Book Reviewed: The Garden of Allah by Sheilah Graham
This is the inside story of a playground, and a hideaway for Hollywood elite in the golden era. This was dreamt, and brought to reality by the 1920s screen goddess, Alla Nazimova. Author Sheilah Graham, a well-respected newspaper columnist, also a resident at the sanctuary, gives us a firsthand look at what went on inside and outside the walls. She discusses the residents, the players who hung out, the domestic issues of the celebrities, the movies they were making, and the studio business in a lucid manner. She observes that in its 32 years of its existence, the Garden witnessed despair, drunkenness, marriages & divorces, sex & orgies, fights, suicides, robberies and murders. Well known nightclubs such as; Mocambo, Ciro's, Trocadero, and of course the Schwab's Drugstore were very close to the Garden. Schwab's was handy for celebs; Arthur Miller use to stop by late nights for sleeping medications for Marilyn Monroe.
The Garden had notable intellectuals like, Somerset Maugham, Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, and Dorothy Parker. Leading men and women such as Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Rudolph Valentino, Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Spencer Tracy and Kathryn Hepburn were residents. The 25 bungalows built around a swimming pool followed very little traditional rules. The party started at night and go into wee hours, and sometimes much later. Barrymore had a valet carry his portable bar, Tallulah Bankhead use to whiz by the pool fully naked and announcing to the crowd about her nudity; the fist fight between Bogart and his wife Mayo Methot was common. Bogart had a bodyguard to protect him and Lauren Bacall from the tempestuously physical Mayo Methot; John Carradine was chased by his wife Sonja around the pool; and altercation between Errol Flynn and Pat Wymore, and many other types of spectacles were common occurrences.
The dirty laundry is not aired openly like many books about Hollywood scandals. The author uses her discretion in exposing the juicy stuff in a respectable feminine fashion. For example; when writer Eddie Chodorov came to Hollywood in 1932, Kay Francis was the queen at Warner Brothers. He went up to call his mother from a party downstairs, but had entered the wrong bedroom, Kay Francis's bedroom. He apologetically said, "I came to call my mom." "Do it for Christ sake," she said in a drunken voice with an empty bottle of brandy in her hand. Then she said "Come here, kid" and she pulled him into bed. Much later, he called his mother, and she asked how he liked Hollywood, he said in an excited tone, "VERY MUCH." The expression says it all, the magic he found at Garden. Rudolph Valentino met Nazimova at the Garden in its early days. She introduced him to Jean Acker with whom he fell in love and married; and later she introduced Natasha Rambova who became his second wife much to the displeasure of Nazimova even though she was confirmed lesbian; and so were Jean Acker and Natasha Rambova. Pola Negri, another friend of Nazimova seriously fell in love with Valentino; she felt like a schoolgirl having a crush on her male teacher.
Director Johnny Farrow, husband of Maureen O'Sullivan had a snake tattooed near his thigh and it appeared to be emerging from his manhood. He used to show off in front of the ladies at the pool. He was the star at the Garden's swimming pool. Anita Louise, a blond and beautiful actress was a conversation piece at the Garden, and she use to swim in full makeup with every hair on her head in place.
When Mary Astor's personal diaries were published which described her trysts with writer George Kaufman, he moved to the Garden next door to Natalie Schafer, wife of actor Louis Calhern. He continued to show his prowess with Schafer when Calhern was away. The press followed wherever Kaufman went because the Astor's diaries were so hot.
Garden of Allah was heaven for folks who liked this life style. Whenever an "in" person of the crowd passed away at the Garden; there used to be a big party for the departed soul. For Bogart, the party lasted for three days, which indicates his popularity at the Garden
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