LOOKING BACK

Young Chang

Gay Wassall-Kelly nearly swoons remembering the steaks at Christian’s

Hut -- the place to be in Balboa Peninsula of yesteryear.

They froze the “gorgeous” fillets and then deep fried them. People

flocked from all over the world to eat them. Every time, they came out

perfect, the Newport Beach resident says.

Others remember the abalone steaks, the deep-fried shrimps, the mai

tais and the straight martinis. Everyone remembers the characters.

Art La Shelle, who worked for Paramount Studios, took over a bayfront

eatery called the Peninsula Cafe in 1940. His Hollywood connections led

to the renaming of the restaurant -- to Christian’s Hut -- after Fletcher

Christian, an actor. Christian starred with Clark Gable and Charles

Laughton in “Mutiny on the Bounty.”

La Shelle’s patrons ended up being just as glamorous as the source of

his restaurant’s name. Red Skelton, Johnny Weismuller and Howard Hughes

were well-known faces there. Newport Beach resident George Grupe

remembers dining at the Hut during World War II with his grandmother and

sister while Weismuller “raised hell,” drinking it up at the bar.

Grupe’s grandmother was laid back about it all, and Grupe laughs

remembering the good time had.

Other big-name patrons included Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor,

Anthony Quinn, Lucille Ball and Lupe Velez.

“It was just jampacked with people. People just piled onto the beach

in the bayfront, and they came to Balboa Bay only because the restaurant

was there,” Grupe said.

Decorated with a Polynesian touch and a sand-floor bar on the lower

level that led out to the beach, business heightened even after La Shelle

left for World War II and his staffers Francois Marshall, Alice Taylor

and Les Lehman ran the restaurant without him.

History has it that everyone called Marshall by his romantically

French-sounding first name -- Francois -- because he kissed the hand of

every woman who stopped in.

His daughter was said to be beautiful. She married a regular who

everyone called Beast because he had so much body hair. When they became

a couple, everyone called the pair Beauty and the Beast.

Over the years, La Shelle also founded Christian’s Huts in Laguna

Beach, San Diego, Hawaii, Corona del Mar and even India. But the Balboa

location continued to thrive, drawing in tourists, famous people and

locals with a similar place-to-be feel as the Balboa Bay Club.

But in 1963, the Bay Club lost its fellow hot spot. Christian’s Hut

fell prey to a fire that burned the building down one Sunday, and locals

mourned.

Today, a beige five-story apartment building stands in its place.

Wassall-Kelly, who lives near the former two-story Christian’s Hut, says

the new structure makes the sun set at 3 p.m. instead of 6 p.m., the way

it was in yesteryear.

* Do you know of a person, place or event that deserves a historical

Look Back? Let us know. Contact Young Chang by fax at (949) 646-4170;

e-mail at [email protected]; or mail her at c/o Daily Pilot, 330 W.

Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627.