The Viper Room: In the sanctuaries of Hollywood’s most frantic and controversial club

There are clubs on the planet that have become synonymous with frantic fun and sin.

And if we were talking about the 90s and Los Angeles, nothing could go beyond the infamous reputation of The Viper Room, the formidable nightclub that brought Hollywood celebrities in equal doses and the outcry of the conservative world.

It all started in 1993, when the Johnny Depp said he was working with a co-star on the then popular series “21 Jump Street” (1987-1991), wanting to build their own rock club.

Even the choice of venue was not random, the two young actors chose one of the privileged spots of the Sunset Strip in Hollywood as the headquarters of their business.

The Viper Room immediately became one of Los Angeles’ hotspots for drinks and dancing, magnetizing celebrities like nothing else. It was the perfect place to see you and see them.

But the two owners did one more thing: they did not make their club as loud and ostentatious as the other clubs in the city. The underground of the thing was also part of the Viper charm.

Even his name came from a “band of musicians known for their cannabis use, who called themselves Vipers”.

But beneath the glow of the stars and the flashes that glistened furiously, there was also the darkness of drugs. And a death. And an disappearance. The club’s best-known victim was River Phoenix, who died of a drug overdose on the sidewalk outside the store.

But this was unfortunately not the only tragic event associated with the infamous club.

And if today the golden age of Sunset Strip as the music of Mecca in Los Angeles has passed irrevocably, the Viper Room is still alive. Not necessarily as a historical remnant of another time…

The prehistory of the club

Installed on 8852 of the popular Sunset Boulevard, the famous management of Los Angeles has a long and rich history behind it. The building was one of the first Sunset Strip homes, dating back to 1921.

It was originally a small grocery store, and so he spent the first twenty years of his life. Then, in the 1940s, when Sunset Boulevard drastically changed its face and became the center of Los Angeles entertainment, the grocery store was locked and replaced by a nightclub.

Among the new restaurants, bars and casinos on the famous boulevard, the Cotton Club (nothing to do with the historic Haarlem Club in New York) was another club. A club that closed and reopened with new names and decorations, reaching in the 1950s to become a strip club (Last Call) and finally a cabaret (The Melody Room).

For the next two decades, the place would remain particularly infamous, here you can see mobsters of Los Angeles. In the Melody Room, Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen met to discuss their gangster work and listen to live jazz.

In the 1970s, however, it changed again. It was now a rock club (Filthy McNasty’s), before becoming the once famous The Central, a club that gathered the greatest musicians of the time. It was also Tom Waits’ hangout. But also of the legendary stuntman Evel Knievel.

The Viper Room: The hottest club in Los Angeles

In early 1993, Jodi Depp collaborated with Sal Jenco, with whom they had become friends on the set of the series “21 Jump Street”, which made them both famous. They said to open a club, a new rock club, which they eventually named “The Viper Room”.

On the 4th of August 1993, on the night of the inauguration, the Tom Petty and his Heartbreakers. It was a demand of Johnny Depp to play the important American rocker at the opening. The actor had just appeared in the video for “Into The Great Wide Open” by Petty.

It was the official first of a unique course, both at the level of musicians who performed live in the club and the world. The biggest names in Hollywood were having fun there until morning, next to every self-respecting celebrity and star.

Everyday spectators were Charlize Theron, who was furious with him Keanu Reeves, who became increasingly known as a musician with Dogstar ‘s rock band. Behind the bar, the drinks were prepared by the later frontman of Counting Crows, Adam Duritz, and the future star of the series “Married with children”, Christina Applegate.

The two partners never thought about the costs of constantly offering the world new things. As Duritz recalls: “They must have lost so much money on theme nights, but it was really unbelievable. One night they transformed the whole space inside an airplane. One night they covered all the walls with foil. They surrounded their club with great love “.

Even the youngest Leonardo di Caprio The biggest stars of the film industry were gathered here, at an age when he could barely put alcohol in his mouth. But Johnny Cass did not leave him, he did not play in Viper.

“I can’t think of a better place to play in Los Angeles than The Viper Room. “If my father was still singing, he would like to give a midnight show here,” said Nancy Sinatra, Frank’s daughter.

The power of the club in the American music scene was unparalleled. Many, many took their first steps here. The Pussycat Dolls, for example, who were one of the biggest names in Los Angeles in the late 90s, owe their careers to their permanent partnership with the club for a number of years (1995-2001).

