Est. 1935 · Sunset Strip History · Hollywood Nightclub Era · Mickey Cohen / Organized Crime · Comedy History
Club Seville opened on New Year's Eve 1935 at 8433 Sunset Boulevard with a distinctive interior that included a crystal dance floor with fish and colored lights visible through the subsurface glass. By 1940 it had been renamed Ciro's under owner William Wilkerson, and through the 1940s it became one of the most sought-after nightclubs in Hollywood. On any given night the audience included Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Humphrey Bogart, Lucille Ball, and dozens of other studio-system figures. Performers like Sammy Davis Jr. (as part of the Will Mastin Trio), Liberace, and Lili St. Cyr worked the stage.
Mickey Cohen, who ran organized crime operations on the Sunset Strip, used Ciro's as a business base. He is described in multiple historical accounts as shaking the establishment down weekly and conducting gambling and other criminal operations from its offices. The basement — renovated after the Comedy Store era began — carried persistent rumors of use as a space for violence against people who crossed Cohen's organization. Whether bodies were buried there has never been documented, but peepholes and reinforced positions reportedly used during what witnesses called the Sunset Wars of 1947 were still visible in the structure when the Comedy Store took over.
Ciro's closed in 1957. The building operated briefly as Ciro's Le Disc, a rock venue where the Byrds were discovered in 1964. Sammy Shore and Rudy De Luca opened the Comedy Store in April 1972 in the original 99-seat theater. Following their divorce, Sammy Shore's ex-wife Mitzi Shore took over in 1973 and purchased the building in 1976, expanding the main room to 450 seats. She ran the club until her death in 2018.
On June 1, 1979, comedian Steve Lubetkin, shut out from performing during the ongoing comedian pay-strike, jumped from the roof of the adjacent Continental Hyatt House and died on the parking ramp between the hotel and the club. His suicide note read: 'My name is Steve Lubetkin. I used to work at the Comedy Store.'
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Comedy_Store
- https://thecomedystore.com/history/history
- https://totally-la.com/mob-murders-hauntings-at-the-comedy-store-la-urban-legends/
- http://lamorguefiles.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-comedy-store-comedian-steve.html
ApparitionsPhantom presencePhantom soundsCold spots
The Comedy Store's haunting accounts break into two categories: the visual reports from staff and performers, and the single most-cited investigation, Barry Taff's 1982 session.
Taff, a parapsychologist associated with UCLA who had previously investigated the claims at the Amityville house and other high-profile sites, entered the building's basement in 1982 and fell to the floor, reporting immediate and agonizing pain in his legs that he attributed to residual trauma in the space. This is an anecdotal account by a single investigator with an interest in confirming paranormal claims; it is not a controlled scientific study. But it is the most specific documented investigation of record for the building.
The visual accounts describe multiple recurring figures. A man in a 1940s security uniform, nicknamed Gus, is the most frequently described — seen inspecting the main room and watching performers from the side of the stage. A figure in a WWII-era brown leather bomber jacket has been reported by visitors who describe seeing through him before the figure fades. A woman described as a 1940s-era showgirl has been reported in the backstage area. These match the Ciro's-era population of the building.
In 1994, the TV program Haunted Hollywood filmed a segment at the Comedy Store. Comedians Blake Clark and Joey Gaynor told their personal accounts in an Unsolved Mysteries episode covering the building. The Comedy Store was also the subject of a 2023 documentary, 'I Need You to Kill,' which focused on the building's mob history.
Steve Lubetkin's 1979 death immediately outside the building has not generated specific apparition accounts at the Comedy Store itself, but his name is part of the venue's remembered history.
Notable Entities
Gus (1940s bouncer apparition)
Media Appearances
- Unsolved Mysteries (Comedy Store segment) (Television, 1994)
- Haunted Hollywood (Comedy Store segment) (Television, 1994)
