Streisand's Bristol moment

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A Barbra Streisand fan named Hart, from Fort Lauderdale, has posted pictures on his blog of the Hotel Bristol in San Francisco from the 1972 film What's Up, Doc?, starring Streisand and Ryan O'Neal. Alongside it is a picture he has taken of the same hotel today – the Hilton, where the action actually took place. The real Hotel Bristol in San Francisco is in the Tenderloin district and it's not as elegant. It's where SCUM manifesto's Valerie Solanas died. You can read about it in "LL Cool J and the Woman Who Shot Andy Warhol", chapter 7 in High Times at the Hotel Bristol.

The Hilton-Bristol connection doesn't end there. You can find out about the heiresses who link the name in "Paris Hilton and Lady Victoria Hervey", chapter 8 in High Times at the Hotel Bristol, which can also be read online.

Scandal of the Bristols

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"The disgrace and disintegration of three aristocratic families" is the sub-title of a new book, Spleandour & Squalor by Marcus Scriven, and it is no surprise to see that the Bristols are one of the three. The fortune of the family that gave its name to the hotel trade was most spectacularly dissipated by John Hervey, the 6th Earl, who is said to have spent £7million on drugs, for which he was at one stage jailed. You can read about him in "LL Cool J and the Man who Shot Andy Warhol", chapter 7 in High Times at the Hotel Bristol. He did, however, not stand much of a chance, being the son of the Victor, the 6th Earl, who had also put in time for robbery and was, according to Scriven, the inspiration for Evelyn Waugh's Basil Seal Rides Again: Or, the The Rake's Regress. Victor's story is told in Paris Hilton & Lady Victoria Hervey, which can be read on-line.

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Scandal of Victor Hervey, 6th Marquess of Bristol

LORD BRISTOL, 'CUNNING CRIMINAL'
The National Archives have recently opened their files on Victor Frederick Cochrane Hervey, 6th Marquess of Bristol, father of society limelighters Victoria and Isabella Hervey. The report by the Metropolitan Police CID, , dated January 2, 1946, came in reponse to an anonymous letter-writer's claim that he was behind "almost every jewel robbery in the metropolitan area and within areas outside London"and was "one of the most unscrupulous, calculating and cunning criminals at large". No evidence was found against him and the investigating officer concluded. "Although vicious to almost a sadistic degree, I am certain he would not be fool enough to carry firearms.". An account of the court case in which Hervey was jailed for three years for two Mayfair jewellery robberies in 1939 is the background to Paris Hilton and Victoria Hervey, one of the stories in High Times at the Hotel Bristol.

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