Ernest Hemingway had been drinking scotch-and-waters while mashing
to think as he popped open his fifth or sixth Coca-Cola of the night: On
on Cuban cigarillos all night at his regular table, 55. It was a cold Gotham
average the take for a good night at the club is $3,500-4,000. Where am
night, fresh snow was falling outside on 53rd St. and 5th Avenue, but the
I gonna get the cash? He asked Papa to give him 10 minutes; he disappeared behind the bar and through a door. As Hemingway was finishing
heat inside the Stork Club was sweltering. As usual, Hemingway’s table
his goodbye’s moments later, Billingsley reappeared at his table looking
was a hive of activity and revelry: drinks were bought and spilled; women
fresh as a cold mojito and patiently counted out $100,000 in $100 bills.
fluttered like haute couture butterflies; black-tie waiters hovered like
bumblebees, quick to refill a half-empty glass or light a stogie. It was 1940, The man who grew up the poorest of the poor on the dusty badlands of
19th century America, who had, literally, awoken on Christmas morning
and the writer was in a celebratory mood; his masterpiece, For Whom
the Bell Tolls, was a smash success, and he was just embarking on what
as a 10-year-old boy to lumps of coal in his stocking, had found $100,000
some have called the greatest romance of the 20th century with Martha
at 2AM for America’s most celebrated writer without breaking a sweat.
The tip that Papa left was reportedly more than three month’s rent for
Gellhorn. Drinks always flowed fast and furious at table 55—but tonight
Billingsley and his family.
there was something different. Sherman Billingsley, the affable ex-Oklahoma rumrunner and founder/
owner of the Stork Club, orbited
“THE GREATEST NIGHTaround the table like a wellCLUB ON EARTH”
tuned satellite, making sure his
After America took her sweet
prized literary patron was happy
time to catch up to big-sister
and content. As the proprietor
Europe’s flair for putting on a
of the “world’s most famous
show and throwing a good party,
nightspot,” Billingsley was a
the nightclub culture of Manhatmercurial man with a real talent
tan, which started as wet revolt
for client relations and glitzy
against going dry with ProhibiPR; he routinely lavished gifts
tion and lasted well into the
of champagne, cigars, neckmid-1950s, spawned a plethora
ties, and even cars on his most
of tempting and exotic options to
coveted clients. Although he
suit any chic insomniac’s palate.
oozed a laidback charm with
If you wanted to see dazzling
his impeccable double-breasted
ice skaters costumed in feathsuits, immaculately parted hair,
ers, there was the International
and an ever-present light of a
Casino in Times Square, with
fresh cigarette, Billingsley was a
its seven-foot-tall marquee of
ruthless proprietor. If need be,
electric letters attempting to
A LOVABLE FEAST: Ernest Hemingway, lover Martha Gellhorn and
he’d bribe, cajole, and seduce
lure customers from its City of
guest dining at table 55 in 1940.
Western Union clerks for the adLight-infused rival, the French
dresses of movie stars, five-star
Casino, only five blocks away.
generals, sultans, corporate titans, and femme-fatale starlets to personally
Nostalgic for your old Kentucky home? Head up to Harlem, where the
send them hand-written invites to Stork. He lived his life by the M.O. of
Cotton Club catered to an all-white audience with an all-black revue, from
“anyone you ever heard of comes to the Stork Club.” But even he, the man
the most well-trained chorus line of “sepia beauties” to hot jazz bands that
behind the “center of the nightclub world,” the man who could make
kept patrons dancing with every hi-dee-hi-dee-hi-dee-ho. If the turn of
anything happen, grant any wish, desire, or quixotic whim, was in for a
the century had been the best of times, the Diamond Horseshoe certainly
first this night.
agreed, where a then-unknown choreographer named Gene Kelly got his
It was closing time and Hemingway, always the last to leave, asked
start staging numbers with titles like “The Silver Screen” and “Mrs. Astor’s
for his bill. When the hard-fisted writer looked at the bill, a slow smile
Pet Horse.” South-of-the-border sex appeal ruled East 60th Street at the
stretched across his face as he reached for his jacket pocket. He called
Copacabana, where baseball greats rubbed elbows with The Rat Pack to
Billingsley over and handed him the bill and a piece of paper. Billingsley
the sounds of salsa and rumba, and on the opposite side of town, The
looked at the piece of paper in awe; it was a $100,000 royalty check for
Latin Quarter a ttempted to outdo itself night after night with sequins and
the screen rights to For Whom the Bell Tolls. (The sum was roughly the
spangles found on handpicked showgirls who demanded the last word in
equivalent of $1.2 million today.) Billingsley shook his head and began
loveliness. A “civilized” Middle East could be found amidst the signature
10
treatsmagazine.com
Previous spread: Gamma-Keystone/Keystone-France/Getty Images; This page: courtesy of ken spooner
Bartenders would receive brand-new Cadillacs as tips.
Maitre d’s were slipped 20k for entrance. Exotic rubies, French perfumes, cases of champagne & fresh Cuban cigars were bartering items. Balloons stuffed with $100 bills
rained from the ceilings. And the world’s most powerful gossip columnist dubbed it “New
York’s New Yorkiest Place.” It was, of course, the Stork Club. As private and elite supper
clubs become en vogue again, TREATS! looks back at the glamour, sophistication and luxe
exclusivity of the birthplace of supper club cafe society that held sway over the world’s
most celebrated, syndicated, notorious & lionized group of 20th century patrons ever assembled to dine, drink, fight & flirt in fashionable excess