Name Dropping: Tales from My San Francisco Nightclub

by Barnaby Conrad, Herb Cain (Introduction)

Overview

When it opened in 1953, Bennett Cerf called Barnaby Conrad�s saloon �the most attractive room in America.� San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen pronounced it �swank,� and wrote that because of it North Beach�s Broadway, �that garlicky old boulevard of longhaired men and shorthaired women will never be the same.�

In �Name Dropping,� renowned raconteur and �New York Times� best-selling author Barnaby Conrad tells the story of his San Francisco nightclub, the beloved El Matador, named and decorated in honor of his international bestseller Matador.

For ten years, El Matador glittered with stars like Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Duke Wellington, Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner, Lenny Bruce, Lucille Ball, Art Tatum, Eva Gabor, George Shearing, Bing Crosby, William f. Buckley Jr., Alex Haley, Robert Mitchum, Andre Previn, John Steinbeck, and Jack Kerouac.

This was where entertainers came to be entertained, leaving their priceless doodles and boozily enigmatic epigrams in the guest book�and a captivating trail of exploits and gossip all noted and recalled in this book.

Charming, personable, and witty, the author is both celebrity and fan as he shares vivid, hilarious, and surprising anecdotes, delightfully dropping famous names all the while. Conrad remembers everything, from Sinatra�s plan to star in a movie version of the author�s bullfighting story �Matador� (in order to lure Ava Gardner out of the arms of the real-life matador she�d left him for) to Truman Capote making friends with Conrad�s bulldog.

Grab a stool, pull up to the piano bar, lean in close and prepare to be transported to the Golden Gate city�s golden age.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940148616498
Publisher:	The Write Thought
Publication date:	08/29/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	222
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Barnaby Conrad (March 27, 1922 - February 12, 2013) was an American artist and author.

Born in San Francisco, California, Conrad graduated from Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut. He attended the University of North Carolina, where he was captain of the freshman boxing team. He also studied painting at the University of Mexico, where he also became interested in bullfighting. After being injured in the bullring, he returned to college and graduated from Yale University in 1943.

Conrad was American Vice Consul to Seville, M�laga, and Barcelona from 1943 to 1946. While in Spain, he studied bullfighting with Juan Belmonte, Manolete, and Carlos Arruza. In 1945 he appeared on the same program with Belmonte and was awarded the ears of the bull. He is the only American male to have fought in Spain, Mexico and Peru.

In 1947, he worked as secretary to famed novelist Sinclair Lewis. Conrad published his first novel, The Innocent Villa, in 1948. It largely went unnoticed, but his second novel, Matador, sold 3 million copies. John Steinbeck chose Conrad's Matador as his favorite book of the year, and the novel has been translated into 28 languages. Royalties from Matador provided Conrad with the capital to open El Matador nightclub in San Francisco in 1953. Herb Caen, noting that Matador was the publisher's suggested alternative to the original title Conrad had given his second novel, commented on Conrad naming his nightclub after his first best seller: "Who'd ever go eat at a restaurant called Day of Fear?" In 1997 Conrad wrote Name Dropping: Tales From My San Francisco Nightclub, "a jaunty account" about the 10 years he ran El Matador.

In 1958, Conrad was gored almost fatally in a bullfight that was part of a charity event. After learning of the incident, Eva Gabor is said to have run into No�l Coward at Sardi's in New York and asked him, "Did you hear about poor Barnaby? He was terribly gored in Spain." Coward replied, "Oh, thank heavens. I thought you said he was bored."

Conrad started the Santa Barbara Writers Conference in 1973 at the Cate School, inviting well-known authors such as Eudora Welty, Gore Vidal, Joan Didion and Ross Macdonald. He and his wife Mary directed the literary gathering until Conrad sold the conference in 2004.

Conrad's charcoal portraits of Truman Capote and James Michener hang in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Editorial Reviews

�Gossipy memoirs on celebrities abound, but Conrad's book is cut above the rest.�

Library Journal - William Gargan