From Warren Beatty and Marlon Brando, to Marilyn Monroe and Madonna, the biggest bimbos and hottest hunks have all bedded down in Hollywood's love shack. But few have found true love at the Chateau Marmont until now.
Philip Truelove is the fitting name for the guiding light behind the renaissance of a randy old lodge where everybody who was anybody hobnobbed with everyone else. Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Princess Grace, Sean Penn and Madonna, Jean Harlow and Clark Gable. All are in the guest log.
'We don't get a lot of tourists,' says Marmont manager Mr Truelove. 'And we don't advertise. We don't compete with Beverly Hills.' The modest hotel has no bar and is rather rundown. Stocked with flea-market furniture from the 1930s and 1950s, its apartments have neither liquor cabinets nor marble bathrooms. Instead, there are small kitchens with farmhouse fridges and flimsy four-burner stoves.
Greta Garbo bunked at the Marmont, along with the insatiable Harlow. And James Dean and the cast of Rebel Without A Cause. Stan Laurel was an early resident, while Sting and Richard Gere are more recent Marmont devotees. In between, Sean Connery, Howard Hughes, Bill Cosby, Debra Winger, Barbra Streisand, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and John Lennon all signed in. John Belushi got wired on speedballs and checked out. Permanently.
When John Wayne bagged his first big role as Ringo Kid in John Ford's Stagecoach, he celebrated in the Marmont's best room for several weeks. 'I want to know how it feels to be a star,' he said.
Hundreds of others from Hollywood's inner circle have followed The Duke over the past seven decades, frolicking in full view for the gossip sheets. Or slipping secretly from the underground garage into Hollywood's fabled love hotel.
'That's the secret of the Marmont,' concedes Mr Truelove, who appears uncomfortable in the company of a reporter and photographer as Christopher Walken walks by.