AMERICAN HORROR STORY Lady Gaga is to Die For: Visit Her Hotel
On paper, the Hotel Cortez looks like a killer deal. The photos show a super-swank Art Deco lobby with custom carpets and furniture, outrageous elevator gates and leaded windows. The bar makes you want to sidle up in a pencil skirt and order a Manhattan. If the rooms and hallways are a bit threadbare and the beds appear to be decomposing, that’s OK. The place has great bones.
AMERICAN HORROR STORY — “Checking In” Pictured: (clockwise from left) Christine Estabrook as Marcy, Cheyenne Jackson as Will Drake, Lyric Lennon as Lachlan Drake. Photo by Suzanne Tenner/FX
So you can understand why New York clothing designer Will Drake (Cheyenne Jackson) wanted to jump on the “whisper listing” and purchase the place, sight unseen, to establish an elegant penthouse for himself and his son, with an atelier (mostly ready-to-wear) on the next floor down.
But first, he’ll have to deal with the hotel’s longtime residents, including a blood thirsty countess (Lady Gaga); her moody/hunky consort, Donovan (Matt Bomer); his mother, who handles the desk (Kathy Bates); the cross-dressing concierge, Liz Taylor (Denis O’Hare); hooker Sally (Sarah Paulson); and that handsome detective John Lowe (Wes Bentley) who’s been snooping about.
And that’s just in the first episode of “American Horror Story: Hotel,” premiering Wednesday, Oct. 7, on FX. It’s not for the faint of heart; no “American Horror Story” episode ever is. The lush production style alone will make you swoon.
To create this eerie but elegant bit of real estate, four-time Emmy-nominated production designer Mark Worthington had to start from scratch. He had the Hotel Alexandria on 6th Street in downtown Los Angeles in mind for a vague sense of location, and used the elaborate Art Deco front of the Oviatt Building on Olive Street for the exteriors.
Classic Stanley Kubrick films inspired Worthington as well. He cites “A Clockwork Orange” (meets Willy Wonka) when describing the design of the Countess’s vampire hive play room. He cites “The Shining” when discussing the design of the hotel hallways. Naturally.
“This set is an example of why we film in Los Angeles,” says Worthington, who would like to stem the tide of runaway production. “The craftsmanship here is unmatched.”
He noted that all the luxe-looking surfaces are faux–painted by experts. The marble and wood all look stunningly real. “Bruce Smith and his crew are the most talented scene painters in the world. You couldn’t do a production like this, with this speed, anywhere else,” says Worthington. The crew had a mere seven weeks to build sets.
The look and feel of the production is seminal seedy Los Angeles, as is the storyline and script. Much of the inspiration for that, according to co-creator/executive producer/writer/director Ryan Murphy, came from downtown’s former two-star Cecil Hotel. It was home to serial killers including Richard Ramirez, aka the Night Stalker, and Jack Unterweger, aka the Vienna Strangler, as well as a number of suicides and much criminal activity. Most recently, in 2013, hotel guest Elisa Lam was caught on video in an elevator behaving strangely, and later found dead in the hotel’s rooftop water tank, after complaints that the water tasted strange.
As eerie as that may be, there are some scenes in this season of American Horror Story that are even worse. If you’re going to watch it, I would strongly advise recording it, so you can fast forward some of the scenes that are particularly disturbing. Believe me, you do not want some of that in your head.
But you DO want this lush production design in your head, filed under “extraordinary period aesthetics.” That, and Lady Gaga’s wardrobe and makeup. They are to die for.
