Some Like It Hot Hotel
(other)1500 Orange Ave.
Coronado, CA 92118
Website: Some Like It Hot Hotel
The Florida segment at the fictitious "Seminole Ritz" hotel in Some Like It Hot was filmed at the Hotel Del Coronado in Coronado, California. A glorious Victorian seaside resort, 'The Del' was a favorite among celebrities, presidents and other notables.
Hotel del Coronado (also known as The Del and Hotel del) is a beachfront luxury hotel in the city of Coronado, just across the San Diego Bay from San Diego, California. It is one of the few surviving examples of an American architectural genre: the wooden Victorian beach resort. It is one of the oldest and largest all-wooden buildings in California and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977,[3][5] and is a designated California Historical Landmark.[4]
When it opened in 1888, it was the largest resort hotel in the world and the first to use electrical lighting. It has hosted presidents, royalty, and celebrities throughout the years.[6] The hotel has been featured in numerous movies and books.
The popularity of the hotel was established before the 1920s. It already had hosted Presidents Harrison, McKinley, Taft, and Wilson.[17] By the 1920s Hollywood's stars and starlets discovered that "the Del" was the "in place" to stay. Many celebrities made their way south to party during the era of Prohibition and used the Hotel Del as their personal playground. Tom Mix, Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin, and Ram?n Novarro were a few of the many actors who stayed at the hotel during weekend getaways.[18]
Other notable guests included Thomas Edison, L. Frank Baum, Vincent Price, Babe Ruth, Veronica Covance, and Reggie White; and presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.[17]
L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, did much of his writing at the hotel, and is said to have based his designs for the Emerald City on it.[29] However, other sources say the Emerald City was inspired by the "White City" of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893.[30][31]
The hotel was first featured in a film during 1927 when it was used as a backdrop for the film The Flying Fleet. Since then, it has been featured in at least twelve other films, including: Some Like It Hot (which starred Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis where it was called the "Seminole Ritz"), The Stunt Man (which starred Peter O'Toole), Wicked, Wicked (which was completely filmed on location there), and the 1990 version of My Blue Heaven (which starred Steve Martin and Rick Moranis).[32]
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