Singing and dancing isn’t the only entertainment the Mocambo had to offer. Here’s Buddy at his best, performing ‘Around the World’ on Dick Irvin’s Big Band Swing in Montreal. Contino and Greco died three months apart in 2017, both grand old men of showbiz and throwbacks to another age. In Hollywood Nocturnes, Contino lures one of Greco’s glamorous backup singers into an ill-judged kidnapping caper.Įllroy was on good terms with Buddy Greco, inviting him to perform at LAPD functions in his later years. Buddy Greco’s got a car like that, so Dick had to have one.’ Greco, like Contino, was a ladies’ man, marrying five times. Contino spent a fortune on his Oldsmobile Starfire and its ‘Kustom King’ interior purely out of ‘an Italian rivalry thing. Contino is full of admiration for Greco’s style: ‘Buddy not only sells you the song – he drives it to your house and installs it.’ This admiration is tinged with envy. In Ellroy’s novella, Hollywood Nocturnes, Dick Contino visits the Mocambo and witnesses fellow crooner Buddy Greco perform ‘Around the World’. Given the Mocambo’s place in LA lore, it is not surprising that the club features periodically in the work of James Ellroy. In its seventeen year history, amid the dining and dancing, many affairs were kindled, fights broke out, and crooked deals were hatched within its four walls. The Mocambo closed its doors permanently in 1958. Frank Sinatra performed his first solo gig at the Mocambo in 1943, and Ella Fitzgerald had a breakout concert there in 1955. It was a favourite haunt of celebrities, and a performance there could make or break a showbiz career. From the day it opened in 1941, the club featured lush Latin-American decor, ‘ glass-walled aviaries that housed live macaws, cockatoos, parrots and other birds’, and big-band music. The Mocambo is one of the most famous nightclubs in Los Angeles’s history.
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