Googies: Coffeeshop to the Stars, Volume 2 - The Golden Years

by Steve Hayes

Googies: Coffeeshop to the Stars, Vol. 2 is the second half of author Steve Hayes memoir. If you enjoyed volume one, volume two is just as entertaining and insightful.

Hayes looks backs fondly on living his life in Hollywood during the 1950s as a small time actor and manager of Googies and the many famous and not-so-famous stars from the era he befriended. Errol Flynn, Robert Middleton, Ava Gardner, Sterling Hayden, Steve McQueen, Ernest Hemingway and Marlene Dietrich were just a few of the stars Hayes rubbed elbows with. Presently, Hayes resides in Huntington Beach, California, with Robbin, his wife of twenty years.

Ever wonder what it was like back in the forties and fifties, mingling with famous movie stars on the Sunset Strip; to ride beside James Dean in his Porsche Speedster, zipping around the curves of Mulholland Drive; to stay at Errol Flynn's house and sleep in the bedroom with the infamous hole in the mirrored ceiling; share a secret with Marilyn Monroe; act in a movie with Alan Ladd or Lana Turner; race motorcycles with Clark Gable on Ventura Boulevard; paint Rita Hayworth's house; be invited to tea by James Mason; go to the Hollywood Bowl with Jayne Mansfield and Louella Parsons; hang out with Flynn and countless other stars at the sordid Garden of Allah? Well, I did all those things and more, much more. As a fledgling actor, part-time house painter, parking attendant, "snoop" for the Fred Otash Detective Agency, and manager of Googie's, a celebrated coffee shop next to Schwab's drug store, I was in the catbird seat, privy to all the gossip, brawls and excitement that nightly took place at the Mocambo, Ciro's, The Players, Crescendo, Villa Nova and other glamorous night spots along the Strip. Known as the "playground of the stars," never a night went by on the Sunset Strip that one didn't rub elbows with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Duke Wayne, Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth and numerous other high profile celebrities. It's a fascinating era that has disappeared forever. And I was there in the thick of it. And now you can be, too. Because I've written it all down, exactly as it was...