It’s an era KCRW listener Jim Lingenfelter from Indiana asked about when he submitted this question to Curious Coast. BBB’s revue of ten men dressing like women was apparently the hottest show in town.Ĭelebrities like Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Marlene Dietrich and Mae West were all regulars at these clubs. The patrons would be given little hammers, and every time someone new walked through the door, they’d bang them on the tables. It was a wild and raucous place, run by a drag queen named Bobby Burns Berman. Just down the street, B.B.B.’s Cellar opened up on Las Palmas. Rae Bourbon, who was one of the most famous drag queens of his time, had a regular gig at Jimmy’s Backyard. The rooms had been converted to dance floors and on a warm night, music poured from the house and into the backyard which was filled with LA’s hottest crowd, all with a drink and a cigarette in hand.

It was called Jimmy’s Backyard and it sat in a big craftsman style house on Cosmo Street, just east of Cahuenga. Three hundred men in tuxedos were celebrating the opening of Hollywood’s first gay nightclub.