Cicada from “The Morning Show”

I don’t know what all the hullabaloo regarding The Morning Show being terrible is about.  The Grim Cheaper and I trepidatiously tuned in earlier this week and, considering all the jeers reviewers are spewing, were shocked at how much we enjoyed the new Apple TV+ series!  We devoured the three episodes that have aired so far in one sitting and literally loved every second!  So artfully done and intriguing is the show that it even managed to pull one over on me, locations-wise!  Set in NYC, I assumed all filming had taken place there as well.  While I did have a few “That looks like L.A.” moments throughout episode 1, it was not until Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) walked up the instantly recognizable split staircase of downtown’s iconic Cicada restaurant at the start of episode 2 that I realized my mistake!  A quick look at the drama’s Wikipedia page confirmed that it was largely lensed in Los Angeles, with a few exteriors shot in the Big Apple.  Hoping to throw a little love The Morning Show’s way, I figure it is the perfect time to blog about Cicada, a spot I stalked ages ago (while scouting wedding venues prior to my 2010 nuptials!) but somehow have yet to write about.

Any article about quintessential Los Angeles restaurants will undoubtedly feature Cicada.  Initially established as Rex iI Ristorante in 1981, the landmark eatery sits on the ground floor of the Oviatt Building in the heart of downtown.  The 13-story structure was the brainchild of James Oviatt, a famous clothier who outfitted the likes of Clark Gable, John Barrymore, and Gary Cooper during the Golden Age of Hollywood.  Originally employed as a window dresser at Desmond’s Department Store, Oviatt partnered with fellow employee Frank Alexander in 1911 to open their own haberdashery, the exclusive Alexander & Oviatt.  It was an instant success.  A 1925 visit to Paris’ International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts (which introduced Art Deco to the world) inspired James to construct a gilded architectural marvel of his own in L.A.  Thus the Oviatt Building was born in 1928.

Designed by Albert Walker and Percy Eisen, the exquisite structure featured maillechort detailing, hand-carved wood paneling, more than 30 tons of glass artworks created by René Lalique, and an arcade with an ornate frosted-glass ceiling courtesy of artist Gaetan Jeannin (pictured below).

Sadly, much of both Lalique and Jeannin’s pieces were later sold off and have since been replaced with facsimiles, though some of their original works remain, like the doors below.

The building’s pièce de résistance was easily its street-level salon which housed the new Alexander & Oviatt haberdashery.  Gilded, grand and absolutely striking, the boutique featured a large open sales floor flanked by wooden cabinets filled with the finest clothes money could by, a magnificent split staircase, a mezzanine which was home to the women’s department (aka the Salon des Elegances), and an outdoor palm grove, where patrons could experience the wares in natural light.

Though L.A.’s premier place to shop for fine clothing for decades, Alexander & Oviatt saw a decline in patronage in the 1960s and closed its doors in 1967.  The once-popular boutique subsequently sat vacant for years.  By that time, the building was showing its age.  Enter Wayne Ratkovich and Don Bowers, developers who, seeing potential in the once-grand structure, made an offer to buy it in 1977 and subsequently dedicated $5 million into a major renovation.  A huge part of that renovation was a reimagining of the former Alexander & Oviatt space, which was transformed into an exclusive eatery courtesy of Mauro Vincenti.  Because the Oviatt had been declared a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1978, the nuts and bolts of the boutique’s interior, thankfully, couldn’t be changed, but the Rome-born restauranteur outfitted it with décor and design elements inspired by a dining room from the 1930s-era Italian cruise ship the SS Rex.  Mauro dubbed the place “Rex il Ristorante,” which translates to “Rex the Restaurant.”  The gorgeous site was soon the spot to dine in L.A.

Vincenti sadly passed away in August 1996 at the untimely age of 53.  His widow kept his famed eatery open until the following January when the lease on the site expired.  Stephanie Taupin subsequently took over the 14,000-square-foot space and re-located her West Hollywood restaurant Cicada there.

