Donn Beach

Donn Beach (born Ernest Raymond Gantt; February 22, 1907 – June 7, 1989) was an American adventurer, businessman, and World War II veteran who was the "founding father" of tiki culture.

Gantt was born in 1907, with some sources indicating he was born in New Orleans and growing up in Limestone County, Texas and others indicating that he was born in Texas.

A U.S. Census document from 1910 has him living in Limestone County, Texas at the age of 3.

The same 1910 census document lists him as being born in Texas, and his mother, Molly Gant, as having a father who was born in Louisiana.

Upon returning, he left Texas again in 1929, traveling as a supercargo employee for the captain of a yacht heading to Sydney, Australia, by way of Hawaii.

He then spent at least an additional year island hopping on freighters throughout the South Pacific.

The interview was given only three years before his death, and many dates are difficult to align.

Because he had a reputation as a fabulist "spinner of tall tales", some claim that him actually living in the South Pacific is "almost certainly not true".

Others, such as Edward Brownlee and Arnold Bitner, corroborate parts of his accounts.

He is known for opening the first prototypical tiki bar, Don the Beachcomber, during the 1930s in Hollywood, California, which was expanded to a chain of dozens of restaurants throughout the United States.

He later built the International Market Place and additional establishments in what was then the Territory of Hawaii.

He married three times.

In the 1930s Beach also met and married Sunny Sund (birth name Cora Irene Sund), a waitress and aspiring entrepreneur from Minnesota.

She would eventually become his business partner and manager, enlarging and professionalizing the restaurant.

When Prohibition ended in 1933, he opened a bar in Hollywood called "Don's Beachcomber" at 1722 N. McCadden Place.

With its success he began calling himself Don the Beachcomber (the eventual name of his establishment), and also legally changed his name to Donn Beach.

A former Los Angeles councilman alleged that one reason for the name change was to distance himself from past bootlegging and the former operation of an illegal speakeasy called "Ernie's Place".

In 1934, the bar moved across the street to 1727 N. McCadden Pl., expanded into a restaurant, and its name was changed to Don the Beachcomber.

He mixed potent rum cocktails at both of these tropically-decorated locations, which he referred to as "Rhum Rhapsodies".

A January 15, 1935 classified ad, in the Los Angeles Evening Citizens News, listed the Café at 1722 N. McCadden Place for lease.

One of the first such cocktails he invented was the Sumatra Kula.

The rum-laden and potent Zombie cocktail may be his best known drink; it quickly grew in popularity and a copy of it was served at the 1939 New York World's Fair by Monte Proser (later of the mob-tied Copacabana).

Proser continued to steal Beach's ideas, opening "Beachcomber" restaurants on the East coast.

Such imitation of Beach's work was common.

He is generally credited with establishing the entire tiki drink genre, creating dozens of other recipes such as the Cobra's Fang, Tahitian Rum Punch, Three Dots and a Dash, Navy Grog, and many others.

Beach's drink menus featured up to 60 different cocktails.

Because of post-prohibition laws, food also needed to be served.

Customers ate what seemed like wonderfully-exotic cuisines, but, in actuality, were mostly standard Cantonese dishes served with flair that he called South Seas Island food.

The first pu pu platter was probably served at Don the Beachcomber, as was Rumaki.

The restaurant was decorated in a tropical island motif with bamboo and materials he had accumulated from his travels and work on movie sets.

In trying to create an escapist atmosphere, he even had the sound of fake rain falling on his roof incorporated into the bar, and shared leis with his customers.

An early motto for the bar was "If you can't get to paradise, I'll bring it to you!"

Beach's restaurant was popular with Hollywood actors, some of which became frequent customers and friends.

A book written about Beach mentions stars such as Marlene Dietrich, Bing Crosby, Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.

One account about David Niven had the actor anonymously placing a $100 bill in a sealed envelope for Donn at the Garden of Allah Hotel during a time when Beach was completely broke.

As the bar continued to grow in popularity with celebrities, monogrammed bamboo chopstick cases were made for them to make them feel at home.

They divorced in 1940, the same year Sunny opened a Beachcomber branch in Chicago.

In a 1987 interview for The Watumull Foundation Oral History Project, Beach claims that he spent his early school days in Mandeville, Louisiana, as well as the Colony of Jamaica and Texas.

By his own account from an interview, he started first working with his mother running boarding houses when he was sixteen.

Four years later he claims to have left home and traveled around the world.