We had the pleasure of sitting down recently with accomplished Old Hollywood novelist Martin Turnbull for a brief Q&A session to discuss movies, writing, as well as his numerous other interests.
Q: You indicate in your website bio that you have a “lifelong love of travel.” Based on this statement, where is your favorite place to travel to, and why?
A: “I am really a Europe guy. Drop me anywhere in Europe and I am a happy chappy. I’m also a big history buff so any city with a royal palace is fine by me. Outside of that, I’m a big fan of Paris, Amsterdam, and the Italian Riviera, especially Cinque Terre, which is like no other place on earth. (If you’ve seen the new Disney-Pixar movie, Luca, it’s like the town where that movie is set.) But if I had to pick one, I would probably choose the Bavaria / Switzerland / Austria area. I am not a skier, but I really love the pristine Alpine feel to that part of the world. I especially love Vienna and Salzburg (and not just because I’m a huge The Sound of Music fan. Okay, I admit it, maybe that’s part of the appeal.)”
Q: Before becoming a successful author, you worked as a private tour guide in and around Los Angeles. During that time, what was your favorite celebrity home or landmark to visit?
A: “You are going to laugh because of the story you’ve done about this on your website (Click Here to read it), but my favorite celebrity place is to go along Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills because it is filled with the homes of world-famous people that everybody’s heard of. A lot of the homes are no longer there (I always look with dagger eyes at the people who pulled down the George Gershwin house at 1019 N. Roxbury—I still haven’t forgiven them for that) but even so, you can still get a pretty good idea of what it was like to live in Beverly Hills at the time of golden-era Hollywood.
As for my favorite landmark, it would probably be the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. I didn’t look like the look of it when I saw the drawings, but when I first saw it in real life after it was completed, it was like nothing I had ever seen. Is so striking that I couldn’t help but fall in love with it. It is now a must stop whatever I take out-of-towners into downtown Los Angeles.”
Q: If you could attend a dinner party with 5 celebrities from the past who would they be and why?
A: “Oh my goodness, so many choices I think I’d have to go with:
• George Cukor – for his charm and wit and his famous hospitality. Apparently, he gave wonderful dinner parties and Sunday brunches that everyone wanted to attend.
• Irving Thalberg –in the process of writing a novel about him, The Heart of the Lion, I came to understand how he achieved the heights he reached in his career: by acting and being the opposite of his peers and contemporaries. I’d love the chance to sit next to him and discover what made him tick, but hear it in his own words.
• Katharine Hepburn – because she called a spade a spade, which is rare in Hollywood. I’d like to hear the real lowdown and what she was thinking and experiencing through all her career ups and downs.
• Judy Garland – not just because I love everything she did on screen, but from what I hear, Judy was fun and funny and loved a party. And apparently, it didn’t take much to coax her into singing a few numbers around the piano. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to be at a party where Judy Garland gives a private concert?
• Bette Davis – because she’s had a rollercoaster career which I’d love to hear about directly from her unfiltered, candid, no-holds-barred mouth.”
Q: If you could travel back in time and live for 1 year what year would you choose and why?
A: “I don’t even have to think about that. I would return to 1939, a.k.a. “Hollywood’s Greatest Year” because that is when Hollywood was at the peak of its peak: Gone with the Wind, Wuthering Heights, Goodbye Mr. Chips, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Hunchback of Notre Dame—and that’s just the start. I would beg, borrow, or steal tickets to all of the premieres and of course the post premiere parties wherever they may have been. I would also visit as many restaurants and nightclubs as I could: the Brown Derby, the Trocadero, Ciro’s, Clara Bow’s It Café, Baron Long’s Ship Café, the Biltmore Bowl, the Hollywood Palladium, and of course the Cocoanut Grove.”
Q: What are your 5 favorite movies?
A: “No fair! It is almost impossible for me to narrow it down to a top-five, but here we go. In no particular order:
• Sunset Blvd
• Casablanca
• The Wizard of Oz
• Now, Voyager
• North by Northwest
Honorable mentions go to:
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
• Roman Holiday
• Gone with the Wind
• Citizen Kane
• The Women
• Some Like it Hot
• The Maltese Falcon
• Singin’ in the Rain
• All About Eve
• Mildred Pierce
See? I told you I couldn’t narrow it down to just five.”
