One more from the Mega Collector. The young Robert Clampett, formerly a resident wall-hanging of the Brown Derby Restaurant (most likely the Hollywood branch).
Click the thumbnail for a larger image
The Brown Derby had rows and rows of celebrity caricatures over its leather-lined booths. To capture the Derby aura in 2008, you'll need to fly a few thousand miles to Orlando and scope out the recreated Hollywood location at Disney World.
The interior of Disney's Florida duplication has a lot of the details right -- the caricatures, the fixtures, the decor -- but for obvious commercial reasons is larger than the first edition.
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5 comments:
Great image from a bygone era.
Jack Lane, the caricaturist, is still in the L.A. area.
He recently wrote a book titled 'Gallery Of Stars, The Story Of The Brown Derby's Wall Of Fame' that describes his time at the legendary restaurant....
Best---Zach Trenholm
"The interior of Disney's Florida duplication has a lot of the details right -- the caricatures, the fixtures, the decor -- but for obvious commercial reasons is larger than the first edition."
And the dress code is not exactly Hollywood Golden Age glamorous. It's a nice restaurant but somehow the people in their ball caps, shorts , and flipflops just doesn't help the ambiance.
I'm Jack Lane's son-in-law, and I'm sorry to report that Jack just passed away a couple of months ago in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, on April 2nd at the age of 92. He was still sharp and witty, and was drawing caricatures to the end.
He was the primary artist at the Hollywood Brown Derby for nearly 40 years, beginning in 1947, drawing caricatures of virtually every major celebrity in the "Golden Age" - Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, Groucho Marx, Bob Hope, Jimmy Durante, Johnny Carson. Literally hundreds of the most famous people in show business.
He has left us with a legacy of his work, though - he spent several years writing a book about his experiences with Hollywood's most famous people, and had it published just a couple of years ago. It's called "A Gallery of Stars - The Story of the Hollywood Brown Derby's Wall of Fame", and it's available on Amazon.com and many other places. It has many of his most famous illustrations and caricatures, and personal stories about each one.
Sorry to read Anon---although at 92, we should all be so lucky :-)
The proud owner of a couple of Jack's non-celebrity caricatures, I'll cherish them even more now...
As i discovered sometime back via the long-ago So. Cal. press he received during the 1950's-'60's (much of which can now be found online) & you've outlined above, Mr. Lane definitely had a career that any celebrity quick-sketch caricaturist would have been wowed by & certainly envied...
My condolences to the family---thanks for sharing.
Yours in countenances, Zach
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