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Barbratimeless A Personal Retrospective on the Career of Barbra Streisand |
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Editorial: Cocoanut Grove Meets the Wrecking BallMarch 2008
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(March 11, 2008) - Barbra Streisand was received like royalty when she performed at the Cocoanut Grove in 1963. Her shows in the venerable showroom of the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Blvd. were some of the most important appearances of her career. They formally introduced Barbra to the elite of west coast show business and helped catapult her to national stardom. Everyone in Hollywood came out to see Barbra, from Lucille Ball to Natalie Wood to Judy Garland. In 1994, Barbra commented that she "was the least known person in the room," an accurate assessment on her opening night. But by the time she closed her engagement at the Grove on September 8th, her standing among the ranks of major celebrities was forever changed. |
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The
Cocoanut Grove opened in 1921. Not only was the Cocoanut Grove a showplace
for many of the major performers of the day, but it was also the home of
the Oscar award ceremonies during the 1930s and 1940s. The first ever
Oscar award statue was handed out at the Grove.
The Ambassador Hotel, which housed the Grove, was the focal point of one
of the darkest days in American history when Senator Robert F. Kennedy was
assassinated in the hotel's kitchen following a campaign appearance. This
June will mark the 40th anniversary of that tragic event in American
history.
The Los Angeles school
district purchased the land on which the Ambassador Hotel and the Cocoanut
Grove stood. Preservation activists, led by such luminaries as film star
Diane Keaton, tried for years to prevent the demise of the hotel. Their
efforts proved futile. The Ambassador Hotel was razed last year. The
Cocoanut Grove, however, managed to escape its inevitable fate a bit
longer as plans were made to incorporate the former night club into a new
school campus to be constructed on the site. Years of neglect at the
boarded up Cocoanut Grove ultimately dashed any hopes for its salvation.
Deemed structurally unsound, the Cocoanut Grove was demolished on February
12, 2008.
So the question remains. Why are we as a society so neglectful of our own
rich cultural history? The demise of the Cocoanut Grove is just one of
countless examples of the "build 'em up and tear 'em down" policy
Americans take for granted. When it comes to cultural and historic
preservation, we need to take pause before commissioning a wrecking ball.
As for Hollywood, anyone with an interest in its glorious history will
have to rely on photographs in historical archives to get any sense of
what life was really like during its golden age.