It's one thing to feature (albeit on screen) hotel staff for the sake of product placement in a popular comedy, and quite another to suggest that a maid in your hotel might try on a guest's clothing during room cleaning and, furthermore, take a stroll in one of her outfits. The creators of the romantic comedy "Maid in Manhattan" (2002) apparently had difficulty securing cooperation from New York hotels, so the film depicts the heroine, played by Jennifer Lopez, working at a place with a fictional name. Nevertheless, in scenes at the entrance to the hotel, you can easily recognize the facade of The Waldorf Astoria, another historic New York hotel beloved by filmmakers. It was in this hotel that an African king and his entourage stayed in the film "Coming to America" (1988), and it was also where the famous tango scene from "Scent of a Woman" (1992) was filmed in the banquet hall. Other films shot at the hotel include “Analyse This” (1999), “The Royal Tenenbaums” (2001), “Catch Me If You Can” (2002), “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” (2005), “The Pink Panther” (2006), and “The Hoax” (2006). Television series that have filmed at the Waldorf include “Law and Order”, “Rescue Me”, “Sex and the City”, “The Sopranos” and “Will and Grace”.
The hotel has had many high-profile guests under its roof throughout its history, including Charlie Chaplin, Ava Gardner, Liv Ullmann, Edward G. Robinson, Gregory Peck, Ray Bolger, John Wayne, Tony Bennett, Jack Benny, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Muhammad Ali, Vince Lombardi, Judy Garland, Sonny Werblin, Greer Garson, Harold Lloyd, Liberace, Burt Reynolds, Robert Montgomery, Cesar Romero, and many others. On the 100th anniversary of the original hotel in 1993, one publication wrote: "It isn't the biggest hotel in New York, nor the most expensive. But when it comes to prestige, the Waldorf-Astoria has no peer. When presidents come to New York, they stay at the Waldorf-Astoria. Kings and queens make it their home away from home, as have people as diverse as Cary Grant, the Dalai Lama and Chris Evert. Some of them liked the hotel so well, they made their home there."
Bonus fact 1: Waldorf-Astoria has given its name to the so-called Waldorf salad.
Bonus fact 2: Waldorf-Astoria was the world's tallest hotel until 1963 when it was surpassed by Moscow's Hotel Ukraina
