INSPIRATIONS

© famoushotels archives

ENRICO CARUSO

(WITH LINA CAVALIERI). 

This story could start with "See Naples and Die". Enrico Caruso, star-tenor of the past century, took this catch phrase to heart and died at the Grand Hotel Vesuvio in Naples on 2 August 1921. He died of an abscess that brought on peritonitis. Until today, the management is happy about the kindness of the super star, as thousands of visitors are lured to the hotel in memoriam of their great singing idol.
In 1923, the manageress of The Oriental Hotel in Bangkok had serious worries about a famous writer, who had conducted malaria. "I hope he is not going to die at my hotel!" she remarked to the doctor, right outside of the room of the patient. Somerset Maugham was too young to die, recovered soon and spent so much time at the hotel, that The Oriental has enough reason to name one of her best suites after him. If he had died there, who knows, it might be a whole wing.
In 1898 the Empress Elizabeth, of Austria was a guest at the Beau Rivage in Geneva, Switzerland. As she was leaving to board the boat which was to take her to Territet, and while she was crossing the hotel grounds to the landing place, she was stabbed by an Italian anarchist. Carried tenderly back to the hotel she soon breathed her last.
One guest of no fame but with enough money turned to the Mena House in front of the Great Pyramid in Cairo for eternal peace. He rented a room with view upon the pyramid. While spending most of his time on his terrace, looking at the final resting places of various pharaohs, most notable Ramses, the rumours leaked that he has come to the hotel to wait until he dies. The tactful management approached the guest to investigate if he would not prefer to leave and find his peace – please! – somewhere else. After knocking on the door, nobody opened. With the usual "Housekeeping, sorrrrryyy!" a small delegation entered the room. They found their guest laying in bed, his arms peaceful crossed, eyes shut. He had followed the great Pharaoes to their final destination.
At L'HÔTEL in Paris, where Oscar Wilde lay in his death throes, which ended on November 30, 1900, his bill remains unpaid until today. One of his last quips, "I am dying beyond my means," referred not to the hotel's elegance, but to his own total insolvency. But Wilde's last days in room 16 are shrouded in mystery. Did he die of syphilis, or cerebral meningitis resulting from an ear infection? Did he willingly join the Catholic faith, or was he dragooned into accepting last rites by pushy priests? One thing is clear: The hotel's decor was not up to the aesthete's standards. His last words are reputed to be, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go."
The hotel has transformed itself, meanwhile, into one of the most praised boutique hotels on the planet, full of rich brocades, wood paneling, and framed mementos of Wilde's stay. Though it took them another 100 years to finally change that wallpaper. His bill of 26,000 francs is still outstanding.
At the Viennese Hotel Bristol it all ended there for one unfortunate lady: the newspaper Kronen-Zeitung reported that Julie Earl from England was robbed and murdered at the Bristol Hotel on 23 May 1918. Miss Earl had been the companion of Baroness Vivante de Villabella from Trieste. The Baroness, her husband and the unfortunate victim had resided at the Bristol for the past three and a half years. 180 Crowns in cash and jewellery worth one million Crowns were stolen. However, the perpetrators didn’t get very far. They were arrested the very same day. (from our book HOTEL BRISTOL VIENNA).Silent-film comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle's 1921 Labor Day bash in room 1220 of the Westin St. Francis provided newspapers with the scandal of the decade, complete with illicit booze, groupies, and the death of a young actress. The actual events are clouded in San Francisco fog: At some point in the proceedings, Virgina Rappe, a 30-year-old starlet with a few screen credits, went off to the bedroom by herself, quite drunk. Four days later she was dead, and Arbuckle was tried for first-degree murder, with the San Francisco D.A. claiming the star had raped Rappe and fatally injured her with his excessive body weight. There were three trials and finally, a verdict of not guilty. Arbuckle was banned from several studios and went bankrupt; one little trip to the bedroom made him, in his own words, "the guy everyone loves to hate."
Operation Tiderace was the codename of the British plan to retake Singapore in 1945. Japan's defeat in World War II caught the Japanese Command in Singapore by surprise. Many were unwilling to surrender and had vowed to fight to the death. There was even a secret plan to massacre all Allied PoWs on the island. But on August 20, the Japanese commander Itagaki told his men that they would have to surrender. That night, one officer committed suicide at Raffles Hotel.
More recently Kung Fu movie star David Carradine was found dead in his hotel room in Bangkok, Thailand. The Astroria in St. Petersburg has its famous case, too: Aleksandr Vertinsky a famous Russian actor, singer and songwriter who had become a cult figure among Russian émigrés. He died of a heart attack on 21 May 21 1957, at the Astoria Hotel in Leningrad (St. Petersburg).
Music photographer Jim Marshall, who spent more than a half-century capturing rock-and-roll legends including the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin at work and in repose, has died alone in his New York hotel room.
The two-story 1950s cast-concrete former Landmark Motor Hotel was the perfect stage for a celebrity's last act. And on October 4, 1970, Janis Joplin provided just that, dying of an alcohol-and-heroin overdose in the wee hours of the morning. Joplin obtained some startlingly strong heroin, injected herself, went to the lobby to buy cigarettes, returned to her room, and keeled over from her bed into an end table. She was found the next day, dressed in a blouse and panties, by her road manager. Joplin was thus a founding member of the "27 club," the dubiously honorable circle of musicians who expired at that tender age, along with Brian Jones, who died the previous year, and Jimi Hendrix, who preceded her by a mere two weeks. The Landmark Motor Hotel has been renamed the Highland Gardens Hotel.New York’s Chelsea Hotel has its fair share in this story’s subject: poet Dylan Thomas died of alchohol poisoning at St. Vincent’s Hospital after binging at the Chelsea in 1953. Nancy Spungen, girlfriend of Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, was found stabbed to death on October 12, 1978. Lost Weekend author Charles R. Jackson committed suicide at the Chelsea in 1968. On the other hand, Painter Alphaeus Cole died there at the record-setting age of 115.
Close to death had been several survivors of the Titanic, who actually stayed for some time at the Chelsea after being rescued, as it is a short distance from Pier 54 where the Titanic was supposed to dock. And this titanic touch brings an otherwise sad story to a relatively happy end.