Still others wanted to play here so much that they did not care about money. The Queens of the Stone Age were paid… 20 dollars and 20 beers to take to the stage in 2005, when they were already well known. Of course they played secrets, under the name The Clocks.

After all, Viper also emerged as an illegal poker club for big wallets. It is said that you need $ 10,000 for a seat at the table and the names you have next to you will be remembered for a lifetime.

Alongside the stars of music and acting, many more came here to have endless fun. Not always the best kids in town. The club’s notoriety has skyrocketed you see from a very early age.

Despite the fact that Viper lived great moments throughout the 1990s, its fate was sealed in the consciousness of the world by a tragic event that occurred very early in its history, less than 3 months after its glamorous inauguration.

The death of River Phoenix

The child prodigy of American cinema, the “James Dean of the 90s “, as they hurried to call him, he had managed to become an idol of teenagers, but also one of the best actors of his generation, despite his young age.

On the night of October 30, 1993, the talented River Phoenix, his girlfriend, actress Samantha Mathis, and his two younger brothers, Leaf (later known as Joaquin) and Raine, could not pass through his famous lineage. Los Angeles.

They were to leave the two little ones (19 and 21 years old) in the Viper, but River wanted to see some musicians inside. The actor had already used drugs, but according to Mathis’s testimony: “I knew he was already made that night, but the heroin that killed him was not in him before he was in the Viper Room.”

The girl went to the toilet for a while and when she came out “I saw something that looked like a fierce quarrel between River and another man and immediately after someone from the store security pulled them violently towards the exit”.

When the Phoenix company left the club, they saw him on the sidewalk with intense convulsions. “She has convulsions! “Come quickly, please, please, because he is dying, please”, the wrecked man screamed on the phone in the First Aid Joaquin.

By the time the ambulance arrived, River Phoenix was already dead. He had turned 23 just two months ago. “It was made in a very strange way that made me feel very uncomfortable,” Mathis concluded of what happened during the fateful two hours at the club.

The necropsy spoke of an overdose cocaine and heroin, finding traces of marijuana and anxiolytics in his body.

The Viper after River’s death

The tragic event that took place at the club served as a dark blessing for his reputation. Especially since two years later (1995), Australian actor Jason Donovan would also suffer a similar Viper crisis from a cocaine overdose.

She was at the glamorous party for her 21st birthday Kate Moss where the incident took place, in another drug-soaked event. Johnny Depp wanted something more for his then girlfriend’s birthday and Donovan was one of those people who could not stand the exaggeration. However, he survived the adventure.

The stern interpretation of Australian rock star Michael Hutchens (of the INXS), who was hanged in a Sydney hotel a week after his appearance at the Viper in 1997, also added fuel to the fire of the infamous club. , as the controversial was now acquiring a metaphysical hue.

Thus passed the Viper in the new millennium, as a place that brought together stars and common mortals. And controversial incidents were never lacking.

Now Viper was also notorious for the poker played inside it. It is known that they organized them here gambling contests Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio and Toby Maguire and sometimes the buy-in was even at $ 50,000.

In all, Johnny Depp was sued by his new partner Anthony Fox, who accused the Hollywood actor of mismanagement, embezzlement and fraud. The two of them were on their way to a bitter court dispute, as no one backed down.

And then, in December 2001, shortly before Depp testified in court, Fox mysteriously disappeared from the face of the earth. In January 2002, his truck was found abandoned in Santa Clara, California, and his fate has been unknown ever since.

A few years after the disappearance of his partner, Depp resigned from his stake in the club, eventually passing it on to Fox’s daughter in 2004. This was the end of Johnny Depp’s involvement with Viper, which would change many ownership hands in next years.

Its last owner (before being sold again in 2018) was Harry Morton, son of Peter Morton of the chain Hard Rock Cafe, who bought it in 2008 wanting to make it a chain, opening clubs in Las Vegas, Miami, New York, but also outside the United States, in Tokyo and London.

In 2018 it was sold again and the Los Angeles Press even talked about a padlock. The 250-seat club was sold next to three more Sunset Strip homes for $ 80 million, and Jim Cooper of REM Finance Inc. stated that there are plans even for the demolition of the club.

The Viper Room has not become a luxury apartment, however, it remains in place for the time being, although its future is uncertain.

And it remains one of the legends of the Sunset Strip, a quirky mix of music, bohemian carelessness and nonsense.