How An Irishman From Kilkenny, Ireland Conquered Beverly Hills, California.
Jimmy, exuded the Luck of the Irish, and his Beverly Hills restaurant and cocktail bar hosted the rich and famous for many years...Issue # 80
ifOnlyi…had known that meeting a Man from Ireland, with whom my Mom was very close, would one day lead me to the Emerald Isle to spend my retirement years with my beloved Irish wife. Hello Ireland. Here is the story of a man from Kilkenny, Ireland. Jimmy Murphy built a successful life for himself and his family in Beverly Hills, California. Everyone loved Jimmy’s charisma.
It was a rare night out for my Mom, her secretary Linda, and me. We had a wonderful Chinese dinner in Beverly Hills, and afterward, we went for drinks and jazz at one of her favorite spots: Jimmy’s.
I can best describe Jimmy through an article published about his life, which is further included in this story.
Mom loved Jimmy’s, and this story recounts my one and only personal, if slightly embarrassing, experience there.
Being the only gentleman at our table, I ordered a bottle of Champagne, which was quickly brought to us along with four glasses for just three people.
The waiter displayed the label on the bottle, and I nodded in agreement. He then peeled back the cork cover and twisted off the cork. After pouring a drop into my glass for tasting, I noticed it had only a few bubbles on the surface. “Go ahead and pour,” I told the waiter. We were thirsty; That's what good Chinese food does to you.
My Mom offered a toast, saying, “Here’s to a wonderful evening at Jimmy’s and many more to come.” As the night progressed, Champagne flowed, and the three of us were deep in conversation, laughing frequently. We had no worries about getting home as our driver was only a phone call away.
The restaurant was at full capacity, and the chatter could be heard above the clinking of glasses and the Jazz playing in the background. Suddenly, a lady walked right up to our table, looked straight at me, and asked, "How are you doing? What’s your name?” “Me, Ma'am, I’m Ollie,” I replied. “How's your night?” “Wonderful,” she replied, glancing across the table towards Mom and Linda.
She turned around to show me her backside. Her BUTT in other words. Wow, I thought, what’s this all about?
“I’m Gloria Vanderbilt, and I’m the designer and creator of these jeans. What do you think, Ollie? Do you see my name embroidered on the pocket?” Her Butt was right in my face so I replied “Yes I see it. So you are Gloria Vanderbilt?”
She tried to sit down, sliding into the booth and pushing me towards the corner when my Mom spoke up and said, “May I ask you what you think you are doing? Is there something we may help you with? We were enjoying a private conversation?”
“Excuse me; I wanted to sit for a while and chat with Ollie,” Ms. Vanderbilt said. "And so do we," Mom replied. "That’s my son, and we would appreciate some privacy.” Ms. Vanderbilt got up, looked back at me, said, “You're missing out, you know,” and walked away.
Mom was fuming, but Jimmy, the owner, came to the rescue right then. He said hello to Mom, kissing both her cheeks as he leaned in. “How have you been, Illeana?” Jimmy grabbed the Champagne bottle and poured himself a half glass. I now know why four glasses were brought to the table for three people.
Jimmy took a silver stick from his jacket pocket and used it to stir his glass of Champagne.
Mom introduced me as her Son, Ollie, and her Secretary, Linda. Jimmy stood while speaking with Mom. You could tell by the conversation that they knew each other well enough to discuss their personal life and businesses.
I interrupted, thinking Jimmy might leave at any time, and I was curious about one thing.
“Jimmy, may I ask why you have the Silver stick in your front pocket? The one you stirred the Champagne with!” He reached into his front jacket pocket, pulled out the Silver stick, put it into his glass, and stirred again.
Yes, Ollie, I use a Silver Swizzle Stick in every glass of Champagne I drink throughout the night. I do drink a lot, as I like to engage with all my guests and enjoy a drink with them if time allows.
Swizzling keeps me from ever getting hangovers. “How so?” I ask. It takes the bubbles out of the Champagne so the effervescence doesn’t cause me a hangover.
Now that was something worth learning, even if it only works for Champagne.
So if you ever want to drink Champagne or Prosecco, use a swizzle stick; it doesn’t have to be Silver to avoid the hangover.
The story below was published in The Irish America Magazine about Jimmy’s journey from Ireland to Beverly Hills, California.
Here’s Jimmy!
By Patricia Danaher, Contributor
October / November 2012
Jimmy Murphy, the Irishman behind the iconic Beverly Hills restaurant Jimmy’s, a favorite among Hollywood’s elite for over twenty years, tells his story to Patricia Danaher.
For more than 20 years, Jimmy’s was the place in Hollywood where the good and the great, the rich and the very famous came to let their hair down, secure in the attentions of Jimmy Murphy and his Mullingar-born wife, Anne. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were regulars, as were Maureen O’Hara, Mitzi Gaynor, Bob and Dolores Hope, Paul Newman, Henry Kissinger, Burt Lancaster, Farrah Fawcett, Roger Moore, Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, and many, many others.
