There are millions of stories in the city, and readers seem to have a different version of every one of them

Everyone who was there, or passed through it, seems to love remembering the Hollywood of the ‘30s and ‘40s, and they especially love correcting the faulty memories of others.

Several readers have written to point out that Slapsie Maxie’s was not on Beverly Boulevard, as Dr. Marvin H. Leaf recalled, but on Wilshire. So it was.

Mrs. D. Selby of Van Nuys recalls that she and her husband hit Slapsie Maxie’s one summer night when they were traveling from Wichita to Seattle, her husband being employed by Boeing Aircraft, and Betty Hutton was the star.

“But she didn’t have much chance to perform,” Mrs. Selby recalls, “because she was hassled and heckled by a couple of young comedians on their first West Coast appearance--Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. . . .”

Oh, well, everybody has to start somewhere.

Claire P. Gordon questions Dr. Leaf’s recollection that “a pre-trio Nat (King) Cole played solo piano for a couple of years at the Swannee Inn on La Brea.

“I was loyal to the Swannee Inn,” she recalls. “Its chief attraction for a long time was the King Cole trio. What a wonderful little group. Wesley Prince on bass and Oscar Moore on guitar seemed to read Nat’s mind as he improvised on the piano. . . . But Nat playing solo piano? Never! “

As for C. Church More’s memory of driving his girlfriend to the Cocoanut Grove in a Franklin Phaeton, I was close to right in saying that he must have been rich, because only movie stars drove Franklin Phaetons.

“Interestingly enough,” he says, “the car’s first owner was a movie star--a canine! I don’t remember his or her name, but I was told that the dog kept jumping out of the open car, so that the disgusted owner traded it in for a sedan. . . .”

I wonder if the original owner could have been Rin Tin Tin?

Joseph Dickel wonders if I remember the original Don the Beachcomber’s. No, I don’t.

“(It was) on the east side of McCadden Place about 70 feet north of Hollywood Boulevard. Speaking of rain on the tin roof of the Seven Seas bar! That little bar (now part of B. Dalton’s bookstore) had panache, and you felt transported to the tropics. Over the large windows at the sidewalk was a narrow awning or tin roof, and on the quarter- or half-hour rain would pour down.

“This was the birthplace of the famous Zombie, which I recall being warned about when we first went there in 1937: You were only allowed to order two.”

Yes, I remember zombies. They were potent drinks much favored by young men hoping to break down the resistance of innocent females. I have no doubt that they sometimes worked.

Martha B. Purviance of Corona del Mar has total recall of that glamorous era. “We went to the Seven Seas to see the rain, went to the Hollywood Roosevelt to do all the Latin dances, ate at Don the Beachcomber’s, used to go to a small bar on La Brea right below Hollywood Boulevard to hear Bobby Short, heard Sarah Vaughan at a spot across from the Hollywood Broadway, saw Groucho Marx coming out of the Brown Derby on Vine Street, saw Ginger Rogers window-shopping on Sunset Boulevard, saw Sammy Davis Jr. at Ciro’s when he was second-billing to Liberace . . . saw Jeff Chandler sitting two tables away and Doris Day in a white-beaded evening dress that showed her gorgeous figure. . . .”

Eddie Cress wonders why I didn’t mention Billy Gray’s Band Box, on Fairfax near Beverly, where Billy Gray starred, and Jackie Gleason, Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom, Buddy Hackett, Polly Bergen, Alan King and Don Rickles “all worked on their way up. . . .”

Charles Lee of Studio City writes to chastise me for repeating reader Lionel C. Meeker’s bit of gossip that Greta Garbo was “so tight she wore men’s jockey shorts because they were cheaper and outlasted women’s panties.”

“First of all,” Lee asks, “how could he know? (As you said.) One expects to find such outlandish drivel in the sleazy publications sold at supermarket checkout stands. But it’s depressing to read it in your column.”

Which brings us to Ray Bradbury:

“Nostalgia freaks,” he writes, “step aside. I can top you all.

“One twilight, back in late 1938, if I recall correctly, I came out of the big downtown library (my university!) and walked down past the Biltmore Theatre. Katherine Cornell was there in, I believe, ‘Candida.’ The matinee was just breaking, and in the dusk, as I approached the front entrance of the theatre, I could hear the doors opening and the crowd beginning to exit. As I reached the blind corner of the entrance, I heard running feet and a woman in a large hat, her head down as if plowing the wind, ran right into my suddenly opened arms. The woman, surprised at my catching her, raised her head and I looked into the face and the great eyes of:

“Greta Garbo.

“It was only a moment, perhaps two seconds, three.

“Then she burst off and ran across the street into the Biltmore garage.

“I found out later that Garbo often attended theater matinees and sat in the last row so she could run out ahead of the mobs.

“I never saw Garbo again.

“But I shall remember our swift embrace for the rest of my life.

“OK, fans, top that one!”

Well, have I ever told you about the time Jean Simmons asked me for a light?

And I didn’t have one?