Dante Bacci at the Ambassador Hotel of Los Angeles

Dante Bacci, Son of Louis and Bertha Bacci and brother of Viola Sophia Bacci, mother of Patricia Colleen Meehan, Mother of Colleen Marie Meehan, Mother of Me: Sheehan David Thomson.

Granda Patty told me that Dante Bacci (her uncle) worked at the famous Ambassador Hotel. The Ambassador Hotel formally opened on January 1, 1921, and was located at 3400 Wilshire Boulevard, between Catalina Street and Mariposa Avenue, in the center of Los Angeles' Mid-Wilshire District. Designed by Pasadena architect Myron Hunt, the Ambassador Hotel was frequented by Hollywood personalities and luminaries of the world, with some taking up residence. From 1930 to 1943, six Academy Awards ceremonies were held at the hotel. Perhaps as many as seven U.S. Presidents stayed at The Ambassador Hotel, from Hoover to Nixon, along with heads of state from around the world. For decades, the hotel's famed Cocoanut Grove nightclub hosted the biggest names in entertainment, such as Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Liza Minnelli, Martin and Lewis, The Supremes, Merv Griffin, Evelyn Knight, Charlie Chapman, and Richard Pryor. In the pantry area of the hotel's main kitchen, shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968 and following a short victory speech in the Embassy Room ballroom of The Ambassador Hotel, the winner of the California Democratic presidential primary election, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was shot along with five other persons. The Hotel was demolished in 2005 to build a school in it's place. Many parts of the hotel, including the pantry area was preserved for historical purposes.
While Dante worked at the hotel he saw many of these events take place. He lived in Beverly Hills with his wife Helen. Their house was next door to Sterling Hayden (March 26, 1916-May 23, 1986), famous American Author and Actor who said: "To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea... cruising, it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about. "I've always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can't afford it." What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of security. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone. What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by, the dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?"
Dante suffered a major stroke that left him without the ability to work or speak. He lived in Satal sp? Army Hospital for 11 years before he died. His family would come visit Dante at the hospital. When he recognized you, Dante would cry because he could not speak.