The Castle on Sunset

Author Shawn Levy
Narrator Mike Chamberlain
Publisher Orion
Run Time 12 hours and 56 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Film history, theory or criticism.

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What to expect

Chateau Marmont has sat atop the Sunset Strip for nearly a century, like the Rock of Gibraltar. It is a place filled with deep secrets but is hidden in plain sight, and its evolution parallels the growth of Hollywood itself.
Since the dawn of talking pictures, the Chateau Marmont has promised privacy, mystery and a whiff of old glamour. It's where John Belushi overdosed after a three-day binge, it's the place where Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate lived while their infamous house on Cielo Drive was being completed. Billy Wilder, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gore Vidal and Howard Hughes all spent time as long-term residents in the Chateau. Rebel without a Cause, starring James Dean and Natalie Wood, was largely conceived, cast, rehearsed and, in some way, lived, in one of its suites. Led Zeppelin may or may not have driven motorcycles through the hotel's lobby. Beyoncé and Jay-Z recently threw an Oscars bash in the hotel parking garage.

With wit and prowess, Shawn Levy recounts the wild parties and scandalous liaisons, creative breakthroughs and marital breakdowns, births and untimely deaths that the Chateau Marmont has given rise to. Vivid, salacious and richly informed, the book is a glittering tribute to Hollywood as seen from the suites and bungalows of its most hallowed hotel.

(p) Penguin Random House Audio 2019

Critics Review

Fascinating, dishy, and glimmering with insight, THE CASTLE ON SUNSET is a must-read for anyone interested in the rich and racy history of Tinseltown. Shawn Levy’s entertaining and deeply researched biography of a building chronicles experiences both glamorous and sordid, historical and contemporary. This is the definitive book about Hollywood’s most storied hotel
Cheryl Strayed, author of WILD: A JOURNEY FROM LOST TO FOUND
Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood is unquestionably one of the most dauntingly glamorous hotels in the world [and this book is] an exuberant record of its life and times . . . Levy’s pages teem with extraordinary and extreme personalities
THE SUNDAY TIMES
I felt like I was sneaking around the hallways of the Chateau after midnight and peering through keyholes in history . . . Lovingly researched and wonderfully dishy
Joe Hagan, author of STICKY FINGERS: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JANN WENNER AND ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE
I want to live inside this book!
Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of DAISY JONES & THE SIX
As elegant and naughty as the hotel’s guests . . . tells a secret history of American film, fame and decadence. It’s a spellbinding read
Peter Ames Carlin, author of HOMEWARD BOUND: THE LIFE OF PAUL SIMON
A fabulously fizzy account
VANITY FAIR
A fascinating exposé of wild nights and celebrity scandals at Hollywood’s iconic hotel
GRAZIA
An irresistible, deliciously dishy deep-dive . . . told in prose so witty and alive, you feel you’re sitting at the bar with Dominick Dunne. This is a book worthy of its glamorous, alluring subject
Wednesday Martin, author of PRIMATES OF PARK AVENUE: A MEMOIR
Hollywood and Beverly Hills were separated by two miles of unpaved road when the Chateau Marmont – modelled on a Loire Valley castle by its owner Fred Horowitz – was completed in 1929. Levy’s witty, intimate account describes how the flowering of hotspots on the Sunset Strip beginning in the 1930s made the Marmont a show-business magnet
Jane Ciabattari, BBC Culture

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