Name:Frances Langford's Outrigger
Type:restaurant
Street:(Now operated as the Dolphin Bar & Shrimp House)1401 NE Indian River Drive
City:Jensen Beach
State:FL
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:(772) 781-5136
Status:defunct, but still operating as a restaurant and bar
Description:
Frances Langford's Outrigger survives as the Dolphin Bar and Shrimp House. It is no longer a tiki restaurant, but the basic structure remains and a shrine to Frances Langford and the original restaurant is in a small room near the lobby. The full history of this restaurant is recounted in the March 2005 issue of Barracuda magazine. (The following was re-edited and expanded in Feb. 2010 - KG)
Frances Langford -- Tha Bamboo Blonde
Langford's Outrigger Restaurant designed and managed by Ed Lawrence, a hollywood set designer, seabee and architect who worked on the original Don the Beachcomber restaurants and did the set designs for Joan Crawford's "Rain".
A great early "sin in the south seas" film
Matchbook with graphics similar to those used on menus for Don the Beachcomber's restaurant.
an early menu amd newspaper clipping.
a few drinks were on the menu
the only style of mug known to be used by the Outrigger. A Daga bamboo mug
placemat and swizzle
Yes kids, adults were allowed to smoke
The original restaurant changed hands a few times, going through Jimmy Buffetization and eventually being brought back in a classier style that included a shrine to Frances Langford. The Outrigger is now the Dolphin Bar and Shrimp House. (These photos are from about 2003 - before the infamous hurricane season of 2004 included a hit on Jensen Beach.)
Langford was a Florida native and one of the first recording stars signed to Decca records. She recorded a number of Hapa Haole numbers backed by the same Hawaiian musicians that backed Bing Crosby on his early recordings. Her big hit was the song "In Waikiki".
Starting in the pre-tiki era ofthe 1930's, she began a successful decades-long career in radio, recording, film and television.
A young Frances Langford with a uke.
Various publicity shots
Langford, Hope and Sinatra.
Frances Langford and her first husband Jon Hall. Hall was the part-Tahitian nephew of the co-author of the book "Mutiny on the Bounty"; James Norman Hall. His first big movie role was in John Ford's The Hurricane, another book by Nordoff and Hall.
Hall was the star of numerous south pacific adventure films and most famously paired with actress Dorothy Lamour in The Hurricane. This is the film from which the song "The Moon of Manakoora" comes.
Lamour is best known today for her "on the Road" films with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. Based on the success of The Hurricane, she did her own Hapa Haole Decca album - although she never thought of herself as a singer.
Although they were paired again in the film Aloma and the South Seas, Hall and Lamour didn't get along very well. Despite their on-screen romantics, Lamour said Hall was tempermental and hard to work with. When Frances ariived on the scene, one can easily imagine her tendency to compete with Lamour's popular Polynesian film persona; especially given her her husband's own Tahitan background and the success of the Hurricane film. Perhaps this explains why the "Florida Thrush", as she was sometimes called, developed an obsession with Polynesia?
While Lamour eventually cast off the Polynesian type-casting of her early career, Hall did not. He went on to make a succession of South Sea adventure films; all of which would were basically b-pictures even though he played with notables such as Charles Laughton, Jon Carradine, Peter Lorre and Frances Farmer.
From a tiki / exotica perspective, one of his most interesting films is Forbidden Island.
In the opening scenes Martin Denny plays piano in a bar which appears to be the old Trader Vics in Waikiki.
Hall also released a pair of exotica / Hawaian jazz records under his name, including this one. They are both quite good; although whether he is actually involved with the recordings is unclear.
Hall and Langford met while appearing on a radio show called Hollywood Hotel and were married shortly before World War II. (Langford is on the right)
After the war started Langford toured with Bob Hope's show throughout the south pacific, and later in Korea and Vietnam. Hall joined the army during the war.
Although Langford had black hair in her early career as a singer, she went blond. After the war, she did a picture called "The Bamboo Blond" about a bomber pilot returning home from the south pacific.
Although Hall and Langford purchased the land and began developing the retreat that would become the Outrigger Restaurant before the war, the couple split up before the restaurant was built. Langford married millionaire Ralph Evinrude of boat motor fame, and constructed her Polynesian palace where she entertained locals and celebrities until the 1980's.
Langford and Hall remained friends until his death in the 1980s.
The full story of this couple that were at the heart of pre-tiki, polynesian pop and its eventual Jimmy Buffetization, as well the Outrigger Restaurant is in the March 2005 issue of Barracuda Magazine.
[ Edited by: Kailuageoff on 2005-03-31 20:50 ]
[ Edited by: Kailuageoff 2010-02-27 04:23 ]
[ Edited by: Kailuageoff 2010-02-27 04:49 ]
