Early Years
In the early days of the movie industry in Hollywood, when Jews were not permitted to join non-Jewish country clubs, they instead joined Hillcrest, all of whose members were Jewish. In An Empire of Their Own, Neal Gabler described charity dinners of the 1930s where movie moguls would gather at Hillcrest and outbid one another with gifts to the United Jewish Welfare Fund and other Jewish causes. In the 1940s, Hillcrest remained exclusively Jewish and attracted many of Hollywood's biggest stars, including Milton Berle, Jack Benny, Danny Kaye, George Burns, George Jessel, Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor and the Ritz Brothers. According to various accounts, mogul Louis B. Mayer reportedly punched producer Sam Goldwyn in the nose while they were either in the showers or the steam room at Hillcrest.
In his book on the William Morris Agency, author Frank Rose described the prestige of Hillcrest as follows:
| “ | ...Hillcrest Country Club was as close to invisible as 142 acres (0.57 km2) on the south side of Beverly Hills could be. No sign, just a number on the stone entrance gates: 10000 Pico Boulevard...Ever since the Depression, this had been the preserve of Hollywood's elite. All the great moguls had belonged to Hillcrest—Louis B. Mayer and the Warner brothers and Harry Cohn of Columbia and Adolph Zukor of Paramount. | ” |
Read more about this topic: Hillcrest Country Club (Los Angeles)
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