History of the Brazilian Court Hotel

Odds and Ends

FAMOUS GUESTS AND VISITORS BRIGHT JOHNSON MET IN THE BUSINESS

rich and famous had stayed. The lush flora in the courtyards offered many hiding places. We never destroyed anything or got hurt, but we left no rock unturned. I still remember the musty odors in the interior halls and rooms. All of the furniture was covered with brown wrapping paper or sheets in the off season. In the late 1950s the Johnsons purchased a piano for the house and forced me to take piano lessons from Ronnie Stainthorpe who had a three piece band that played nightly at the BC. After a year of lessons Ronnie gave up on me as "unteachable". In my teens I worked in the bar serving hors d'oeuvre and sometimes made $100 for a couple of hours work. That is where I acquired the taste for caviar, various cheeses and chicken livers wrapped in bacon. I also stood in for the night auditor when he was too drunk to man the front office. The job went from midnight to 6 am and it was hard to stay awake. I had to answer the phones and transfer the calls on the ancient switchboard. I even learned to do the night book entries. A guest at the B.C. wanted to tour Lion Country Sa- fari in West Palm Beach where visitors can drive their cars among wild African animals. She had a dog and called the business to ask if she could bring her dog for the tour. She was told "we do not allow animals at Lion Country." Mike Armano, Head Waiter to a luncheon guest, "Would you like to sit at a patio table in the sun or shade?" Guest, "I'd like a medium." Mike, "I can give you a medium rare one." Guest, "What do you mean?" Mike, "I mean it's rare that we have a medi- um one." The ladies room in the lounge had two chandeliers, one over each of the two stalls. One day half of the glass prisms on one of the chandeliers were missing. They were replaced with prisms that closely matched. The next day the other half of the original prisms were gone. BRIGHT W. JOHNSON FUNNY EVENTS AT THE BC

Greta Garbo, Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Judy Garland, Olivia de Havilland, Joan Fontaine, Errol Flynn, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, James Michener, Henry Ford, Marcel Marceau, Tip O'Neill, Carol Channing, E. F. Hutton, Marjorie Merriweather Post, Dina Merrill, Dominick Dunne, Hank Aaron, Henry Kissinger, Howard Hughes, Gary Cooper, Gary Moore, Perry Como, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Margaret Trudeau, Richard Nixon, Tony Martin, Cyd Charissee, Jackie Kennedy and her mother, Simone Simone actress, Dixie Dunbar singer, Graham Kerr Galloping Gourmet, Joan Fontaine, Eli Wallach, James Mitchner author, Lawrence Spivak of Meet the Press, William Colby CIA, General Mark Clark, Gov. John Connally TX, Gov. Al Smith NY, George H. W. Bush, Lee Iacocca, Alistair Cooke, Christo- pher Plummer, George Brent actor, Sec. of Defense James Forestal, Environmentalist/Author Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, Arthur Nielson pollster, George Gallop pollster, Anne Jackson actress, Al Jolson, Cliff Robertson, Hoot Gibson, Lanny Ross singer, Geraldine Fitzgerald actress, Arthur Treacher actor, George Murphy actor/politician, Lt. Gen Daniel James Jr., Ferenc Molnar author, James Montgomery Flagg artist/cartoonist, Igor Sigorski aircraft design- er, Dizzy Dean baseball, Damon Runyon writer, Ed- die Arcaro jockey, Alfred Robertson jockey, Waite Hoyt baseball, Sec. State Dean Rusk, Ben Hogan golfer, Hank Aaron baseball. As a child the BC in the summer months was closed with only a handful of employees such as gardeners and painters. The entire grounds became a child's dream playground. I set - up my Lionel trains on sheets of 4x8 plywood in the employees dining room and spent hours building new layouts and running the trains. Friends would come over and we'd play war using guns that shot rubber bands. We knew all the secrets of the hotel. How to get from roof to roof; how to get in even when it was locked - up tight; how to get into the chef's pantry to confiscate canned tuna and sar- dines for snacks; exploring the penthouses where the RONALD E. JOHNSON AT THE HOTEL

After losing a number of fancy Kleenex boxes and

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