Hollywood's Secret Hideout

If Johnny Depp were a hotel, he'd be Chateau Marmont. The two are so alike. The classic bones, the low-key glamour, the romantic decadence, the natural discretion, the streak of rebellion, the modern spirit that can cloak itself convincingly in period disguise--few hotels in the world have so much presence and promise so much enigmatic pleasure.

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Here's how the MasterCard ad would go for Chateau Marmont: A two-bedroom penthouse with a baby grand piano in the living room: $2,035. Two dozen Casablancas in an art deco vase: $250. Three bottles of iced Vox and hors d'oeuvres for 12 brought to you at 3 a.m.: $650. One night in the same place where Jean Harlow slept with Clark Gable while she was honeymooning with Harold Rosson; where Howard Hughes spied on sun-bathing starlets through binoculars from his penthouse suite; where Billy Wilder wrote his first Hollywood scripts; where Elizabeth Taylor rented a suite to nurse Montgomery Clift after his disfiguring car crash; where an underage Natalie Wood trysted with her Rebel Without a Cause director Nicholas Ray; and, yes, where Johnny Depp was formally introduced to Winona Ryder: priceless.

Only one hotel dates back further into Hollywood's congested legend than Chateau Marmont--which rises above the Sunset Strip--and that is The Beverly Hills Hotel, which sprawls in pink, overt luxury a few miles to the west. Those who choose to stay in the Chateau, which is fashioned after a royal retreat in which Leonardo da Vinci happened to die, tend not to be as fickle as those chasing down the softest duvets in multi-star operations. Chateau Marmont's history is not one of ceaseless glamour, but of time-honored, tacit permission for its guests to be their strange, driven, dreamy selves. That kind of generosity breeds loyalty in an anxious place like Hollywood. Chateau denizens find the relaxed, secretive ambience so agreeable they often take up long-term residence. Greta Garbo did so in the '30s, Robert De Niro in the 70s and Keanu Reeves in the '90s. Josh Hartnett, among others, lives there off and on for long stretches these days. Chateau Marmont lends itself easily to becoming the no-exit "Hotel California," as it was for the guys who wrote that song back when it was known as "the Eagles' flophouse." Partly this is because the hotel was built originally in 1929 as a high-end apartment complex and many rooms have the layout and amenities of a permanent residence. But mostly people move in because once the Depression forced Chateau Marmont's conversion into a hotel, the place began its true mission of providing a seductive fantasy of never-ending license for harmless misbehavior in blessed privacy.

You have to work hard to get photographed inadvertently at Chateau Marmont, though Colin Farrell managed the feat when he made out with Britney Spears on his penthouse terrace. Part of Chateau Marmont's immense charm is that it's easy to come and go--you can pull off the Strip into the hotel's garage in a split second, disembark under cover and be lifted straight from the garage to your room without seeing anyone except whoever might be in the elevator--Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio, Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell.

Owner Andre Balazs has said he might throw someone out for asking for an autograph (few oglers come here anyway, since there's only a small restaurant and no bar to speak of except Bar Marmont, which is a separate operation next door), but nobody's ever heard of anybody getting tossed out for anything except not paying the bill. (Two famous cases of that would include a very young, unknown Warren Beatty when he first came to town decades ago and Red Hot Chili Peppers member John Frusciante during his worst days of heroin oblivion in the mid-'90s.) And no one on the benevolently tolerant staff of Chateau Marmont talks out of school about their guests no matter what the guests do.

You may have guessed that Chateau Marmont is not where glitz hounds are likely to stay, but it's not always easy to say who sparks to the hotel. Demi Moore takes many of her meetings there--doesn't that seem a little surprising? Vin Diesel and, Eminem frequent the place. More predictably, the Chateau has been a traditional draw for New York literati since before the days when Dorothy Parker lived here with her decades-younger lover. Room 48 was home to Dominick Dunne through the Menendez and O.J. Simpson trials. Musicians from Mick Jagger to Anthony Kiedis have loved the Chateau since Led Zeppelin rode their Harleys through the lobby in '68 and Jim

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