April 16, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Leslie Unger - (310) 247-3000
                        lunger@oscars.org

Academy Exhibition to Bring Back The Brown Derby Restaurant

Beverly Hills, CA - The Brown Derby Restaurant, one of the most famous dining destinations of Hollywood's Golden Age, will be the subject of a new exhibition at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences beginning May 10. Like all Academy exhibitions, it will be free and open to the public.

Installed in both the Grand Lobby and Fourth Floor Galleries, "Under the Hat: Hollywood's Legendary Brown Derby Restaurants" will include hundreds of photographs of celebrities socializing at the various Brown Derby restaurant locations from the late 1920s through the '50s. Other memorabilia and decor items - including a recreation of an original booth and the actual neon sign from the Hollywood restaurant - also will be featured, as will celebrity caricatures and portraits that were displayed at the restaurants. Clippings from fan magazines and trade publications will underscore the central role that the Brown Derby played in the social and business life of Hollywood.

The Brown Derby legend began as the brainchild of Herb Somborn, Wilson Mizner and Sid Grauman. It was Somborn who asked Bob Cobb to manage the new restaurant and, after Mizner and Somborn died in 1934, it was Cobb who took over the restaurants.

The first Brown Derby opened in 1926 on Wilshire Boulevard across from the Ambassador Hotel. It was the only one of the four Derby restaurants built in the shape of the famous hat. In 1931 the Beverly Hills Brown Derby opened at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive. The last of the Derbies opened in Los Feliz in 1941. But it was the Hollywood Brown Derby on Vine Street, just south of Hollywood Boulevard, that was the most famous. Opened on Valentine's Day 1929, it became the place where movie stars, celebrities of all types, the rich and the powerful gathered.

The exhibition is being organized with the assistance of Bob and Sally Cobb's daughter, Peggy Cobb Walsh, president of Hollywood Classic Cuisine Inc., and artist Mark Willems, co-author with Sally Cobb of The Brown Derby Restaurant: A Hollywood Legend. Materials have been lent by the Bob Cobb Family Collection. Special emphasis will be placed on photographs and caricatures of Academy Award winners who frequented the Derby.

"Under the Hat: Hollywood's Legendary Brown Derby Restaurant" will continue at the Academy through July 14, 2002. Gallery viewing hours are Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and weekends, noon to 6 p.m. For more information call 310-247-3600.