To Marlon Brando, he was “Il Patron.” To Angela Lansbury, he was a regular dance partner. To Old Hollywood, Jimmy Murphy was the keeper of the most elegant salon and restaurant in Beverly Hills, where anything could (and did) happen.
It was thanks to a combination of good taste, charm, and serendipity that Kilkenny-born Murphy, who left school at the age of 14, found himself and his restaurant at the heart of where Hollywood came to do business and came out to play.
The Salad Day
“I never knew where the story was going to end, but I always felt from a young age that I was going to be a success,” he recently told me, 73 and as charming as ever. “I was one of eight children from an ordinary working-class family. After I left school at 14, I went to Waterford and started my career in entertainment working in Dooley’s hotel.”
In fact, he cycled to Waterford from Kilkenny to start work and learned the basics of catering and hotel management. After a couple of years, he took the boat to England, where he worked in various small hotels and then at the Carlton, until he landed a seemingly fated job at the Savoy Hotel in London.
This marked his first introduction to waiting on celebrities, including Charlie Chaplin and his wife, Oona O’Neill, the daughter of Irish American playwright Eugene O’Neill. Murphy was happy in London and gained experience that was to open doors down the line for him in then unimaginable ways.
Fate intervened further when he met his future wife, Anne Power, at a dance at the Café du Paris near Leicester.
“Anne was a nurse, and she loved dancing. Her sister was a nurse in California, where they were looking for English-trained nurses. Anne was already planning to go to Los Angeles when we met in February 1963. We dated in London for three months, and then she moved to LA and kept sending me photos of convertibles, bikinis, and sunshine! We kept corresponding for about nine months, and during the following winter, which was one of the worst in Europe in decades, I made the decision to go to LA.”
Getting visas and Green Cards was pretty straightforward in those days, and with his Savoy training behind him, Jimmy quickly started working at the very high-end Beverly Wilshire Hotel in LA.
“Hernando Courtwright [who headed the investment team that bought out the Beverly Wilshire and liked to hold court in La Bella Fontana, the hotel’s famed restaurant], was half Irish and half Mexican, and he loved the Irish. Within a couple of months, I was running the restaurant. I met a lot of famous people there, including Billy Wilder and Frank Sinatra, who used to have to put his gun in the cloakroom.
I also met Kurt Niklas, who owned one of the most famous restaurants in Los Angeles. He was opening a new place, the Bistro, and he obviously saw something in me because he asked me to come and work for him. I turned him down, saying I only worked in high-end places, not bistros, but eventually, he persuaded me. This turned out to be a major stepping stone to the rest of my life.”
The Main Course
Jimmy and Anne married and had three children. He was a nearly permanent presence in the Bistro and so popular with its celebrity patrons that many people actually believed him to be the owner. Eventually, they began to persuade him to go out on his own with their support and investment.
The group bought a 10,000-square-foot car park for $650,000 and Jimmy set about designing the elegant interiors with a French-themed restaurant, a cocktail lounge and rooms for private parties. Jimmy’s “opened in 1978 and was an instant hit with customers and the media alike.
“People like Johnny Carson, Bob Newhart, and Don Rickles kept telling me I should have a place of my own, and they became some of the first people to invest their money in what became Jimmy’s. They became part of my following, which included about 60 well-connected investors who brought their friends to the restaurant every night. They treated it like home away from home.
“It was a time when people really dressed up to go out, and they would buy new dresses and get their hair done because they were going to have dinner at Jimmy’s. There was always glamour associated with it almost from day one. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were regulars. Burton said the Irish and the Welsh had three things in common: we are good drinkers, we are surrounded by water, and none of us can swim!
“Rogers and Cowan, the big international celebrity PR firm, had their offices above Jimmy’s, and CAA were down the street. Their head man, Michael Ovitz, used to come to the restaurant about four times a week to entertain and do business with all the major celebrities he represented. It very quickly became the place to be seen, or if you were visiting from out of town, to see big talent.
“People would spend the whole evening there, starting with cocktails, staying for dinner, and then staying on to listen to jazz. You never knew who was going to come in. One night a group of customers were about to leave when Marlon Brando, Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood came in and started drinking at the bar. Everyone else sat back down to see what would happen.”
Los Angeles is a town dominated by cars, and in 2000, Jimmy received an offer for Jimmy’s that he couldn’t refuse. After 22 years, he decided to sell his iconic restaurant and focus on the Chaplin project. The site is now a car park again.
“I missed it, of course, after 22 years, and after a while, I opened an upscale Irish pub called Jimmy’s Tavern. It did good business, but I sold it after a year and retired from the restaurant business.
Sadly, Murphy passed away in 2014. He was 75.
….ifOnlyi…. short stories follow my true life journey. Southern California, Australia, Texas, Maui, Colorado, Georgia, and Ireland. You can check out my first story about Black Foxe Military Academy in Hollywood, from when I was four, if you've just found me. Or go directly to my publication and choose a story of interest there.
With Love and Respect, Ollie G
Interesting profile.
He left home at 14.. Now that's guts, and made it Big time.. I agree Interesting Man!