MOCAMBO

After witnessing the fabulous success of Billy Wilkerson's Cafe Trocadero, entrepreneurs Charlie Morrison and Felix Young cashed in on the black-tie crowd with their own club on the Sunset Strip. The Mocambo opened with a star-studded fanfare in January, 1941 at 6588 Sunset Boulevard. The club featured a Latin theme, complete with some thirty cockatoos, macaws, and parrots in glass cages lining the walls.

Though exotic, the design of the Mocambo's interior was intentionally designed to provide comfortable atmosphere allowing "regular" people to mix with celebrities. Among the later who frequented the Moc were Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Errol Flynn, Charlie Chaplin, Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, Henry Fonda, Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, Bob Hope, James Cagney, Sophia Loren, Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner, Grace Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, Howard Hughes, Kay Marlene Dietrich, Tyrone Power, Jayne Mansfield, John Wayne, Ann Sothern, and Louis B. Mayer.

Among the "firsts" claimed for the Mocambo is Frank Sinatra's premier west-coast performance after going solo in 1943. During the mid-1950s Ella Fitzgerald became the first African-American performer to appear at the Moc. This event is supposed to have occurred as the result of Marilyn Monroe's urging the club's owners to give Fitzgerald a chance.

As with all good things, the Mocambo came to an end in 1959. The building's location is now the parking lot for a Burger King, which features some of the Moc's original interior decor on it's walls. A black-tie is not required for admission to the Burger King.

AUDIO: PUTTIN' ON THE RITZ
Performed by HARRY RICHMAN