Post #5420 by SoBeTiki on Fri, Aug 9, 2002 8:04 AM

When Miami Beach shared the live entertainment spotlight with Las Vegas from the late 1950's through the late 1960's, the Fontainebleau Hotel was the focal point. During that time, the hotel actually had a lounge done in the minimalist Poly Pop style...

http://64.244.110.144:8888/tiki/fontainebleau_lounge_tiki.jpg

Here's what the Miami New Times says about those days:

"The Fontainebleau was ten years old in 1964, when the James Bond film Goldfinger opened with a glorious view of the high-rise curving toward the sea and its guests drinking martinis by the huge swimming pool and its waterfall. That was when the Fontainebleau was a celebrity hotel that attracted the stars of the day: Steve Allen hosted the Tonight Show there, and its La Ronde Room booked the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., and even Elvis Presley. Other movie scenes have since been set at Morris Lapidus's sublime temple of whimsy, loved and loathed by critics for its colorful and hyper-glamorous design and furnishings."

More facts about the Fontainebleau's storied past:

The nightclub "La Ronde" played host to performers like Sammy Davis, Jr., Jack Benny, Patti Page, Tony Bennett, and Ann Miller.

Jerry Lewis's The Bellboy, Sinatra's Tony Roma, and Sean Connery's Goldfinger were filmed at least in part at the Fontainebleau.

In 1960, when Elvis Presley was discharged from the army, Sinatra and his Rat Pack threw a party for the King at La Ronde. The event, memorialized on film, was a high-spirited affair in which Sinatra sang the Presley hit "Love Me Tender" and Presley (in uniform) did Sinatra's "Witchcraft" to the accompaniment of female screams.