Planet Hollywood

Hoping to end its bankruptcy drama as a smaller but profitable company, Planet Hollywood International closed nine of its company-owned restaurants Monday, including one in Santa Ana. Robert Earl, the co-founder and chief executive of the movie-themed chain, said he hopes a new Orange County location will replace the "underperforming" restaurant across from South Coast Plaza.

Planet Hollywood International Inc. on Monday won approval to emerge from bankruptcy protection for the second time in two years and began focusing on regaining its stature in a battered theme-restaurant industry that peaked in the late 1990s. U.S.

Struggling restaurant chain Planet Hollywood International Inc. said Thursday it will close its high-profile Beverly Hills restaurant in February as it sheds poorly performing outlets in an effort to emerge from bankruptcy as a profitable company.

They've come home--Rhett and Scarlett, Charlie Chaplin and W.C. Fields, Marlene Dietrich and Rita Hayworth, even E.T. and Darth Vader. Home in this case being Hollywood, or more precisely Beverly Hills, where the latest addition to the Planet Hollywood chain of restaurants opened to the public Monday after a gala Rodeo Drive block party Sunday.

Planet Hollywood International Inc., the movie-themed restaurant chain that has been bleeding financially despite backing from a star-studded roster of investors, announced Tuesday that it plans to file for bankruptcy reorganization in order to restructure its operations. The Orlando, Fla.-based chain, whose shareholders include actors Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, said it has lined up a $30-million cash infusion from two of its largest shareholders.

Hoping to end its bankruptcy drama as a smaller but profitable company, Planet Hollywood International closed nine of its company-owned restaurants Monday, including one in Santa Ana. "Thanks for a great 7 years," said a sign at the restaurant across from South Coast Plaza, where Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger--among the chain's many celebrity investors--partied away one night in October 1992.

In one of the largest corporate investments in gaming, ITT Corp. on Thursday announced a $2.5-billion expansion of its casino operations that includes a dramatic make-over of the famed Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and the development of a new chain of Planet Hollywood-themed casino-resorts. The ambitious plans of New York-based ITT--which paid $1.

Reporting from Las Vegas Every Friday afternoon, Marilyn Winn, president of three Strip resorts — Paris, Bally's and Planet Hollywood — attends two brief employee rallies. At 2:30 there is the one at Bally's and then she walks straight to the one at Paris (the resorts are internally connected), where the ritual repeats at 3. Being responsible for about 10,000 employees makes Winn a powerful executive in the Vegas casino business as well as one of a tiny elite group of women who holds a top position at a Strip resort.

About 20 tourists on the way to Planet Hollywood went instead to local hospitals after their tour van collided with two cars on the San Diego Freeway during Friday evening rush hour. Kevin Genzel, 19, of Vancouver, Canada, who was on the van owned by Tour Connection & Charters of Orange, said he and several other passengers realized their driver was about to rear-end a car seconds before it happened.