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 I’ll never forget my visit to the Garden of Allah in Hollywood, though, when I was there, it looked more like the Garden of Alla Pugacheva, (the number one superstar singer in Russia for the past 20 years), instead of the once famous love nest of silent screen star Allah Nazimova.
Once the home of many of Hollywood’s most popular and notorious stars, the fabled Garden of Allah was known for its scandalous sex, booze and pot parties, hosted by the infamous Nazimova.
 Though I had often written about Nazimova, and the Garden of Allah, I never met the Garden’s namesake. In 1957, however, I interviewed producer-director Paul Gregory (“John Brown’s Body,” “The Caine Mutiny Court Martial,” “The Rivalry”), at the fabled Hollywood landmark.
The fact that California developers razed the Garden of Allah in 1959 now makes my visit all that more memorable. I had met Gregory in Texas in 1956, when he came to Baylor University in Waco at the invitation of his then partner, Charles Laughton, to see the heralded Paul Baker production of “Hamlet.”
When I came to California in 1957 for the Fifteenth Air Force Talent Contest (in Riverside), and introduced Jayne Mansfield on stage to the packed house of U.S. servicemen, I spent a couple of days in Hollywood later visiting with Gregory and checking out the usual Hollywood hotspots. Gregory took me to Ciro’s, the Mocambo and the Interlude down on the Sunset Strip and personally gave me a tour of the Garden of Allah.
I had always been in awe of the “rich and famous” people who had lived on the grounds in its heyday or who partied until the wee hours, (sometimes around the clock), totally oblivious to any moral code of ethics or rules and regulations generally adhered to by the establishment and (most of the time, out of necessity) by other members of the Hollywood film community.
 Of course, as a writer, I was especially intrigued with the fact that Dorothy Parker and her gang of New York “Roundtable writer buddies” had sorta “set up house” there and that other famous writers, like F. Scott Fitzgerald, had rendezvous there with Sheila Graham for secret sexual flings, which were every bit as scandalous as the ones portrayed in the movies.
 When silent film star Allah Nazimova first set up her Garden of Allah in the ‘20s, it was way out from civilization, then, from the little hamlet known as Hollywood. But, when I visited the Garden, it looked somewhat out of place, all “scrunched up” there with all its palm trees, swimming pool and intimate little cabana guest houses in the middle of “concrete city.”
Perhaps the best way to describe the Garden of Allah to folks today, who are not familiar with the famous landmark, is to say that it looked like an elaborate theme-oriented tourist-attraction motor hotel, with its landscaped gardens and trees, private cabanas and giant swimming pool.
It had seen better days, and was beginning to look a bit seedy, but it was still an imposing sight. Had I been a guest at the Garden in the heyday of “Madame” Nazimova, I’m quite sure everything would have been quite different.
At the dawn of the Silver Screen, it was women who were the fabulous film stars; they pumped out romance, glamour, and sex, and were very handsomely paid for it. Male stars were popular, yes, but not legendary - it was the comedy kings who claimed the crowns: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Fatty Arbuckle.
In the 1920's, there were four glorious female movie stars in “Hollywood Heaven” - all imported from Europe. Adored by their fans, rich and famous, all of the four were acquainted with Hollywood's most nimble lesbian Lothario - the writer Mercedes de Acosta. They were Alla Nazimova, Pola Negri, Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, (whom I later interviewed when she was touring with her act in posh supper clubs and cabarets).
 Yet, of these four today, Nazimova is the least known. Garbo and Dietrich broke the “sound barrier” in the late 1920s; the undulating Pola Negri still remains in Hollywood textbooks as the femme fatale of the “Silents” who married a European prince; many of their silent films survive because of their subsequent fame.
Nazimova was the first to come to Hollywood, in 1916, under contract to Metro pictures (later MGM). Arriving in New York in 1906, she quickly became an immensely successful stage actress in New York, specializing in the plays of Chekov and Ibsen.
 Jewish-Russian, born in The Crimea in 1879, Nazimova was 5'3" tall, with remarkable violet blue eyes and a shock of black curly hair. Spending a great deal of her childhood days in Switzerland, she was fluent in French, German and Russian - and on arriving in the USA learned English in three months!
She was a superbly dramatic and dedicated actress, fiery and emotional: overwhelmingly popular with New York audiences to whom she was always known as “Madame.” Purportedly “married” to the British actor Charles Bryant, (they never were), Madame became part of a wide artistic lesbian circle which included not only the fearsomely active Mercedes de Acosta but also theatrical agent Bessie Marbury, her partner Elsie de Wolfe; the actress and theatrical producer Eva le Gallienne, (whom I later met and interviewed when she was a guest artist in residence at the Dallas Theater Center), the rich society hostesses Anne Vanderbilt and Anne Morgan.