Though the interior was given a bit of a facelift, the ceiling painted with gold leaf and much of the décor swapped out, thanks to its Historic-Cultural Monument status, the former boutique still looks not only much as it did when Rex was in operation but Alexander & Oviatt as well!

It is easily one of the most gorgeous places in L.A.!

I mean!

In the first episode of The Morning Show, titled “In the Dark Night of the Soul It’s Always 3:30 in the Morning,” Corey Ellison (an absolutely brilliant, but utterly unrecognizable Billy Crudup) and Chip Black (Mark Duplass) dine at what is supposedly the Archer Gray Hotel in New York, where they discuss future strategy for their program after one of the hosts, Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell), gets fired for sexual harassment.  It is the top screen capture below that gave me that initial “That looks like L.A.” moment while watching and I actually turned to the GC and said, “Wow, that place is the spitting image of Cicada.”  Facepalm!

It took Bradley venturing up the staircase and around Cicada’s mezzanine at the top of the second episode, “A Seat at the Table,” for the pieces to fall into place for me.

The Morning Show is hardly the only production to feature Cicada.  In fact, the restaurant is practically royalty when it comes to Hollywood!  So much so that it would be impossible for me to chronicle all of its cameos here, but read on for a list of some of the more significant.

In easily its most famous appearance, Viviane Ward (Julia Roberts) tosses an escargot shell across the Rex il Ristorante dining room in the 1990 classic Pretty Woman.

Rex also served as a locale in another Richard Gere film – the 1992 thriller Final Analysis.  It was there that Heather Evans (Kim Basinger) suffered from an extreme bout of pathological intoxication while out to dinner with her husband, played, ironically enough, by Julia’s brother, Eric Roberts.

David Murphy (Woody Harrelson) confronts Diana (Demi Moore) and John (Robert Redford) outside of Rex in the 1993 drama Indecent Proposal.

Longfellow Deeds (Adam Sandler) takes Babe Bennett (Winona Ryder) on a romantic date at Cicada that ends in a massive fight with other diners in the 2002 comedy Mr. Deeds.

The following year, Cicada popped up as the spot where Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) brought girlfriend Grace Connelly (Jennifer Aniston) to tell her that he was finally given the anchor job in Bruce Almighty.

Charlene Morton (Queen Latifah) teaches Peter Sanderson (Steve Martin) to dance there in the 2003 comedy Bringing Down the House.

John (Brad Pitt) and Jane (Angelina Jolie) share a seductive tango at Cicada in 2005’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Mad Men utilized the restaurant in no less than three episodes.  In Season 1’s “New Amsterdam,” which aired in 2007, it was both the restaurant where Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) dined with his wife and her parents . . .

. . . and where he later met clients for a drink.

The following year, Roger Sterling (John Slattery) tried to convince his daughter to have a big wedding over dinner at Cicada in Season 2’s “Three Sundays.”

And Don Draper (Jon Hamm) won a Clio Award at the restaurant in Season 4’s “Waldorf Stories,” which aired in 2010.

George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) overhears some unkind words from Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) while at Cicada in the 2011 film The Artist.

In 2015, the exterior of Cicada, as well as that of the Oviatt Building, portrayed the outside of Hotel Cortez in American Horror Story: Hotel.

Though no filming actually took place inside, Hotel Cortez’s lobby was very closely modeled after the interior of Cicada.

Cicada occasionally masked as the entrance to Lux nightclub during the third season of Lucifer, which began airing in 2017.

Cicada also masquerades as the restaurant where Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) dines while filming on location in Italy in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (which is not yet out on DVD so I am unable to make screen captures of that scene), as well as the bar from which Marvin Schwarz (Al Pacino) calls him (which is shown briefly in the trailer as pictured below).

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Cicada, aka New York’s fictional Archer Gray Hotel from The Morning Show, is located at 617 South Olive Street in downtown Los Angeles.  You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

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