Taft Hotel
It was renamed for President William Howard Taft in 1931 after being sold.
One of the hotel's most famous features was the Taft Grill.
The George Hall Orchestra (sometimes called the George Hall Taft Hotel Orchestra) performed from the hotel on Monday through Saturday at noon on CBS Radio, starring Dolly Dawn. The band's signature song was "Love Letters in the Sand".
Other big band performances were by Artie Shaw, Xavier Cugat, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, and Tony Pastor.
Vincent Lopez performed in residency for 20 years and broadcast a radio show from the hotel, with Gloria Parker, Shake the Maracas. Lopez later broadcast a TV show from the Taft on the DuMont network, Dinner Date, from January to July 1950.
On May 26, 1933, Jimmie Rodgers (The Father Of Country Music) died here at the age of 35 from a long battle with tuberculosis. This occurred just two days after completing what was his final recording session for Victor Records.
In 1955, Philip Loeb died from an overdose of sleeping pills at the hotel in the Hollywood blacklist scandal.
A scene from the 1967 film How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, in which Finch follows a rival executive to a football pep party, was shot at the hotel.
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Famous quotes containing the words taft and/or hotel:
“I need not tell you of the inadequacy of the American shipping marine on the Pacific Coast.... For this reason it seems to me that there is no subject to which Congress can better devote its attention in the coming session than the passage of a bill which shall encourage our merchant marine in such a way as to establish American lines directly between New York and the eastern ports and South American ports, and both our Pacific Coast ports and the Orient and the Philippines.”
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“Clean the spittoons.
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