Alla Nazimova graced the cover of the July 1918 issue of Motion Picture magazine, and in the interview she revealed her “devilish ambition.” This was part of publicity for Madame Nazimova’s latest picture in which she starred with her “husband” Charles Bryant (in reality the two were never legally married.) This article names the picture “Fate Decides” but the film was released as “Toys of Fate.” It was made for Metro Pictures run at the time by Louis B. Mayer who later merged with Goldwyn Pictures to create M-G-M.

The Hayvenhurst, estate as it appeared not long after Alla Nazimova acquired it in 1918 and renamed it the Garden of Alla; it was later converted into the Garden of Allah Hotel
The Los Angeles Visionaries Association (LAVA) is hosting a salon on Sunday, June 30, 2013, that will focus on a pair of historic structures at the east end of the Sunset Strip, the Garden of Allah Hotel and the Crescent Heights Shopping Center, which housed Schwab’s Drug Store. The Salon’s theme will be Jazz Age Los Angeles, and the two talks will each last 45 minutes each.
Presentation One: Martin Turnbull on The Garden of Allah
Martin Turnbull, co-founder of the Alla Nazimova Society and author of The Garden Of Allah novels will be discussing life at that hotel and its infamous bungalow courtyard during the 1920s and 30s. Its bootleg liquor, fizzy flappers,and all night parties defined the Jazz Age in Los Angeles. When Scott Fitzgerald came to L.A. in the mid 1930s with his $1000/week contract at MGM, it was at the Garden of Allah he chose to land. It was also the home-away-from-home for Algonquin Round Table refugees Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker, George S. Kaufman, Alexander Woollcott, Donald Ogden Stewart and Marc Connelly, so Fitzgerald must have felt at home, as did anyone answering Hollywood’s siren call who was lucky enough to get a room there. Martin’s talk will be punctuated by readings from his first novel in the series, The Garden On Sunset.
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Rambova | Jun 29, 2013
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Section: Blog
Reviews for The Garden on Sunset, by Martin Turnbull:
Like Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust, Martin Turnbull’s Garden on Sunset is steeped in Hollywood decadence–yet not so jaundiced and infinitely more fun. It grabs you by the throat and plops you smack down in the middle of Tinseltown during Prohibition, scraping elbows along the way with a constellation of stars, from Tallulah Bankhead to Greta Garbo. It’s one helluva kick-off for a promised series of page-turners. Count me in.” — Sam Irvin, author of Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise
“What a fun glimpse into old Hollywood and the fabulous Garden of Allah Hotel with its fascinating tenants. The three main characters, Marcus, Kathryn and Gwendolyn mix it up with such legendary names as Ramon Novarro, Tallulah Bankhead and George Cukor–not to mention the exotic Nazimova herself. Made me wish I was there!” — Debra Ann Pawlak, author of Bringing Up Oscar: The Story of the Men and Women Who Founded the Academy
From the publisher’s book description:
Right before talking pictures slug Tinsel Town in the jaw, a luminous silent screen star converts her private estate into the Garden of Allah Hotel. The lush grounds soon become a haven for Hollywood hopefuls to meet, drink, and revel through the night. George Cukor is in the pool, Tallulah Bankhead is at the bar, and Scott Fitzgerald is sneaking off to a bungalow with Sheilah Graham while Madame Alla Nazimova keeps watch behind her lace curtains.
But the real story of the Garden of Allah begins with its first few residents, three kids on the brink of something big.
Martin Turnbull is a co-founder of the Alla Nazimova Society.
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Rambova | Jun 28, 2013
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Section: Books

From left: Alla Nazimova, Charles Bryant, Richard Yates, Monica Yates, Larry David
Five degrees of separation between film and Broadway star Alla Nazimova and Larry David:
1. Nazimova was in a faux marriage with British actor Charles Bryant (shown here) for 13 years starting in 1912. The couple never actually married because Nazimova had married a man in Russia whom she’d immediately abandoned — the fact that they were not married had nothing to do with the fact that she was gay, as some sources say, and there is no evidence that Bryant was also gay.
2 Bryant left Nazimova for Marjorie Gilhooley whose father was a judge in New Jersey. They had two children, Charles Jr. and Sheila Bryant.
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Rambova | Jun 24, 2013
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Section: Blog
There are so few biographies of Alla Nazimova that it is easy to cast this one by Gavin Lambert, the screenwriter for “Inside Daisy Clover” as well as a biographer of Norma Shearer, as “definitive.” It is without a doubt required reading for anyone who is interested in Madame and her life as well as for all fans of Hollywood in the days of the Movie Colony and the silent film era.
From the New York Times review of Nazimova published not long after the book was released in 1997:
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Rambova | Jun 24, 2013
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Section: Books
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Topics: Alla Nazimova, Gavin Lambert
Writing about the Garden of Allah Hotel for Collier’s in 1948, Amy Porter, a longtime resident of the Sunset Strip hotel, mentioned that the shape of the pool was an ongoing topic of debate among her famous neighbors as they sunned themselves by it on languid gin-soaked afternoons. The design of the pool is still being debated today.
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Rambova | Jun 24, 2013
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Section: Blog
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Topics: Garden of Allah, Swimming Pool
Sheilah Graham’s The Garden of Allah, a history of the famed hotel that anchored the eastern end of the Sunset Strip, is a must for any reading list on the history of Hollywood’s golden age in general and the Strip specifically. Graham unfolds the story of the hotel in roughly chronological order, but she was a gossip columnist, so the book reads like a series of columns, many of which focus on gossip and anecdotes (a number of which involve society people who are long forgotten) — rather than a comprehensive history of the hotel.
More Hollywood gossip glorified by all the beautiful people that were, and since columnist Graham is usually just grateful to have known them all, she rarely indulges in tit for tattletale. The Garden of Allah, originally Alla Nazimova’s home, was converted into the main house (you were nobody if you stayed there) and twenty-five villas back in 1926. It seems to have offered opulence, poor maid service, late afternoon and all night festivities and an open “”liquor closet.”” It would be hard to say whether anyone has been left out of the hotel register–it would seem not–but Miss Graham concentrates on that benign presence, Robert Benchley (two chapters), one of course on “Scott” [Fitzgerald] who didn’t really belong there, a less kindly inset on Dorothy Parker, with later comers Bogart, Sinatra, Faulkner, etc. closing the book before the Garden of Allah became just a residence for hookers and a tatty specter of its former self. The book will be illustrated and it will be read even if much of it is a reprise from what’s around in the public domain.
The Garden of Allah was published in 1970 and is out of print, but used hardbacks are widely available, including from Alibris.
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Rambova | Jun 18, 2013
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Section: Books