When night descends, I'm thinking about L.A. Story, the 1991 movie
that Martin wrote and starred in as Harris K. Telemacher. He
attempts to land a reservation at an upscale L.A. French restaurant
called L' Idiot (pronounced Leedy-O), only to be interrogated about
his finances by the Fourth Reich Bank of Hamburg. "He can't have
the duck!..." the chef snorts. "He can have the chicken."
I'm sitting in Spago
Beverly Hills, which, while pricey, is a
great, easygoing place (no financial statements required), perfect
to watch the crowd that passes by the bar. A suited local storms in
like he's in a parade, greeting three middle-aged, easy-to-spot
out-of-towners with the line, "Welcome to Beverly Hills!" But
Martin says the movie restaurant L' Idiot is merely "exaggeration,"
another case of fiction being more important than fact.
"The Grill is a very important restaurant for showbiz. It's just
that they have great, great food, and it caters more toward the
business end of show business than the celebrity end, but it's
really a nice, nice restaurant and they keep the quality of the
food really high. It's kind of on the alley. You don't really go
into the alley, though."
I pull up to the Grill's valet parking stand on the alleyway behind
Wilshire Boulevard and step into another stage set: a New York
steak house, transplanted. It's packed and noisy, with precisely
one empty stool at the bar, which holds a woman's purse. She
removes it with a flourish and says, "Sit right down!" without
taking her eyes off the basketball game on the television overhead.
By 7:30, agents, studio heads, lawyers, and their clients are
streaming through the door, taking every available table and
leaving a long waiting list.
Back in the convertible, I toss a five to the valet guys (the fee
is $4.50 everywhere) and pop in the cassette to see where Martin is
sending me next, which I hope is to dinner. But he's still talking
about shopping.
"It's a walking town, too," he says. "You can walk around Beverly
Hills. It is very nice after dinner to just take a walk and
window-shop. You can go down Rodeo, up Beverly, and just look in
the windows. It's very quiet in the evenings."
Rodeo Drive is so quiet at 7:45 that almost every parking spot is
empty, quite the opposite of only a few hours before. Back then,
every spot was perpetually taken, and I was blasted with a dirge of
honking if I dared to even pause a millisecond for a spot to clear.
Strolling up Rodeo, I immediately realize Martin is right: It's
better at night. The air has turned chilly, like a New England
summer, and I have the famous street all to myself. I walk beneath
endless designer logos, window-shopping the bedecked windows. Then
I climb the street called Via Rodeo, the hilly cobblestone shopping
village of high-end boutiques, salons, and bistros, which, a tour
guide proclaimed in Pretty Woman, "is the first new street built in
Beverly Hills in 75 years!" There's a re-creation of the Spanish
Steps, a fountain perfect for tossing coins into, two hours of free
valet parking, and tables full of outdoor diners, which, on the
evening of my visit, included one Via Rodeo tenant, Elizabeth
Taylor's longtime hairdresser, José Eber.
It's nine by the time I get back to the car, and Martin's
dispatching me away from Beverly Hills Proper and into Beverly
Hills Adjacent.
"There are Beverly Hills-type restaurants like the Ivy. It's really
nice, but that's what they call Beverly Hills adjacent to West
Hollywood. There's Chaya, which is a really nice restaurant
adjacent to Beverly Hills."
The Ivy is straight out of the movies. The see-and-be-seen are
sitting at flowered tablecloths on a patio beyond a white picket
fence. Yes, it's Beverly Hills Adjacent, but in a town where
fiction always triumphs over facts, the Ivy is, as Martin promised,
100 percent Beverly Hills. I'm shoehorned into a tiny,
pillow-festooned table that adjoins a table of six wildcat Beverly
Hills women, their voices as loud and emphatic as machine guns.
They are women straight out of a Steve Martin novel, where people
have names like Loki and Del Rey. They riddle the topics of the
day: men, music, sex, Botox, pilates, and how their feng shui guy
just can't seem to get things right. I hang on to their every
syllable, as if I'm part of their convivial group, even offering to
pony up a five-spot when, divvying up their bill six ways, one of
them falls $5 short. They stare at me like I'm an alien, an
adjacent instead of Beverly Hills proper, and I want to proclaim,
"Steve Martin sent me!" But they're gone in a percussion of high
heels on concrete, one accidentally slapping me in the face with
her scarlet snakeskin purse as she rushes off.
Since Martin isn't around to pick up the tab, I pay my bill and bid
good night to the valet parkers.
Back in the car, Steve provides a perfect coda to the night.
"That's another thing about Beverly Hills. People are really,
really nice. At least to me."