REGAL ELEGANCE; BILTMORE THE BELLE OF A THOUSAND BALLS.

Byline: Carol Bidwell Daily News Staff Writer

A lady likes to look her best, especially on her birthday.

So early this summer, preparations for her big day began. A little touch up here. A little tidying up there.

By Oct. 2, the big day, the grand dame born 75 years ago as the Biltmore Hotel will be ready for her gala, a party designed to be as much like her debut as the staff that cares for her can dream up.

Music. Dancing. A seven-course dinner just like the original (but with less fat and fewer heavy sauces). And a setting so splendorous that the Biltmore still can proudly boast that she's ``the Host of the Coast.''

It wasn't so hard for the Biltmore to live up to its motto, coined in 1923, back when it first offered travelers the only deluxe accommodations west of the Mississippi River and south of San Francisco.

``Without a doubt, it's the finest hotel in the world,'' crowed World Traveler Magazine in its October 1923 edition.

Maturity hasn't dimmed the queenly bearing, the hospitality, the joie de vivre of the grand old lady now known as the Regal Biltmore Hotel. Through a half-dozen changes of ownership (the Regal International Hotel chain has put her up for sale again), a 1928 expansion, a couple of earthquakes that did no more than jostle items on shelves, and a 1984 renovation that restored much of the hotel's early beauty, she's welcomed presidents and kings, movie stars and moguls, brides and world travelers.

And, born out of regional pride, the Biltmore today is exactly what she was meant to be all those years ago: a hotel so grand, she would set sophisticates everywhere on their ears.

The Biltmore put Los Angeles on the map for worldly East Coast travelers, who had long viewed San Francisco as California's cosmopolitan center and Los Angeles as a dusty frontier town.

In 1921, a handful of Los Angeles bigwigs - including a newspaper publisher, a couple of bankers, an attorney, a pioneer movie director and an insurance company mogul - decided to give those monied travelers a magnificent reason to visit the town that had established itself as the world's movie capital.

They named their about-to-be creation the Biltmore, hoping a little of the cachet of multimillionaire George Vanderbilt's same-name estate in Asheville, N.C., would rub off.

Construction on the $10 million structure at the southwest corner of Grand Avenue and Fifth Street in the heart of the city's downtown began on March 27, 1922. And 5,200 tons of steel, 1.5 million feet of lumber, 125 miles of electrical wire and more than 1,000 laborers later, the famed E-shaped hotel across the street from Pershing Square was finished.

Eleven thousand people - among them the cream of Los Angeles society, business and the movie industry - clamored for tickets to the Oct. 2 opening-night gala, but only 3,000 were invited to feast in eight dining rooms to the accompaniment of seven orchestras and hundreds of trilling red canaries.

Celebrants marveled at the hotel's Spanish-Italian Renaissance decor, the lobby's sweeping double staircase, the intricately painted ceilings, the elaborate touches in wood and bronze and glass everywhere.

But the hit of the evening was fashion doyenne Peggy Hamilton, who arrived dressed in a floor-length white silk dress painted to resemble the Crystal Ballroom's ceiling, crafted by Vatican artist Giovanni Smeraldi. Deep pockets in the skirt fanned out like the room's private dining balconies. And in her blond hair, Hamilton wore tiny replicas of the ballroom's massive crystal chandeliers.

Lassie Lou Ahern, 78, of West Hills remembers those glamour days. She was just 3 years old and a star of the ``Our Gang'' movies in 1923 when she became the child model in the hotel's fashion shows that featured actresses Colleen Moore, Clara Bow, Vilma Banky, Marion Davies and others.

The famous Peggy Hamilton dress, which the designer wore many times to Biltmore events, was a memorable sight, Ahern recalls.

``She was very blond and looked startlingly lovely in that dress,'' Ahern said. ``I remember that I wanted to touch the dress. I wanted to stick my hands in those pockets. I didn't, of course. I was always on my best behavior at the Biltmore.''

Full of history

Three-quarters of a century later, the Biltmore - now an elegant dowager - is no longer the city's biggest hotel (the original 1,000 guest rooms have been reduced to 683, with additional space allocated to meeting rooms) or the most conveniently located (a succession of one-way streets and heavy traffic make it difficult to find the new Grand Avenue entrance). And, once the epitome of travel chic, the old hotel - which averages a more-than-respectable 70 percent occupancy rate - is given only four out of five stars by both the Mobile Travel Guide and the American Automobile Association.

