‘The Biggest Haul They Ever Pulled off’
By year’s end, the Garden faced bankruptcy. Room rates were high, bookings solid, yet the mortgage went unpaid. Nazimova, back from France and counting on funds from Jean Adams, found herself nearly penniless. In desperation, she agreed to tour in Mother India, playing a 12-year-old child bride. At 48, she collapsed on opening night. The tour was postponed.
Jean Adams visited her in New York, claiming to have sent $2,000 and to have secured $2 million in backing. She showed architectural plans for expansion and promised $100,000 in annual earnings – if Nazimova could raise $25,000 (about $460,000 today) immediately. Alla sought loans from friends and colleagues but couldn’t find a lender. Jean returned to Los Angeles. They never met again.
Telegram exchanges turned bitter. Nazimova demanded her money. Jean sent $500. Nazimova was forced to sell her beloved Rolls-Royce. Then came the final blow: the hotel was on the brink of foreclosure. Alla’s attorney discovered that Jean and her husband John Adams had vanished – and that they were wanted for real estate fraud in the Midwest. A Nebraska victim called the Adams’ Garden Alla job, “the biggest haul they had ever pulled off.”
A member of the hotel’s board of directors proposed selling. Nazimova, defeated, agreed. On July 17, 1928, William Hay, the developer who built the estate in 1913, bought the Garden for $80,000. After settling debts, Nazimova was left with $7,500 ($138,000 today). A paltry return for a decade of investment and heartbreak. But she was relieved. Hollywood had closed its doors to her. She decided to return to Broadway in search of her own third act.
William Hay hired a seasoned hotel manager and reopened the Garden on September 28, 1928. The Times called it “an informal Spanish fiesta.” The sybaritic excess of Adams’ launch was gone. Dinner followed entertainment. Bookings surged. Polo players from the East with aristocratic names – A. Whitney, H. Harriman, E. Guest – checked in. (These three are likely Cornelius Vanderbilt “Sonny” Whitney, brother of John Hay “Jock” Whitney a later owner of the Garden of Allah; Averill Harriman, a railroad heir, future diplomat, and Cold War strategist; and Winston Guest, a cousin of Winston Churchill, champion polo player, and father of socialite Cornelia Guest.)
Meanwhile, Hollywood was changing. In October 1927, Warner Bros. released The Jazz Singer, the first hit film with synchronized sound. By 1929, over 4,000 theaters had converted to sound projection. The silent era was over. Studios recruited from New York, and the new arrivals – actors, musicians, screenwriters – needed places to live. Business was good at William Hay’s Garden of Alla.
In The Jazz Singer, Al Jolson predicted big changes coming to Hollywood: “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”