Waldorf-Astoria Hotel - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• Waldorf salad — a salad made with apples, walnuts, celery, grapes, and mayonnaise or a mayonnaise-based dressing — was first created in 1896 at the Waldorf in New York City by Oscar Tschirky, who was the maître d'hôtel, and the same salad was referred to in the British comedy Fawlty Towers.
• Ginger Rogers headlined an all star ensemble cast in the 1945 movie Week-End at the Waldorf.
• Cole Porter's Steinway & Sons grand piano is in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria.
• Langston Hughes wrote a poem entitled "Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria," criticizing the hotel and inviting the jobless and homeless to take over the space of the hotel. "The hotel opened at the very time when people were sleeping on newspapers in doorways, because they had no place to go. But suites in the Waldorf ran into thousands a year, and dinner in the Sert Room was ten dollars! (Negroes, even if they had the money, couldn't eat there. So naturally, I didn't care much for the Waldorf-Astoria.)"
• Wallace Stevens wrote a poem entitled "Arrival at the Waldorf" in which the poet contrasts the wild country of the jungles of Guatemala to being "back at the Waldorf,/This arrival in the wild country of the soul" (lines 1-2).
• In the 1970 movie The Out-of-Towners, Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis make their way to the Waldorf-Astoria on foot past tons of garbage in a torrential downpour, to discover their reservation - guaranteed for a 10:00pm arrival - has been given away, and the hotel - like every other one in the city - is booked to capacity due to the strikes.
• The 1978 musical revue Ain't Misbehavin' features the song "Lounging at the Waldorf" about the hotel's past as a whites-only club and hotel for high society.
• In the 1988 movie Coming To America, the king of Zamunda (played by James Earl Jones) and his family stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria in the final New York–based scene in the movie; disgusted at the squalor in Queens in which his son and his servant Semi (Arsenio Hall) are living, the King "punishes" the latter by ordering him to confine himself to the hotel's royal suite, where he is to be "bathed thoroughly" by the King's young female attendants.
• In the 1992 movie Scent of a Woman, Lt. Col. Frank Slade (Al Pacino) and his traveling companion Charles Simms (Chris O'Donnell) stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria.
• The 1993 Broadway musical My Favorite Year includes a setting called the Waldorf Hotel in 1954. There is an offstage chorus song dedicated to the "Waldorf Suite," and notably, the musical number "Welcome to Brooklyn" references the Astors.
• In the 2001 film Serendipity, a number of scenes take place between the two main characters in the Waldorf-Astoria.
• In the 2002 movie Hart's War, one of the characters sarcastically compares the POW camp to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
• Statler and Waldorf, a pair of Muppet characters, are named after posh New York City hotels, the Statler Hotel (now Hotel Pennsylvania) and the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Waldorf's wife, Astoria, looks like Statler in drag.
• The 2002 film Maid in Manhattan takes place at the Waldorf-Astoria, but the hotel is renamed The Beresford Hotel in the movie.
• Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova exits out of the hotel in the 2006 Nike commercial Pretty.
• The exterior of the hotel appears in the video game True Crime: New York City.
• In the 2006 movie The Pink Panther, Beyoncé Knowles' character Xania stays in the hotel during her trip to New York.
• In Neal Shusterman's novel Everlost, the Waldorf-Astoria is a "Forever Place," which Allie stops by, only to leave quickly because the desertedness of it gives her the creeps.
• In one episode of Johnny Bravo, Johnny decided to spend a night at the Waldorf-Histeria without paying because he thought time in world suddenly stood still and that no one would mind whatever he does.
• In the tenth book in the Princess Diaries series, Ten Out of Ten, the senior prom takes place in the Waldorf-Astoria ballroom which Mia attends with J.P.
• In the Portuguese novel Codex 632, the Professor Tomás Noronha stays in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel during his sojourn in New York.
• In the 2009 film remake of The Taking of Pelham 123, Garber (played by Denzel Washington) follows the train hijackers through the emergency exit underneath the Waldorf-Astoria in his attempt to pursue these men before they escape with the hostage money.
• In the AMC network television series Mad Men, hotelier Conrad Hilton meets with advertising executive Don Draper at the Waldorf-Astoria for a late-night drink in a season 3 episode.
• In 1978, a French teenager named Jean Pierre jumped from the 15th floor thinking he was Superman. French Canadian music composer Luc Plamondon wrote a song about this event, later in 1991 Celine Dion sang the song "Le fils de Superman" (Superman's son) in her album Dion chante Plamondon and a live version of this song can be also found in her 1994 album Celine Dion a l'Olympia.
• In the 2001 movie South Pacific, the chief of the nurses mentions the base as the Waldorf-Astoria branch of the Navy.
• In Meg Cabot's novel Jinx, the Chapman School Spring Formal takes place in the Waldorf-Astoria. It is at this point that Tory (The main antagonist) reveals Jean's first attempt at a love spell, which served as a catalyst for the novel's events.
• In Kady Cross's novel The Girl in the Clockwork Collar, Finley and her "strange band of misfits" stay at the Waldorf-Astoria while trying to discover the mystery sounding the supposed arrest of their good friend Jasper and rescue him.