Long before West Hollywood lit up with rainbow crosswalks and pride parades, LGBTQ life in early Hollywood existed in whispers, shadows, and coded invitations. In an era when police raids were common and studio contracts demanded public “respectability,” queer Angelenos carved out their own constellation of hidden establishments — places where men could flirt, laugh, drink, or simply be themselves without the panoptical gaze of Hollywood morality. Some were bars, others cafés, some nothing more than back rooms or basements. All were lifelines. They formed the secret geography of queer Hollywood long before the word gay was spoken aloud.
By Allan R. Ellenberger
The most storied, by far, was Jimmy’s Backyard, a discreet oasis behind a seemingly unremarkable building at 1608 Cosmo Street in Hollywood. Owned by an out gay restaurateur named Jimmy Moore, the “back yard” was a dark, narrow courtyard with lanterns strung overhead and chock full of people. Screenwriters and chorus boys and bit players and costume designers came in through an alley entrance, into the heady smells of cigarettes and cheap gin, and the equally intoxicating feeling of being seen — truly seen — for a moment. It was a place where a struggling actor might receive encouragement, a dancer might find a dance partner and a closeted leading man might laugh safely, without someone listening for the pitch of it. Jimmy’s was not glamorous, but it was essential.
The former site of Jimmy's Backyard, 1608 North Cosmo Street, Hollywood
Ad for B.B.B Cellar Cafe (Photo Credit: Mary Mallory/The Daily Mirror)
Just north on the same block was one of the city’s best-known (but rarely written about) underground haunts: The B.B.B. Cellar at 1651 Cosmo Street. Whispered to stand for “Boys, Booze, and Basement,” the B.B.B. Cellar was exactly that: a basement bar in the Markham Building with a low ceiling, hard liquor, and a culture of discretion everyone “knew without being told.” It had a sleazier clientele than Jimmy’s — hustlers, young genderbending starlets, hopeful scene-goers looking for friends or a fuck. It was small and always on the edge of a police bust, but in the ’30s and ’40s the B.B.B. Cellar was a crucible of queer life where night brought the loosened restrictions of the day.
Equally important, and much more respectable, were Coffee Dan's, a chain of 24-hour cafés that had a famous outpost at Hollywood and Highland (McDonald's now occupies the spot) and that became a gathering place for actors, musicians, and queer patrons after late shifts or fleeing studio watchdogs. Public enough to be safe but bustling enough to be free, Coffee Dan's was renowned for its long communal tables, bohemian clientele, and a laissez-faire attitude toward flamboyance. Gay men, drag performers, and androgynous youth found comfortable fellowship with writers, vaudevillians, and night owls. The staff turned a blind eye when same-sex couples spent too long lingering over a shared milkshake. In the liminal hours between midnight and dawn, Coffee Dan's felt like a tiny republic of misfits — one that ran on caffeine, gossip, and quiet solidarity.
Coffee Dan’s was located on the southeast corner of Hollywood and Highland next to the Bank of America (now Guiness Book of World Records Museum). A McDonalds is now on the site. Note: Hotel Drake is now Scientology Building.
Top: Ad for House of Ivy. Bottom: The former site of House of Ivy, Hollywood
Then there was the House of Ivy, a name still whispered reverently by the chroniclers of queer Hollywood history in World War II and the 1950s. Equal parts private home, speakeasy, and salon, the House of Ivy was owned and operated by Ivy Nicholson, an eccentric and fabulously wealthy society hostess with a great fondness for outcasts and misfits. Its location, 1638 North Las Palmas Avenue, a shadowy bungalow obscured by climbing vines, candlelight, and sheer privilege, its interiors evoked a romantic, fading elegance from the 1920s while its parties thrummed with the charged eroticism of underground bohemia. Closeted actors and directors socialized with poets and expats, trans women and drag queens, old Hollywood stars and underage songbirds fresh off the bus from Kansas. Ivy’s parties were legendary for the range of visitors: in one room, a silent-film star could sip whiskey next to a teenage jazz musician; in another, a major studio head could whisper his deepest secrets into the ear of a nameless boy who would never be credited in a program. The House of Ivy was more than just a party venue—it was a refuge.
These, and the many now-vanished cafés, tearooms, and boarding houses, made up the vulnerable infrastructure of queer Hollywood long before there were liberation movements. They fostered friendships, romances, creative partnerships, and identities that had no hope of survival outside such spaces. They supported the gay chorus boys who enlivened studio musicals, the closeted matinee idols who feared exposure, and the stylists, dancers, tailors, and writers who created Hollywood's glamorous myth.
Though most of these places have disappeared — demolished, renovated, or erased by time — their legacy remains. Places that ushered you into the community in a city that required you keep your identity secret. Places that offered sanctuary for the men that would shape the look of Hollywood and the stars and stories that would captivate America. And they remind us that long before Hollywood was a bastion of LGBTQ visibility, queer people created their own spaces, their own rules, and their own secret world under the klieg lights.
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This is great ..I have a buttload more to share!