Out with the Stars: Hollywood Nightlife in the Golden Era

For readers with an unquenchable fascination with the Hollywood of years past, here is a survey of the nightspots that sometimes became as famous as the stars who frequented them. The well-reproduced period photos, black-and-white and color, show us the Cocoanut Grove, the Trocadero, Ciro's and other popular clubs (occupied by many of their celebrated patrons), spanning the era from the teens through the '40s. Postcards, menus, matchbooks, ads and souvenir neckties also evoke the style of the times. The wide-eyed, somewhat pedestrian text seems to suggest that the stars of yesteryear did little but carouse till dawn. One photo, more ironic than most here, shows a very young, ebullient Ronald Reagan cheerfully escorting a somber-looking Susan Hayward ""out on their first Hollywood date.'' Heimann wrote Hooray for Hollywood and California Crazy: Roadside Vernacular Architecture. December 31