Q: How did you become interested in the Garden of Allah and what made you decide to write about it?
A: “I had previously written three novels which were okay, but not good enough to take through to publication. So I was casting around for an idea that made me think, “Yes! That’s an idea I can do something with.“ I later came across an online article about a hotel on Sunset Boulevard called the Garden of Allah. I was amazed by the people who stayed there, many of them A-list Hollywood celebrities like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Ginger Rogers, Errol Flynn, Harpo Marks, and Orson Welles. And not just movie stars but it seemed half of the Algonquin Roundtable also stayed there, including Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker, and F Scott Fitzgerald.”
I had been reading Hollywood biographies and memoirs since the 1970s and yet I had never heard of this place??? I wanted to know more, so I tracked down the one book about the hotel written by gossip columnist, Sheilah Graham. I was perhaps 10 pages in when I knew what I wanted to do. This is mainly stemmed from the fact that the hotel opened in 1927, just a couple of months before The Jazz Singer ushered in the talkies, and closed in 1959 which was the dusk of the Hollywood studio era with movies like Ben-Hur and Some Like it Hot.
I recognized that I could tell the unfolding history of Hollywood’s golden years through the eyes of the people who lived at the hotel because they were the ones making those movies. Not just starting in them, but writing them, directing them, lighting them. I instantly knew that I could tell the story through three newcomers who check into the hotel during the first week and then we get to follow the ups and downs of their lives (and of Hollywood) for the 32 years that the hotel was open.
Q: What appeals to you about Old Hollywood?
A: “What I find endlessly interesting about this era is not just the craftsmanship that went into making these movies. But also the cost. I don’t mean the financial cost—I’m interested in the emotional toll it took on these people, especially the ones in front of the camera. Hollywood movies from this era spent a lot of time, money, and effort projecting images of perfection. But of course none of these people were perfect, and the effort it took to project and maintain that perfection led to sometimes messy, sometimes complicated, but always all-too-human lives.
Some of the lucky ones skated through untouched by the Hollywood system. But many of them had to deal with difficulties every bit as dramatic as what they put on the screen. It’s the chasm between the perfection they were working towards in their professional lives contrasted with their personal lives that makes, at least for me, endlessly interesting reading. And writing.”
Q: You have a new book called “All the Gin Joints” which I think people could guess a little about the subject matter based on the title. Can you give us a brief synopsis?
A: “It’s been on my mind for a while now how nearly every Hollywood story is about someone who comes from someplace else and moves to L.A. To make it big or transform themselves into something – or someone – new. I wanted to write a story about a character who comes to Hollywood reluctantly—and then gets stuck here. I’ve also felt that the chaotic filming of Casablanca would make a great backdrop for a novel. All the Gin Joints is what happened when I blended those two ideas into a story that’s set during the first year of WWII. But what it’s really about is how you can find your true home in the place you least expect it.”
Q: We understand that you collect and sell vintage Disney memorabilia. How did you get your start in this hobby/business?
A: “It was my husband who started collecting Disney memorabilia in the late 1970s—specifically Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Pretty soon he landed on the idea of opening a store that only sold Disney items. I’m sure people thought that starting such a niche store was a crazy idea . . . until it became a success because the store was unusual. There was no other store like it in the world! Fantasies Come True opened in 1980, so it preceded the official Disney Stores by 7 years. And now, here we are over 40 years later, still going strong.”
Q: How has the memorabilia game changed since you started?
A: “The thing about the Disney universe is that it’s ever-expanding. Every year a new Disney movie comes out, plus maybe a Pixar movie. So there’s a new big-haired princess, a new snarky villain, a new sassy side-kick. Plus, of course, there’s now the Muppets, Star Wars, Marvel. But what’s really changed is that when the store first opened, people were really only into the vintage stuff. They didn’t mind if there was a crack or a chip or faded colors or missing paint. It showed that the figurine had history. It had had previous owners, and had survived moves and earthquakes and pets and children.
These days most people want their collectibles in mint condition. In the original box or packaging, preferably with a certificate of authenticity. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but personally I prefer the vintage stuff showing some of life’s wear and tear. I guess it’s similar to why I like to study the history of golden-era Hollywood. It’s that push-and-pull tension of dealing with the chaos of real life while reaching for perfection.”
To learn more about Martin Turnbull and the Garden of Allah Click Here.
