In search of the perfect hotel for his movie “Some Like it Hot” (1959), director Billy Wilder nearly lost his mind. The challenge was to find a location that was not only beautiful but also, in a certain sense, historical. The film is set in 1929 when the so-called The Valentine's Day Massacre took place in Chicago, and these events are reflected in the plot. Finally, the choice fell on the Californian Hotel del Coronado, so cinemagic that many professionals were convinced it was a set. In the autumn of 1958, the film crew consisting of 200 people stayed at the hotel for about a week, during which they managed to shoot all the natural scenes. However, the lobby, rooms, and banquet hall were filmed in a studio pavilion. Interestingly, the choice of the hotel was vehemently opposed by... the Mayor of Miami, as in the film, the jazz orchestra goes on tour to Florida, not California. The Mayor of Coronado responded to him: “Some like it hot, but not as hot as Miami in September”.
Hotel del Coronado, also commonly referred to as The Del or Hotel Del, is famous not only because of the film. It is a remarkable establishment with a rich history. It represents a rare and well-preserved example of an American architectural style characteristic of the Victorian era — a wooden Victorian beach resort. In terms of its size, it ranks as the second-largest wooden structure in the United States, with the Tillamook Air Museum in Tillamook, Oregon, being the only one surpassing it. At the time of its grand opening in 1888, Hotel del Coronado was the largest resort hotel in the world.
By the 1920s, Hollywood's stars and starlets discovered that The Del was the place to be and many celebrities made their way south to party here during the 1920s and 1930s. The list of its notable guests is massive, including Thomas Edison, Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino, Clark Gable, Vincent Price, Babe Ruth, James Stewart, Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn. 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 design for the Emerald City on it. More recently, guests have included Kevin Costner, Whoopi Goldberg, Gene Hackman, George Harrison, Keanu Reeves, Brad Pitt, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, and Oprah Winfrey. Many presidents have also stayed at the hotel, including Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
