Alla Nazimova, silent film star, and her home, the Garden of Allah

Her home, and later, hotel. The Garden of Alla. it was open as a hotel from 1927 - 1959 and was the stomping grounds of many of Hollywood's elite in infamous. The hotel featured private villas and bungalows scattered around the grounds.

An interesting article with photos from Messy Nessy.

Wow, I would have loved that place. All the sex and tatty glamour.

Saw this in unrestored condition in the lobby of the bank that replaced it circa 1995. Disappeared soon after.

She was Nancy Reagan's godmother.

Pauline Kael was appalled by Ken Russell's portrait of her in Valentino, played by Leslie Caron. She said that whatever his legal rights, what gave him the right to turn Nazimova into nothing more than a cheap, vengeful, blackmailing bitch. She said she was the finest actresses she'd ever seen and even her parents could detail her performances.

and later resurfaced. Some guy found it and is using it (with a glass cover) as his coffee table.

R1 The joint has changed a bit.

I would have loved to visit The Garden of Allah, but it was torn down a few years before I was born. Th3 strip mall that’s there in its place is hideous.

R4, I just finished the first volume, The Garden on Sunset. It's a fun book, full of stars names circa early 1930s. Good light reading when perfect for sheltering in place. The main character is gay, goes to Hollywood when he's kicked out of his Midwestern home when his father caught him in the act with his friend.

R8 - there was a great Asian massage place In that strip mall - an hour was $40 about 8 years ago. Haven’t been back to LA in awhile.

Tim Powers wrote a fun novel, [italic]Medusa's Web[/italic], with Alla Nazimova as a secondary character.

Caswell-Massey revived "Marem," its perfume concocted in honor of and for Alla Nazimova (born Marem Leventhal).

R8 You can't fight progress

You can eat a Big Mac where Nazamova ate out Mrs Valentino.

Nazimova's Salome had an all gay cast.

Here she is in one of her last films, The Bridge of San Luis Rey 1944, playing Doña Maria – The Marquesa.

She had all-girl pool parties on Sundays...

A wig she wore in the film Salome was discovered in a trunk in Georgia in 2014.

Here's a video of Salome with Alla wearing the wig. The music is very pretty.

Wow thanks OP! I love forgotten history like this. I used to live around the corner from the ugly strip mall where the hotel once stood, what a shame it's gone.

The debauchery that took place there sounds like it rivaled 1920-30s Berlin.

I downloaded and read all of Turnbull's books. They were fun.

They say her Salome was influenced by Beardsley's drawings, but I think they were more influenced by the German illustrator Alastair, who did a version of Salome that came out the year of her film.

I love Aubrey Beardley's work and saw originals in an exhibit at the De Young Museum in SF. They were incredible, so wonderfully detailed.

Gavin Lambert wrote an excellent biography of Nazimova. It is a great read for anyone who is looking for a good book.

Aubrey was gay but no stunner.

Thank you, R18!

I've always wanted to see that film, and you gave us a link at a time when nobody has anything better to do.

I have a memory which now it seems can not be possibly true. Around 1982, Some friends and I had gone to a revival movie house to see "A Clockwork Orange". Afterwards we were driving along on Sunset and it was a busy night and there was a lot of traffic so things were moving slowly. Nice night, windows down and someone drove by on a bike singing "I'm Singing in the Rain". We laughed and figured perhaps he had just seen the movie too. Of the sights I distinctly remember looking out to my right and seeing the hotel "The Garden of Alla". I wondered about it because I must have read or heard of it. It was old and I had the impression that it was no longer a hotel but a resident with apartments.

I can still see the place in my mind. The surface was a mustard stucco and the lettering was a dark green. Weird, huh?

I remember first reading about Alla Nazimova in Kenneth Anger's book "Hollywood Babylon". She supposedly had a fling with Rudolph Valentino's wife Natacha Rambova, real name Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy. Apparently is was cool back in the 1920's to have a Russian sounding name in the theater world.

The Turnbulll series is a fun read.

He wrote one after the Garden of Alla series called Chasing Salomé which is about Nazimov's journey to make the film.

r7 How old is that picture? Washington Mutual hasn't been around since 2008.

If those walls could talk! Seems as if anyone who mattered in old Hollywood staid at Garden of Allah hotel.

Auction sale of contents.

More:

Alla was Alla without the "h" but her hotel was the Garden of Allah, with the "h."

There was a popular book in 1904 called "The Garden of Allah," which was a desert oasis. It was filmed in 1916, 1927, and most famously with Marlene Dietrich in Technicolor in 1936. Maxfield Parrish also had a "Garden of Allah" painting in 1918. Nazimova most likely took her title from the book, and the fact that it used a variation of her name was a bonus.

R26 very weird since the hotel was torn down in the late 50s

An article about the Garden of Allah Hotel by Martin Turnbull. Nice pics and long list of people who stayed or visited there.

Scotty Bowers wrote that the Garden of Allah was the site of Charles Laughton's merde sandwiches luncheon.

1988 Hollywood Scandals and Legends episode on Alla Nazimova

In high school, I was really interested in this place and even went into the bank which had a mock up of the Garden.

[quote]mock up of the Garden

1. Oh dear. (mock-up)

2. It was a highly detailed miniature recreation of the Garden as seen in this blog's photographs. Though the cars could be more period.

In addition to her Hollywood career, she was renowned for her performances in Chekhov and Ibsen plays. The Lambert bio suggested above is extraordinary, reads like a good novel.

[quote]He wrote one after the Garden of Alla series called Chasing Salomé which is about Nazimov's journey to make the film.

Is Nazimov on whom Norma Desmond was based?

Salomé. Sunset Blvd.