In the 1970s, the venue started to lose some of its luster, but was still the place where Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson, the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt all came to pick up their Grammy Awards.
The Palladium was also home to proms, glittery fundraisers and ballroom affairs, with John F. Kennedy and at least five other presidents or presidents-to-be passing through its doors to work the room in a very different sort of dance. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was feted there after he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 -- although that occasion had grim subplots including bomb threats and LAPD's same-day seizure of 1,400 pounds of explosives at a local apartment. The Palladium has been the place where fashion models strutted the catwalk, wrestlers jumped from the top rope and car-show exhibitors brought their sedans. "When it started, though," Olson said wistfully, "it was all about dancing."
The Palladium was the vision of movie producer Maurice M. Cohen, who aspired to open the largest dance floor in town and one that basked in the star power of Hollywood. The property, between Argyle and El Centro avenues, was the site of the original Paramount lot. Its top-notch talent made it a common ground for celebrities and tourists, the place that was regal enough for Rita Hayworth, Tyrone Power and Lana Turner but also cheap enough for their fans. In the 1940s, the cover was $1 and dinner cost $3.
"It was the Big Band Era and the Palladium was the magic place, the dance floor where everyone came together," said Hal Blaine, a drummer who played with Count Basie and recorded hits with Sinatra, Elvis Presley and the Beach Boys. "When I was a kid, my dream was to be on that stage, and I did play there with Jan & Dean in the early 1960s. It was a different place by then, though."
True, the grand old hall was getting scruffier. In 1964, a jazz festival turned ugly when the performers, angry with the promoter, stomped offstage right before the surly crowd started throwing bottles. It was a hint of the venue's edgier future. For rock and punk fans coming up in the 1980s, the Palladium was a bare-bones hub and the vintage chandeliers seemed as ironic as they would in a roller rink. Walking through the construction site, Mueller remembered coming for a Ramones show.
"The sound was bad, the security staff was way over the top patting people down, everything was beat-up -- and it was fantastic. Now we're going to take care of the sound and staffing problems and get back some of the tradition, but it will still be great for rock, in the way the Fillmore is in San Francisco."
Mueller pointed to the shows by Metallica and Tom Petty in that storied Bay Area venue as the model for the big-name, small-room shows that the gussied-up Palladium might expect. There's going to be a hotel, retail and residential complex adjacent to the venue as well, which Live Nation hopes will tilt some of the live-music scene back toward Hollywood after the opening of the Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles by rival AEG.
There are 30 events slotted for the Palladium before Christmas -- including concerts by the Jonas Brothers, the Roots with Gym Class Heroes, and a three-day Halloween weekend with Rise Against -- and promoters are looking for splashy TV projects to put the venue back in the eyes and ears of America. Nodding toward the dance floor where Midwest tourists once jitterbugged with Oscar winners, Mueller grinned. "Wouldn't this be the perfect place for 'Dancing With the Stars'?"
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geoff.boucher@latimes.com