But those stars on the pages of a guidebook rank only the nuts and bolts of hotels, whether there's an ice machine down the hall and how late the kids can play in the pool.

They don't take into consideration that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences was officially formed in 1927 in the Biltmore's Crystal Ballroom and that Oscar - the movie industry's ``golden boy'' - was born there as a hasty pencil sketch on a linen napkin, that Sen. John F. Kennedy took over the hotel's music room (now the lobby) as his headquarters during the 1960 Democratic National Convention, that the Beatles hid there from their screaming fans for a few days in the mid-'60s, secretly arriving and departing by rooftop helicopter.

``No day is the same,'' said Sara Cameron, the hotel's director of catering. ``And it's always incredibly not the same, from the president arriving to the Duchess of York.''

``Every day is like history in the making here,'' said Joe Gideon, the hotel's senior limousine driver for 15 years. ``You never know who's going to walk in the door.''

He's chauffeured movie stars, world leaders and business moguls. He's tended to the travel needs of everyone from Clara Peller (Burger King's ``Where's the Beef?'' lady) to Kennedy in-law Sargent Shriver, onetime head of the Peace Corps, whom he drove to Pacific Palisades to see his first-born grandchild.

``I got to shake hands with Arnold (Schwarzenegger, Shriver's son-in-law) and talk politics with Sargent Shriver,'' Gideon said. ``That was a great day.''

He added with a touch of awe: ``I get to spend 30 minutes with some of the most interesting people in the world.''

Stars came out

But the old hotel is no longer just a playground for the rich and famous. Office workers from the nearby jewelry district bring sack lunches and discreetly dine for free in the splendor of the Rendezvouz Court, the ornate old lobby; nobody ever asks them to leave. During much of the year, the former lobby is also the place for an elegant afternoon tea at affordable prices. And three or four weddings are booked into the hotel's fancy ballrooms each weekend.

The movers and shakers still come and go, but without the drama of a movie star entrance. They're often spirited in through a side door and whisked by private elevator to one of several posh but anonymous suites. And although the hotel has hosted every president since Herbert Hoover, most recent commanders-in-chief have shunned the palatial two-story, $2,000-a-night Presidential Suite and camped out instead in the relatively modest $1,200-a-night Music Suite, which is easier for Secret Service agents to protect because of its anonymity.

Those who use the main entrance are greeted by a smiling Shawn Perera, the hotel's doorman. ``Welcome to the Regal Biltmore. How are you today?'' is his standard greeting - along with a big smile. He's seen movie stars and heads of state come and go, but nobody's impressed him more than Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks, Perera says.

``He's always in uniform - and he always shakes my hand,'' Perera said with a grin.

Even though the hotel offers state-of-the-art accoutrements - with two floors of renovated guest rooms equipped with fax machines, computer hookups and other niceties for the business traveler - the staff provides the same kind of old-fashioned white-gloved courtliness that made the hostelry the toast of the town for the Hollywood glitterati in the '20s and '30s.

Then, the stars came to see and be seen, to lunch fashionably and to dine and dance in the Biltmore Bowl, the town's hottest nightspot.

It didn't take long for star-struck local folks to stake out the hotel's once-sofa-lined, 300-foot-long Galleria - the wide causeway that bisects the hotel's main floor - in hopes of seeing Rudolph Valentino, John Barrymore, Mary Pickford or Mabel Normand.

``There were so many star-gazers - and they'd stay all day, day after day - that there was no place for hotel guests to sit,'' said Sheena Stephens, the hotel's publicity director. ``So finally, the hotel had to hire a bouncer - a very proper gentleman who wore a suit and white gloves. If you weren't a guest, he'd hand you a card asking you to leave. They were very polite in those days.''

Kitchen never closes

Of course, in those days, the Biltmore's prices were a lot different, too.

While the first guests could spend the night for under $5, today's rates range from $195 for a standard room to $600 to $2,000 for a choice of spectacular suites.

And in 1931, a tin of beluga caviar set a well-heeled diner back $2.25, and a prime rib dinner cost 80 cents. A premium bottle of Mumm's Cordon Rouge 1928 champagne to wash it all down added $16.50 to the check.

