Post #710398 by arriano on Thu, Mar 6, 2014 2:37 PM

I'm starting to wonder if Ernest Gantt/Donn Beach ever actually toured the South Pacific before opening Don the Beachcomber. In the 1930 census he's a 21-year-old farmhand living in Henderson County, Texas. Three years later he's got a bar in Hollywood with tropical drinks. What happened in those three years? I find records of him traveling back and forth between L.A. and Hawaii several times between 1936 and 1939, but nothing before. Has anyone seen any specific record of him traveling to the South Pacific before that other than his own quotes? Wouldn't it be funny if all he knew about Polynesia before opening his bar was from National Geographic? He certainly wouldn't be the first person to go to Hollywood and reinvent themselves.

BTW, in an odd twist, I do find a record of his older brother Hugh Gantt going to Hawaii in 1924, and Hugh is living in L.A. by the 1930 census working as a real estate salesman. Did Donn just borrow his brother's stories?