Long before Spago was even a glimmer above the Sunset Strip, West Hollywood had Chasen’s. From 1936 to 1995, the almost pedestrian white and hunter green structure on the corner of Beverly Boulevard and Doheny Drive was the place to spot Hollywood royalty — Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe were regulars — and it was a frequent location for Academy Award fetes. Founded by Dave Chasen, a vaudevillian actor, the restaurant quickly amassed a regular clientele that included everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Alfred Hitchcock, Groucho Marx and Ronald Reagan. It was actually here in his namesake booth (now displayed at the Reagan Library), where the former president proposed to his then girlfriend, Nancy. While
Lucille Ball loved the creamed spinach, Sinatra preferred the chicken curry, but the most famous dish of all was the chili, which became iconic when Elizabeth Taylor demanded that the spicy dish be shipped to her in Rome while she was filming Cleopatra in 1963.
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