Today, the same dinner in Bernard's, the hotel's gourmet dinner house, costs lots more, with the caviar weighing in at $75, the prime rib dinner at $40 and the most expensive wine - a six-liter bottle of Caymus Special Selection Napa Valley 1990 Cabernet Sauvignon - going for $1,500.

Those sizable tabs don't seem to slow the hungry masses. So, to accommodate all her guests, the Biltmore never sleeps.

In the belly of the Biltmore, executive chef Roger Pigozzi's 60 cooks and helpers are busy round-the-clock, supplying 24-hour room service and preparing 2,000 to 3,000 meals a day for diners in four restaurants. Add to that hors d'oeuvres and meals for wedding receptions and banquets, and you begin to understand why salads are assembled on a moving conveyor belt and cakes are baked 10 at a time.

``What we do here is on a grand scale,'' said catering manager Cameron.

And where there are grand requests, there always follows minute details.

``(Disney chief executive Michael) Eisner has a very specific diet, and he'll bring along his recipes,'' Pigozzi said. ``He wants everything oven-baked, dipped in egg white - no fried foods. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants Wiener schnitzel, a large salad and fruit pie - nothing else.''

Although the Biltmore - and 25 other U.S. hotels owned by the Regal chain - have been on the market for the past couple of months, its sale isn't expected to change much at the old hotel.

``We've seen owners come and go, but the staff keeps the hotel running,'' said Stephens. ``We kind of just change the letterhead and keep things going.''

``People come to work here and just stay,'' said limo driver Gideon. ``The staff's been here 10, 20, 30 years. It's a great place to work because everything's very personal. We're taught to treat people like they're guests in our home.''

It's those small things that have made the Biltmore a big fixture in hotel history, one of the reasons the Los Angeles Conservancy gave it historical landmark status in 1969.

On this, her 75th year, many of the personalities and events that touched the Biltmore are being memorialized in a tiny museum being organized in the space once occupied by the hotel's wine shop. On display when it opens in several months will be cutlery, china, crystal, silver serving pieces, menus, photos and other items - including Peggy Hamilton's painted dress - culled from the hotel's basement or returned by former guests.

``It's such fun to go through all the things people have sent in,'' said Stephens. ``Sometimes they'll write and tell us when they stayed here and why. People have such sentimental ties to the hotel - they got married here, or they met their husband here.''

Her favorite letter was from an elderly woman who returned an ornately etched martini glass, saying she had dropped it in her purse after emptying it on a visit in the 1940s. Stephens called to thank her for offering it to the museum.

``She asked if we still served martinis in glasses like that, and I said that we did, but that the glasses were bigger now,'' Stephens said. ``She called me a few days later and said she had come back just to have a martini.

``And she said, `You were right; they're much bigger.' Then she giggled. I think she enjoyed it. And enjoyed coming back here.''

Who is Thelma Becker?

The Biltmore must have had some favorite guests, but none stayed longer than Thelma Becker, who moved into the hotel in 1940 when she was a sales executive for a lingerie company and stayed for 47 years.

Unlike other patrons of the hotel, who pay anywhere from $195 to $2,000 a night, Becker's extended stay got her a special reduced rate. In 1975, after Becker retired, hotel administrators decided that she would be charged only $33 per night so she could continue to live there within her retirement budget. Becker, 85, left only last summer, after she broke her hip and had to move into a nursing home.

In retirement, Becker helped organize movie shoots at the hotel, led visitors on tours and became the hotel's unofficial historian.

On her 80th birthday, the hotel dedicated the Becker Suite - No. 308, on the third floor, ``with a tremendous bedroom and large living room that can be used as a conference room'' - in her honor, complete with a luncheon and cocktail party.

``I met a lot of important people,'' recalled Becker, who was known to many simply as ``the lady who lives at the Biltmore.''

She fondly recalls the heyday of tea dances in the Emerald Room, the Academy Awards in the Biltmore Bowl and the 1984 Olympics, which were headquartered in the hotel.

``This place buzzed,'' she said.

And, despite the wild reputation of some Hollywood stars, ``there were no shenanigans,'' Becker said. ``The Biltmore isn't that kind of hotel.''

