Ciro's

Ciro's (later known as Ciro's Le Disc) was a nightclub on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California owned by William Wilkerson. Opened in 1940, Ciro's became a popular nightspot for celebrities. The nightclub closed in 1960 and was reopened as a rock club in 1965. After a few name changes, it eventually became The Comedy Store in 1972.

Club Seville opened New Year's Eve 1935. It featured a "crystal dance floor with subsurface fish, fountains and colored lights in its Crystal Marine Room."

The building was remodeled, and, in January 1940, Ciro's was opened by entrepreneur William Wilkerson at 8433 Sunset Boulevard. In 1934, Wilkerson had also opened Cafe Trocadero, and the restaurant La Rue, both on the Strip, and would later originate The Flamingo in Las Vegas, only to have control of the resort wrested from him by mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.

In November 1942, Wilkerson leased Ciro's to his longtime right-hand man Herman Hover, who would make sure Ciro's was an important Hollywood hotspot until 1959.

Ciro's combined a luxe baroque interior and an unadorned exterior and became a famous hangout for movie people of the 1940s and 1950s. It was one of the places to be seen and guaranteed being written about in the gossip columns of Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, and Florabel Muir. On April 8, 1947, Frank Sinatra slugged "one of the most abusive" Hearst gossip columnists, Lee Mortimer, outside Ciro's.

Among the galaxy of celebrities who frequented Ciro's were Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Frank Sinatra, James Dean, Ava Gardner, Sidney Poitier, Anita Ekberg, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Spencer Tracy, Joan Crawford, Betty Grable, Marlene Dietrich, Clark Gable, Ginger Rogers, Ronald Reagan, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Mickey Rooney, Cary Grant, George Raft, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Judy Garland, June Allyson and Dick Powell, Mamie Van Doren, Jimmy Stewart, Jack Benny, Peter Lawford, and Lana Turner (who often said Ciro's was her favorite nightspot) among many others. During his first visit to Hollywood in the late 1940s, future President John F. Kennedy dined at Ciro's.

In December 1951, Herman Hover, owner of Ciro's, was involved with the Lili St. Cyr's indecent exposure case. She was defended by Jerry Geisler. She was accompanied by Armando Orsini, her husband.

Herman Hover filed for bankruptcy in 1959, and Ciro's was sold at public auction for $350,000.