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The Castellana InterContinental Hotel in Madrid
caters to the visiting business executive -- a business
center open 24 hours, a well equipped gym to work
off the day's stress also accessible round the clock,
voicemail and dataport in every room, room service
when you want it, and 13 meeting, conference and
"celebration rooms."
The hotel's clients include such captains of industry
as Jeffrey Immelt, President of General Electric.
But the ghosts that inhabit its thickly carpeted
halls are Hollywood movie stars of the caliber of
Cary Grant, Ava Gardner, Charlton Heston, and Frank
Sinatra, and Sophia Loren.
That's because in its previous incarnation, the
present Castellana InterContinental was the Castellana
Hilton, and a favorite home away from Hollywood
for movie actors in Spain's movie-making heyday.
By coincidence, the opening of the Hilton in 1953
-- the first of the chain to be established in Europe
-- coincided with the Hollywood vogue for shooting
films in Spain.
At any given time, scores of stars, writers and
technicians would live at the Hilton for weeks at
a time while filming. Sophia Loren, Cary Grant and
Frank Sinatra stayed there during the making of
the costume drama The Pride and the Passion. Sinatra's
then wife, the glamorous Ava Gardner, came along
to be with her husband.
Charlton Heston was there while appearing in El
Cid. Yul Brinner was a Castellana resident while
The Return of the Magnificent Seven was shooting.
Clint Eastwood made some of the so-called "spaghetti
Wasterns" that made him famous in the Spanish
hinterland, and meanwhile stayed at the Castellana
Hilton.
Mia Farow lived there in her early teens with her
parents, film director John Farrow and actress Maureen
O'Sullivan.
Old Madrid habitues of the Hilton recalled that
the hotel no bar in those days, but it did have
plenty to drink. Waiters served booze in the large
entrance hall, which would sometimes be crowded
with a dozen Hollywood top leading ladies and leading
men, plus various hangers-on.
The hall activity must have been a gossip writer's
dream. As various stars' biographers tell it, the
consumption of alcohol after a day's filming could
be prodigious, and the antics correspondingly colorful.
According to a reliable report, on more than one
occasion screen actor Robert Mitchum insisted on
singing "Sonny" to the assembled group
after consuming an entire bottle of Lepanto brandy.
Another Castellana regular remembers loud arguments
between Sinatra and his hot tempered wife, Ava Gardner.
A decade ago, the hotel (by then no longer a Hilton)
was sold to the InterContinental chain. The stars
had long since moved on. The city, too, had changed.
The InterContinental is part of the new Madrid's
campaign to assert itself as a major economic force
in the Europe of the 21st century.
In 2002, a top-to-bottom renovation restored the
307-room hotel to its former level of luxury and
opulent comfort -- but with the addition of the
modern amenities expected by today's business traveler.
The result is a combination of class and style combined
with technology and exclusive services in one of
Madrid's most desirable areas.
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