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The Chateau Marmont Hollywood Handbook
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The Chateau Marmont Hollywood Handbook

Edited by Andre Balazs

A classic, first published by Rizzoli Universe in the 1990s, now brought back into print: the insider’s view of Hollywood as narrated by famed guests who visited or resided at the Chateau Marmont over its 100-year history.

If the walls could talk, this would be the great story of Hollywood. Through the lens of the legendary Chateau Marmont, Hollywood’s hippest and hottest haunt, comes an extraordinary, glamorous, and fierce history and exquisite literary collection baring the stars, the landscape, and the ever-changing mood of America’s most absorbing town as narrated by legends including William Faulkner, Eve Babitz, Dominick Dunne, Gore Vidal, Jay McInerney, and many others. Rare and original texts, heart-stopping photography—including images by Helmut Newton, Wolfgang Tillmans, Sofia Coppola, and Bruce Weber—and decades of gossip and anecdotes take the reader from film to rock and roll, from scandals to masterpieces, from starlets to moguls, and from studios to bungalows in an unprecedented tour of Hollywood from the Golden Age to this morning’s wake-up call. A beloved classic, Hollywood Handbook’s cult is summarized best by Jarvis Cocker: “I’ve been carrying this book around for 20 years. Things happen at Chateau Marmont. Mythical, glamourous, sexy, wonderful, tragic things . . .”

About The Author

The editor of this volume, hotelier André Balazs, is responsible for some of the most iconic hotels in the world, including The Mercer, The Standard hotels, and Chiltern Firehouse. Balazs’s first hotel was the Chateau Marmont, which he saved from demolition in 1990 and has been restoring ever since. Balazs’s talents as a thinker, director, social networker, and innovator imbue his hotels with cultlike status. Described both as a global tastemaker and design-obsessive, Balazs makes you believe that—here, tonight, at this moment—anything is possible.

  • Publish Date: February 04, 2025
  • Format: Trade Paperback Original
  • Category: Photography - Subjects & Themes - Celebrity
  • Publisher: Rizzoli Universe
  • Trim Size: 6-1/2 x 8-1/4
  • Pages: 256
  • US Price: $39.95
  • CDN Price: $53.95
  • ISBN: 978-0-7893-2464-1
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Reviews

"So it’s fitting that in Rizzoli’s book about the Chateau—The Chateau Marmont Hollywood Handbook—tales of almost a century’s worth of guests are interwoven with reflections on life in LA more generally. One page has staff notes on notables like Orson Welles (“somewhat a mystery guest”); another has a timeline of the city’s development from Spanish colony to entertainment capital. Flip a few more and you’ll find a chronicle of Hollywood’s best scandals. The Chateau Marmont Hollywood Handbook was originally published in 1996. In the decades that followed, it amassed a cult following—so much so that Rizzoli decided to reissue the text after 29 years out of print. Since then, the Chateau has only shrouded itself in more secretive scandal: in 2012, Lindsay Lohan racked up a room bill of over $46,350.04 in less than two months (to the tabloids’ delight), and Jay Z and Beyoncé made it the location for their annual Oscar Party. And so the legend grows." — VOGUE

"Through its storied history, the book captures the evolving ethos of a neighborhood feel and the cultural perspective that has defined the heart of Hollywood’s bohemian spirit." — CURATED TEXAN

"The bestselling “Chateau Marmont Hollywood Handbook,” which tells the official story of the famed Sunset Boulevard hotel — and the true history of how it became a glorious, decadent celebrity hideaway — is finally back on shelves for the first time since 1996. The cult-classic book is edited by Chateau Marmont owner himself André Balazs, who reveals the true fact and fiction about the storied L.A locale and its evolving culture. The book also includes contributions from dozens of writers such as William Faulkner, Lilian Ross, Budd Schulberg, Gore Vidal, Jay McInerney, Dominick Dunne, and Anthony Haden-Guest, and photographs from Helmut Newton, Dennis Hopper, Annie Leibovitz, Jack Pierson, and Wolfgang Tillman." — VARIETY

"A rediscovered book about the legendary hotel — a shabby chic center of Hollywood creativity and debauchery for nearly 100 years — proves that nothing changes there except the names and room numbers." — THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

“The backstory of this collection of rare writing and behind-the-scenes photos is captivating. Edited by legendary hotelier André Balazs, the book has been published again for the first time since 1996. Inside is text from the likes of Lillian Ross, Budd Schulberg, Dominick Dunne, and Jay McInerney, along with photographs of, well, nearly anyone who was anyone in Hollywood. Favorites must be the Annie Liebovitz shot of a bald, bare-chested Dennis Hopper and long-haired Christopher Waken; a shirtless Humphrey Bogart “tending to the bungalow garden”; and a smiling Björk moving “between rooms,” photographed by Spike Jonze. What joins it all together, of course, is the hotel. The Chateau Marmont is the most important character here.” —The Film Stage