinese, the decor was a messy blend of imitation Polynesian, Caribbean, and African indigenous art, and the hula dancers were usually Midwestern brunettes with spray tans. Postcard advertising the Menehune Banquet Room at the Waldorf in Vancouver, c. Of course, much of the ambience they were soaking up was not an accurate representation of life on a Pacific island. At these tropical establishments, patrons could soak up the atmosphere and excitement of the South Pacific without even leaving their suburb. They were a hit, and Polynesia became the de facto image of paradise in America’s collective imagination.Įnter the tiki bar. Films set in exotic locations grew popular for this reason, with South Seas-inspired stories becoming a particular draw.ĭecades before South Pacific hit Broadway stages, films of the era featured white, male adventurers and native maidens grappling with magical island enchantment, shipwrecks, pirates, romance, and the like. (Photo: 1950sUnlimited/CC BY 2.0.)Īs Hollywood boomed in the early 1930s, moviegoers wanted to see more of the world, and the film industry had the means to show it to them. Dancers and musicians at the Mai-Kai, circa 1950s.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |