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Hotel Del Coron-ODD-o

Famed landmark gains popularity as site for declarations of unusual affection

Above, Woodley and Rogers announce their break with traditional romance, with the Del as backdrop.
Above, Woodley and Rogers announce their break with traditional romance, with the Del as backdrop.

The Hotel Del Coronado has many claims to fame — there are those who say that Wallis Simpson met the man who would become England’s King Edward VIII at a ball held there in 1920. And eventually, Edward abdicated the throne so that he could marry her. But according to Full Service, the salacious memoir from former gigolo Scotty Bowers, they were actually both interested mostly in members of their own sex, and would ask him to send over “a bunch of new young people for them” when they stayed in Beverly Hills. Royalty aside, perhaps the Hotel’s greatest moment in the sun came in the 1959 Billy Wilder classic Some Like it Hot, when it served as the backdrop for two madcap romances: one between Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe, and the other between Jack Lemmon and…Joe E. Brown? Brown played Oswald Fielding, while Lemmon played a bass player on the run from the mob who posed as a woman to escape detection. Wealthy eccentric Fielding fell so madly in love with Lemmon’s lovely lady that when he eventually confessed the ruse, Fielding simply smiled and replied, “Nobody’s perfect.”

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Now, the Hotel Del is attempting to cash in on its history as the starting point for unconventional romance, via its #Coron-ODD-o advertising campaign. Eager to attract a younger generation that is “all about new ways to get away and get together,” the venue is billing itself as “THE place to stay and tell the world you’re gay — or trans, or queer, or bi, or anything else that ‘Dels your bells.’” And the campaign is already paying off, as the above photo attests: notoriously vaccine-averse Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and hippie chick actress extraordinaire Shailene Woodley recently posed in front of the Del for a photo accompanying a New York Post story about their “nontraditional relationship.” Tellingly, Woodley wore a “Dog Dad” baseball cap in the photo, topped with glittery mouse ears. Jack Lemmon, eat your heart out — maybe some like it hot, but others like it downright freaky!

Below, Jack Lemmon ponders his role as trophy wife in the final scene from Some Like it Hot.

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Above, Woodley and Rogers announce their break with traditional romance, with the Del as backdrop.
Above, Woodley and Rogers announce their break with traditional romance, with the Del as backdrop.

The Hotel Del Coronado has many claims to fame — there are those who say that Wallis Simpson met the man who would become England’s King Edward VIII at a ball held there in 1920. And eventually, Edward abdicated the throne so that he could marry her. But according to Full Service, the salacious memoir from former gigolo Scotty Bowers, they were actually both interested mostly in members of their own sex, and would ask him to send over “a bunch of new young people for them” when they stayed in Beverly Hills. Royalty aside, perhaps the Hotel’s greatest moment in the sun came in the 1959 Billy Wilder classic Some Like it Hot, when it served as the backdrop for two madcap romances: one between Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe, and the other between Jack Lemmon and…Joe E. Brown? Brown played Oswald Fielding, while Lemmon played a bass player on the run from the mob who posed as a woman to escape detection. Wealthy eccentric Fielding fell so madly in love with Lemmon’s lovely lady that when he eventually confessed the ruse, Fielding simply smiled and replied, “Nobody’s perfect.”

Sponsored
Sponsored

Now, the Hotel Del is attempting to cash in on its history as the starting point for unconventional romance, via its #Coron-ODD-o advertising campaign. Eager to attract a younger generation that is “all about new ways to get away and get together,” the venue is billing itself as “THE place to stay and tell the world you’re gay — or trans, or queer, or bi, or anything else that ‘Dels your bells.’” And the campaign is already paying off, as the above photo attests: notoriously vaccine-averse Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and hippie chick actress extraordinaire Shailene Woodley recently posed in front of the Del for a photo accompanying a New York Post story about their “nontraditional relationship.” Tellingly, Woodley wore a “Dog Dad” baseball cap in the photo, topped with glittery mouse ears. Jack Lemmon, eat your heart out — maybe some like it hot, but others like it downright freaky!

Below, Jack Lemmon ponders his role as trophy wife in the final scene from Some Like it Hot.
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