History
The Roxy was opened on September 23, 1973, by Elmer Valentine and Lou Adler, along with original partners David Geffen, Elliot Roberts and Peter Asher. They took over the building previously occupied by a strip club owned by Chuck Landis called the Largo. (Adler was also responsible for bringing the stage play The Rocky Horror Show to the United States, and it opened its first American run at The Roxy Theatre in 1974, before it was made into the movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show the next year.)
Neil Young and his band The Santa Monica Flyers played the Roxy for the first week it was open. Only three months later, the original Genesis lineup with Peter Gabriel played several consecutive days at the Roxy, a run that some band members and many fans consider to be amongst their finest performances (due partially to the intimate atmosphere and good acoustics of the venue, as well as the legendary reputation of "Hollywood" amongst performers around the world).
Paul Reubens, then a struggling comedian, introduced his Pee-wee Herman character in a raunchy revue here in 1981 that included other aspiring comics including Phil Hartman and Elayne Boosler.
The small On The Rox bar above the club has hosted a wide variety of debauchery in its history. The bar was a regular hangout for John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, Alice Cooper and Keith Moon during Lennon's "lost weekend" in 1973-74 and hosted parties arranged by Heidi Fleiss in the 1980s.
According to LA.com, On The Rox "may be forever known as the club where John Belushi partied before fatally overdosing". That may sound like a sordid reason for the club's fame, but it only underscores the hard-partying reputation that befits a room equipped with two stripper poles.
Read more about this topic: Roxy Theatre (West Hollywood)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Terri Apter (20th century)