Beebe, Lucius ; Sherman Billingsley,; The Stork Club Bar Book Clam Shell Box Sherman Billingsley Bootlegger, SPEAKEASY
NY, RINEHART & CO, 1946 , LEATHER BOUND
Overall Condition is: VERY GOOD+
HIGHLIGHTS: EXTREMELY RARE 3 X 4 double folded Pamphlet The Stork and the Fox, designed by Paul Rand. 8vo. this essential cocktail manual Red moroccan genuine leather; clamshell custom made box with small pocket inside containing a ticket and business card. The ticket is Yale University Athletic Association, and the business card for Sherman Billingsley, Stork Club. Red moroccan genuine leather, bright gold gilt lettering on cover, lightly age-toned pages, good, clean tight binding, unmarked. Bottom of front cover is written in gold gilt, Birthday Greetings from the Pottsville Club. ALSO, includes a double folded pamphlet The Stork and the Fox, small story with the moral on the rear. Beautiful Book! Matching green cloth clamshell custom made box with small pocket inside containing a ticket and business card. The ticket is Yale University Athletic Association, and the business card for Sherman Billingsley, Stork Club. Gold gilt lettering on spine, like new. Dust jacket has some shelf wear, creased edges, head and foot of spine creased, slightly rubbed cover, and price-clipped. Book looks like new, bright, tight, except for a little tanning on endpages. Sherman Billingsley (March 10, 1896 - October 4, 1966) was an American nightclub owner and former bootlegger who was the founder and owner of New York's Stork Club. From the time of the speakeasy until the 1960s, he held court on East 53rd Street. In 1951, the Stork Club began to decline in popularity after refusing service to Josephine Baker. Having witnessed the incident, actress Grace Kelly raced over to Baker and took her by the arm, storming out of the establishment along with a large party, all vowing never to return. The two women became close friends after the incident and Baker sued Billingsley and the Stork Club. After seeing that her actions had caused the club's ultimate demise, Baker withdrew her lawsuit in 1955, feeling vindicated. A wag once remarked that the three most engaging phenomena of the contemporary New York scene were Mrs. Vanderbilt, the Stork Club and Lucius Beebe.Here is the Stork Club. Not the whole of it, for its legend has achieved Homeric proportions. But here is the essence of its being, a brandied core of its reality, a soufflé flavored with its personality atmosphere and glamour. Lucius Beebe, originator of the phrase saloon society, was first introduced to the Stork Club back in 1930 in the brave old East 58th Street days by Heywood Broun.Of him Stanley Walker has written: 'Mr Beebe will drink a double bottle of champagne without batting an eye whenever the mood comes over him, and, from my personal conviction, he mood comes over him agreeably and often. First Edition with matching dates of 1946 on the title and copyright pages as well as the Rinehart colophon
REF#:074727
