Hot Pink : Beverly Hills Hotel Seeking ‘Souvenirs’ for Its Centennial

Howard Hughes lived there. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton fought there. Esther Williams swam there. Marilyn Monroe overslept there.

The Beverly Hills Hotel is steeped in Hollywood legend. And pilfered from by stargazing patrons from around the world for nearly 80 years.

The famed pink palace is putting out a special request this week for all those very special guests who have pocketed hotel ashtrays and stuffed signature towels in their suitcases: Please return them. For history’s sake.

Managers at the famed hotel are seeking all those monogrammed bathrobes, sheets, matchbooks, ashtrays and menus that have been “borrowed” during the last 79 years. They want to put a sampling of the items on display for the hotel’s 100th anniversary celebration--in 2012.

Hotel officials decided to put out the word early so that they can begin planning the centennial bash. They figure that it will take some time to sift through nearly a century’s worth of stolen trinkets and find those items suitable for exhibit.

“We have every intention of returning them to their present owners,” said hotel spokeswoman Sheila O’Brien. “We just want to use them for a while.”

The hotel is also soliciting anecdotes to add to its celebrity-rich history--like the time Hughes parked his car there and left it so long that the grass actually grew through the chassis. Or the time when (or so legend has it) Errol Flynn stole John Barrymore’s body from a local mortuary and brought it back to the hotel so Barrymore could be present at his own drunken farewell party. Finding stories like that takes time.

“We were just brainstorming one day, and we just decided that we needed to do something really special for the 100th birthday,” O’Brien said. “We are just looking for items and for stories that will help us outline the hotel’s history.”

The hotel doesn’t want it all back. Just enough to show off the best of the hotel’s colorful past. Lenders’ names will be displayed along with the mementos used, but the hotel will guarantee anonymity for those who don’t want to be identified.

Since it opened in 1912, the 268-room hotel has been one of Los Angeles’ most visible landmarks and has lent its name to one of the most celebrated cities in America. The hotel’s Polo Lounge has long been one of the movie industry’s primary deal-making sites, and the inn’s 21 bungalows have served as the part-time homes of some of the biggest names in cinema history.

Guests have paid between $200 and $2,600 a night to see where Katharine Hepburn once swam fully clothed--and for the chance to take home items bearing the hotel’s famous insignia. Although hotel officials have never taken inventory, they admit that there have probably been a lot more swizzle stick snatchings than star sightings.

“People just like to take reminders of their stay here,” O’Brien said. “It’s like they’re taking a part of Hollywood history.”