 Of Nazimova's many silent films - only a handful, “Stronger Than Death,” made in 1920, “Camille,” made in 1921 with Rudolph Valentino and “Salome,” in 1922 have made it through. Of her stage performances, for which she was primarily most famous and often billed as “Nazimova the Unforgettable,” only fading photographs remain.
In 1919, Madame, earning $13,000 a week, spent $65,000 on a rambling Spanish House at 8080 Sunset Boulevard; way out of town, edging onto the hot and dusty Hollywood countryside. Parting with as much again, she remodeled the interior and landscaped the gardens with orange groves and cedars, flowering mimosas and hibiscus, loquat and bamboo.
There was a fabulous swimming pool made in the shape of the Black Sea; scandalously, it boasted “underwater lights,” a first in Hollywood! She called her house “The Garden of Allah.”
 The cream of Hollywood came to party at The Garden of Allah: Charlie Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle, Dorothy and Lilian Gish, Theda Bara, Gloria Swanson, Tom Mix and Buster Keaton, to name a few. Madame had an international guest list; minor royalty and globe trotting opera singers visited 8080 Sunset Boulevard and splashed happily in the pool consuming quantities of illegal alcohol and listening to first rate dance bands under the warm starlit night skies of California, with Madame - who sang Russian folk songs by the pool and talked of the European actresses Ellen Terry and Eleanora Duse.
June Mathis, the writer and Lilyan Tashman - known to prefer women - were favorite guests. Dorothy Arzner, the only woman to make it into “Talkie Hollywood” as a director, met and had a short fling with Madame. Dagmar Godowsky, the daughter of legendary musician Leopold Godowsky, said of Madame: “(She).. moved through your life like the moon, controlling your moods and quite often going behind a cloud...the Nazimova story was a script she herself had written as a starring vehicle. We were all her supporting players.”
 Like the forest fires, which sometimes swept down from the dry hills, drama was no stranger to The Garden.
In 1921, after a visit to New York, Madame towed back to Hollywood her “protégée,” a tall, thin 26-years-old part Cherokee actress named Jean Acker, who had a preference for mannish tailored suits.
Soon straying from Madame, Jean Acker started an affair with Grace Darmond, another Metro starlet; one evening when the three were at a dinner party to celebrate the end of a film, a handsome young “wannabe-a-film star” Italian actor, (who worked part time as a gardener), approached the women and introduced himself.
 Already smarting from Jean Acker's defection, Madame was brusque and sent him away, loftily calling him a “lounge lizard.” Hollywood - and Madame - was appalled when, eight weeks later, Jean Acker abandoned both of her women and married this small part bit player! The marriage was unhappy; (it was said to have never been consummated), the motives of all parties have never been satisfactorily explained. And, for the record, the “lounge lizard's” name was Rudolph Valentino.
The drama continued when Metro Pictures engaged a new, young and very talented woman designer for the motion picture “Aphrodite,” with Madame as the star; the film was never made but when the designer met Madame, they clicked instantly and an affair followed.
Natacha Rambova, (the designer was actually named Winifred Shaughnessy), designed some of her best work for the sets and costumes for “Camille,” in 1921. Forgiving Valentino, Madame chose him to play Armand opposite her Marguerite Gautier.
Amazingly, a year later, Valentino eloped again - this time with Natacha Rambova. Since he had only obtained a Mexican divorce from Jean Acker, which was not legally recognized in California, he was imprisoned briefly for bigamy. (Valentino had married two of Madame's ex-girlfriends).
 Rudolph Valentino became the first male superstar, the original box office platinum, the Romantic hero, bulging masculine sex appeal. And, it was after his overwhelming rise to success that started the slow slide of the female star into second place as the “compulsory sex/wifely interest,” a position, wherewith a few exceptions, she remains in the film Industry even to today.
Madame had the dubious honor of feeling the first grim pinch. “Camille” had been released before “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalpse” (the film which catapulted Valentino to fame) - and he had been given a second billing to Madame. After “The Four Horsemen,” it was "Starring Valentino" written in bright lights where “Camille” was playing - "with Nazimova" in second place. It was the beginning of the end.
 Madame, now over 40, did not have her contract renewed by Metro; more anxious to produce and direct her own movies, she lost money heavily on “Salome,” and opted to return to New York and rebuild her stage career - which she did.
Never known as a woman of business sense, she seized at once an idea to re-model “The Garden of Allah” into a Hotel with 27 bungalows to be built in the capacious grounds; being assured by her business advisor that it would provide her an income for life. But, she was bitterly disappointed; more and more money was invested, most stolen by her manager and advisor, who then vanished.
 In 1925, with creditors harassing her, she sold the facility. The Hotel was renamed “The Garden of Allah,” and re-opened in 1927 with a mighty 18-hour poolside party, with prohibition no problem.
