BlackBook Magazine

The Sundek surf trunk returns for another ride.

Before surfers began wearing “jams” that ran to their shins, like so many beach-going basketball players, wave riders favored a shorter, knee-high, butt-hugging, hip-hanging look (along with their feathered hair).

The brands and their labels were legend, and whichever you chose, you had to own every color. That is, if you were a part of surf culture from the ’70s through the ’80s (or your parents owned a beach house and you were trying to fit in with the local rats).

One man’s “coach door” is another man’s “suicide.” Vintage car enthusiasts know what I’m talking about. Most import companies, dating back to the 1930s, featured at least one luxury automobile in their stable that was designed with suicide doors, meaning those that hinged on the trailing edge closer to the rear of a vehicle. In other words, the car door handles were positioned side by side, and opened like one-way saloon doors, or butterfly wings. “Suicide,” as a word and as an action, is not pretty, so most American car salesmen refer to that design as “coach doors.” The Brits leave well enough alone.

She’s baaa-ack! Joan Collins will never be old. Or old news. And this just in: The queen of the catfight is going goth, opposite Christopher Lee, in a camp-horror sequel to the legendary Wicker Man.

Collins in the industrial kitchen of the Hollywood Roosevelt.

Joan Collins is hot. And not just by gay icon standards or to baby-boomers who threw costumed “Dynasty” parties in the ’80s when she schemed demises, ate scenery like it were so many ounces of Beluga, and took Linda Evans swimming in the lily pond in one of television’s most legendary catfights. On a fashion photo shoot, on location at the equally iconic Hollywood Roosevelt hotel, Collins, now 75, is entrancing, funny, game (she makes five costume changes with zero complaints over a day). But more than anything, she is hot.

You heard it on the coconut telegraph.

Last night around 9 p.m., we enter the Rusty Knot—the new Jules Verne-meets-Islamorada-dive from the Spotted Pig boys—and it’s just simply love at first sight and taste. First, we’re a-digging that far-flung West Street (at West 11th) is becoming something more than where you go to don a pair of leather chaps. It’s outlaw territory, no man’s land, a blustery destination spot (and just close enough to that chile con queso bowl of cheese at Tortilla Flats to boot). When my friends and I went the week before, we simply didn’t take in the details (like, uh, the fish aquariums) due to a Waverly Inn bartender who would not let our wine glasses empty. See photos at A Continuous Lean—there’s just simply nothing NOT to like here.

Helmed by Manhattan stalwarts Jonathan Morr and Steven Durbahn, BondST Beverly Hills is finally open. The Sushi Empire better get ready for battle. This one is on!

Last year, BlackBook provided a sneak peek to its readers of the master blueprint for BondST, Jonathan Morr’s Los Angeles satellite of his NoHo classic sushi emporium, now celebrating its tenth anniversary.

The plan was ambitious: a multi-level, 5,300-square-foot configuration with an eclectic library lounge (with hearth), a 12-seat sushi bar (of course), and an indoor-outdoor patio, all contained within Jason Pomeranc’s just-opened Thompson Beverly Hills luxury hotel. The location at Wilshire and Crescent Drive begs the participation of Hollywood agents and their pampered clients. Already, CAA, Harper’s Bazaar, and socialites Alexandra von Furstenberg and Jacqui Getty have thrown pre-opening parties there.

One month in, we asked Morr—right up there beside Pearl’s Rebecca Charles as one of our favorite, funniest, and most talented restaurateurs—to let us know how it’s all shaping up.

He ate people in Sin City, saw dead people in 'Carnivale,' and was eaten (by alligators) in Bully. So how come we find the 28-year-old indie darling so charming? Here, the young thespian tells us what he finds less than adorable.

Nick Stahl’s career began opposite Mel Gibson in The Man Without a Face. Since then, his own brooding visage has become known, most notably in darkly psychological movies, from Larry Clark’s Florida-set, true-crime saga, Bully (in which his sadistic sandwich-maker is murdered by his friends) to the award-winning In the Bedroom, to his fleet-footed cannibal-monster, who collects trophy heads of his female victims in Sin City.

Sci-fi lovers, of course, know him best as the unlikely hero of T3, the third in the Terminator series. The sweetness and sourness came together like perfect salad dressing in HBO’s “Carnivale,” in which his life-giving (and taking) character could be perceived as either Satan or Christ. Sundance isn’t new to him—he’s had films premiere there seven times now—but he returned this year with Sleepwalking (co-starring Charlize Theron) and Quid Pro Quo (with Vera Farmiga). And there’s so much more on his plate, which we hope doesn’t include someone’s hand (see Sin City). Like Lazarus, you can’t keep a good man—or actor—down. —Steve Garbarino

In a city with little tradition, four dining and partying treasures of grand Old Hollywood and the rocking Sunset Strip—Trader Vic’s, Whisky Bar, Hamburger Hamlet, and Morton’s—get facelifts or have already faced death. What’s a Scorpion-drinking, chair-in-pool-throwing, Oscar-toting, burger-loving Angeleno to do?

Vanity Fair’s Oscar party at Morton’s, Los Angeles, March 24, 2002

Morton’s, the Robertson outpost that has hosted Vanity Fair’s Oscar party since 1994, closed in December, making way for the West Coast branch of the private club Soho House. The British are coming, and the party of parties is moving to Craft. Beverly Drive’s Hamburger Hamlet, once the place to go to on an early-bird Sunday night for great burgers at the bar while pretending to watch sports—actually listening in on movie directors of the “auteur” era bitch about special effects taking over true-blue acting—is history too. It’s now an H&M.