Queer Places:
Café Jay, W Channel Rd & Chautauqua Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90402
Jay de Laval was a gay designer with a long career as a con-man in California. He had
a reputation for tasteful decorating. He designed the interior of Villa
Amanda, Lennie Newman was a boyfriend of Jay de
Laval and assistant chef in his restaurant during the 1940s. De Laval was a
friend of William "Bill" Caskey before Christopher
Isherwood met Caskey, and also of Ben and Jo Masselink.
Jay de Laval was a friend of
Denham Fouts and very much a part
of the Santa Monica Canyon circle. In the mid-1940s he opened a small French restaurant,
Café Jay, on the corner of Channel Road and Chautauqua in Santa Monica. Café Jay
was a restaurant by the ocean, with excellent food. Jay's was a charming place-tiny, artistically decorated-and always packed. It
was a favorite dining place of Greta Garbo.
She came in early for dinner one night before she went to Europe, looked
around, and said to Jay, "Where are all the celebrities?"
Jay had a vague reputation for being crooked. Later on, it was said
that he had had to leave California to avoid arrest; this was after he
had settled in Mexico. But, when you tried to find out exactly what
he had done that was illegal, it seemed that he hadn’t gone much
beyond running up big bills and then failing either to pay them or
return the merchandise. He was also, obviously, a bit of a con man.
It was easy to imagine him using his considerable charm to get
money out of rich old women; his role as the Baron de Laval was
probably related to this.
Jay was large and well built, though inclined to plumpness. He was
very blond (maybe artificially) and he had big blue eyes. His eyes
didn’t sparkle like Collier’s, they stared. Despite their seeming boldness,
they revealed nothing inward. Jay was all on the surface, all
smiles and gossip and camp. It was only when he laughed loudly that
you got a hint of madness.
He was not only a very good cook but a marvellous host. He could
take you into the kitchen and fix a meal for you both without ever
losing the thread of the conversation or making you feel awkward
because he was doing all the work. He was also, it seems, a
marvellous seducer. Christopher
Isherwood knew of this only at second hand,
of course; he wouldn’t have dreamt of going to bed with Jay and Jay
certainly didn’t want it. But the testimony of half a dozen boys who
had had sex with Jay and then talked about it to Christopher was
quite impressive. Most of them had been literally seduced––they
hadn’t wanted to do it but Jay had made them like doing it. “It was
crazy,” one of them told Christopher; and another said, “He made
me feel beautiful.” Jay himself, when congratulated by Christopher
on his conquests, said modestly, “It’s quite simple––you just have to
start doing all kinds of things to them, all at once, before they realize
what’s going on.”
Jay de Laval opened another restaurant in the
Virgin Islands, and in 1950 he was briefly in charge of the Mocambo in Los
Angeles. Eventually he left California, settled in Mexico, and opened a grand
restaurant in Mexico City in the early 1950s. There he also planned interiors
with the Mexican designer Arturo Pani, and advised airlines on food, creating
a menu for Mexico Air Lines and crockery for Air France. He divided his time
between Mexico City and a condominium in Acapulco.
Mexico City attracted international gay
visitors between the 1940s and 1960s, with its cultural life, low cost of
living, the intelligentsia’s leftist orientation, and the city’s architectural
beauty. Some international visitors settled permanently. Foreign homosexuals
found opportunities in couture and design, including milliner Henri de Châtillon, furniture
designer Emmett Morley Webb
and restaurateur and designer Jay de Laval.
Earl Sennett, an instructor at
Mexico City College in the 1940s and 1950s, directed the Mexico City Players,
a theatrical troupe that included political dissidents like
John T. Herrmann.
Modern style represented the values and
stability to which the middle class aspired, and offered clean lines and
high-quality natural finishes. Gay interior designers such as
Arturo Pani (with Jay de Laval) and
Webb were also in great demand among the gay elite. Posh gays competed to
outdo each other in their homes’ expressions of originality, taste and
elegance. Composer Gabriel Ruiz and
physician Elías Nandino
constantly re-upholstered and reappointed their homes, fighting over the best
tradesmen and decorators; Nandino’s one-upmanship went so far as to use
fishbowls – with live fish – as lampshades.
References:
Other references:
- St. Louis Globe-Democrat
St. Louis, Missouri
30 Aug 1947, Sat • Page 9
Support this project
This website is a passion project researched, developed, and funded entirely by me. If you find the content valuable and would like to help support the ongoing research and hosting costs, any contribution is deeply appreciated.
Thank you for keeping this independent resource alive!
My books on Amazon: Elisa Rolle's books
BACK TO HOME PAGE