From here on, however, it was downhill for 8080 Sunset Boulevard. Yet, there was always a notoriety which brought the artistic and the “fun-lovers;” a rakish bohemian atmosphere left over from Madame's time, which remained until its eventual bulldozing in 1959.
The Garden of Allah, unfortunately, became “raffish, immoral and scandalous.” The privacy of the various bungalows in the extensive grounds attracted sex and sleaze. It would witness drunkenness, robbery, murder and even suicide. Always a place of transience; stars considered “on the up” stayed in its secluded bungalows where no house detective lurked; when they had made it to stardom they moved out.
But, it was still popular with visitors to Hollywood; in the ‘30s Laurence Olivier and Jill Esmond, his first wife, (who was also known to prefer women), Charles Laughton, his wife Elsa Lanchester and Talullah Bankhead were some of many who enjoyed the all night parties, valued their privacy, and ignored the pimps and the prostitutes.
 According to author and Hollywood historian Laurie Jacobson, Tallulah Bankhead swam naked in the pool at The Garden of Allah. Marilyn Monroe was, reportedly, discovered at the Garden, sipping a Coke next to the same swimming pool.
Writers also moved in, less vulnerable to the “Morals Clauses” of the Studio's Contracts and the glare of the “squeaky clean” fan magazines. The so-called “New York Algonquin Round Table pack,” with Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley, stayed at The Garden of Allah, when they were in Hollywood to earn a fast buck. Lillian Hellman, author of “The Children’s Hour,” and F. Scott Fitzgerald also were frequent VIP guests.
In 1939, after a last New York stage appearance as mother to an 18-year-old Montgomery Clift, her hair grey and cut “schoolboy fashion,” Madame, herself, moved back into Bungalow 24 with her last lover, Glesca Marshall. By no means rich, she looked for small parts in the movies of the time to pay the bills.
She can be seen as Tyrone Power's mother in the remake of “Blood and Sand” (1941); an aristocratic European lady in “In Our Time” (1944), with Ida Lupino, as a Polish immigrant in “Since You Went Away” (1944) with Claudette Colbert. Sadly for many fans, she refused David O. Selsnick's offer of Madame Defarge in “Tale of Two Cities.”
 Visitors still came to the legendary Villa No. 24 - including Madame's goddaughter, the starlet Nancy Davis, soon to become Nancy Reagan. In 1936, Madame suffered from breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy.
 The cancer did not return but her demanding and energetic lifestyle of wealth, stardom, the stage, Hollywood and the movies; cigarettes and alcohol and rich living, had weakened her health; after a coronary thrombosis, she died in Hollywood in 1945 at the age of 67. Her ashes are interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in Glendale.
Sadly, the location where The Garden of Allah once entertained its famous customers is a modern supermarket today. Do you remember the song “Big Yellow Taxi,” in which Joni Mitchell sang about paving paradise and putting up a parking lot? That was a reference to the tearing down of The Garden of Allah, on the southwest corner of Sunset and Crescent Heights, directly across the street from Schwab’s, (now also a demolished Sunset Strip landmark).
 The famed apartment/hotel has been called many things over the years. One writer termed it “the unofficial epicenter of Hollywood social activity during the 1930s and 1940s,” with Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Clark Gable, David Niven, Errol Flynn, the Marx Brothers, Robert Benchley, Leopold Stokowski, F. Scott Fitzgerald (pictured), Tallulah Bankhead, Clara Bow, Humphrey Bogart and Ernest Hemingway among the many celebrities who were Garden residents at one time or another.
 According to Bruce Torrence, author of the book “Hollywood: The First 100 Years,” it was not uncommon to see tourists and movie fans lining the sidewalk just to get a glimpse of their favorite star. Torrence called the Garden’s inhabitants “a fast-living, hard-drinking, high-rolling lot who burned out fast and took the Garden with them.”
In 1950, the Garden was sold to Lytton Savings and Loan, which later tore it down and built its home offices at the site. The site is now a “mini-mall” and a branch of Great Western Bank. A number of years ago, while on a business trip to Hollywood, I strolled down Sunset Boulevard to the former Garden location. Then, the area had not been developed into a mini-mall; it looked somewhat like a small park.
 There was a typical “pavilion-like” structure near the sidewalk with symbolic historic-location tributes. Pictures from the old Garden and a map were showcased for tourists to view. I remember standing there in a slight rain, under the pavilion, slowly moving my index finger across the map from cabana to cabana.
 I wondered then how long it would be until money-crazy real estate tycoons demolished the final remnants of the famous facility on Sunset Blvd. and snuffed out what once had been a historic Hollywood landmark.
All I have to remember the Garden by, (in addition to my visit and interview with Paul Gregory), are some cheap tourist-type postcards and a few of those Hollywood souvenir matchbooks – a glimpse of decadence and dreams forever lost somewhere today in the California smog.
Oh, well, that’s show biz, baby.
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