

The club's main stage was replicated on the TV series I Love Lucy as the "Tropicana" Club. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were frequent guests at the Mocambo and were close friends of Charlie Morrison. The Mocambo was also parodied mercilessly in the 1947 Bugs Bunny cartoon, " Slick Hare". According to a commentary track on the DVD with this cartoon, the animators managed to get into the kitchen and drew the kitchen exactly as they saw it, complete with dripping grease on the refrigerator and vegetables lying around the ground.Įarly in 1957, club operator and co-owner Charlie Morrison died at his Beverly Hills, California, home. The Mocambo remained in business for one final year, before closing its doors on June 30, 1958. The building was then sold, reopened as a supper club called The Cloister, and eventually demolished.While race may have been a contributing factor, black entertainers had performed at the Mocambo club prior to Ella Fitzgerald. In November 2019, the History Lovers Club Twitter account posted a photograph of the two celebrities along with one of the most oft-repeated versions of this story: The owner of the popular night club was reportedly hesitant to book a true jazz singer and thought that Fitzgerald wasn't glamorous enough to perform at the West Hollywood hot spot.Ī popular anecdote about how actress Marilyn Monroe helped Ella Fitzgerald book a gig at the posh West Hollywood night club Mocambo in the 1950s is frequently shared on social media. This is a genuine photograph of Monroe and Fitzgerald.


It's also true that Monroe urged Mocambo's owner Charlie Morrison to book Fitzgerald in 1955. However, Fitzgerald was not the first black singer to perform at the West Hollywood hot spot. Singers Herb Jeffries and Earth Kitt both hit the stage at the Mocambo years earlier. Joyce Bryant Gets Rave Notices at Mocambo Joyce Bryant also wowed crowds at the club two years before Monroe urged Morrison to book Fitzgerald.
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Silver-haired Joyce Bryant played a smash-hit, two-week engagement at Hollywood's plush Mocambo Club and drew rave notices from critics who called her the "beltin'est babe of the bistro set." Movie stars and entertainers packed the club every night, wildly applauded Miss Bryant in her biggest night club engagement to date.