- Carol Bidwell

Biltmore's best-kept secrets

She may be made of brick and mortar, but even a hotel doesn't get to her 75th birthday without a few secrets to tell. And the Regal Biltmore Hotel has her share. Here are some intriguing facts about the grand dame:

One of the mirrored panels in a back corner of the Crystal Ballroom is really a waist-high door that leads to a hidden stairway and catwalk onto which high-profile revelers (remember, 1923 was the height of Prohibition) could simply disappear for awhile if the cops stopped by to check the contents of their coffee cups. From a nearly invisible peephole carved into the ornate molding at the top of the ballroom, accessible from the catwalk, the ballroom could be watched - and the all-clear sounded when the police left.

There are two secret panels in the Presidential Suite that pop open at the touch of a button to reveal hidey-holes where Secret Service agents - or Prohibition gangsters - could stow their weapons - or their bootleg liquor.

The Biltmore has starred - or provided background settings - for dozens of movies and television shows, including ``Mother,'' ``The Rock,'' ``Chinatown,'' ``In the Line of Fire,'' ``The Bodyguard,'' ``The Fabulous Baker Boys,'' ``Pretty in Pink,'' ``Ghostbusters,'' and ``The Poseidon Adventure.'' The boxing arena where Rocky Balboa whupped Clubber Lang in ``Rocky III'' was built inside the Crystal Ballroom and so was the fake bookie joint seen in ``The Sting.''

In 1929, the German dirigible Graf Zeppelin hovered over the hotel before landing nearby; its passengers and crew stayed at the Biltmore, and the airship's commissary was replenished from the Biltmore kitchen.

Elizabeth Short, the mysterious ``Black Dahlia,'' was last seen alive inside the hotel's lobby before her still-unexplained 1947 mutilation murder.

At Sai Sai, the Biltmore's Japanese restaurant, a traditional seven-course, two-hour Kaiseki feast ends with an inventive dessert. ``It's a little white chocolate table, with a pair of chopsticks, and the chef does a dessert on top of the table - and you eat the whole thing,'' said Steve Applegate, manager of Bernard's dinner house.

Build more memories

On Oct. 2, the Regal Biltmore Hotel will celebrate its 75th anniversary with a scaled-down, black-tie version of its 1923 opening-night gala. Five hundred guests will dine in the Crystal Ballroom on lamb, peaches and ice cream for $250 per person, with proceeds benefiting the Los Angeles Conservancy.

Former Mouseketeer Johnny Crawford and his 11-piece orchestra will play 1930s-era music for dancing, a '20s-era Rolls-Royce and the Peggy Hamilton painted dress will be on display, along with other fashions from the 1920s and '30s. To reserve tickets, call the conservancy at [phone].

Other anniversary-year happenings include:

A healthier re-creation of the dinner served at the 1923 opening night gala will be available nightly through Dec. 30 at Bernard's, the hotel's gourmet restaurant. The price fixe dinner costs $75 per person and includes a special commemorative bottle of wine. For reservations, call [phone].

The Ultimate Anniversary Package - including a limo to the hotel, a night's stay in a suite, champagne and long-stemmed roses, dinner, breakfast, a chauffeured $500 shopping spree, a gourmet lunch, a hotel tour, a massage and two plush Biltmore bathrobes - is priced at $1,923 for two through Dec. 30 to mark the hotel's 75th anniversary. For information, call [phone].

A commemorative 97-page coffee table book, ``The Los Angeles Biltmore: The Host of the Coast'' (Archetype Press Inc.) can be purchased only in the hotel gift shop for $29.95.

Hourlong hotel tours are led the second Saturday of each month by docents of the Los Angeles Conservancy. Admission is free for conservancy members, $5 for nonmembers. For information, call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

9 Photos, 3 Boxes

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) GILDED LADY

Elegance, opulence earned Regal Biltmore Hotel the title `Host of the Coast'

(2--Color) The sound of running water from the ornate fountain fills the Rendezvous Court, the old hotel's original lobby.

(3--Color) A couple pauses at the top of the Rendezvous Court's famed double staircase, rimmed with wrought iron, to admire the crystal chandelier.

(4--5--Color) A year after poor health forced her departure, longtime resident Thelma Becker still receives mail in her hotel mailbox.

John McCoy/Daily News

(6--8--Color) Peggy Hamilton's white satin dress was painted to resemble the ceiling of the Crystal Ballroom, right. The Biltmore china, top, reflects the same colors.

(9) The Biltmore was headquarters in 1960 for Sen. John F. Kennedy's run for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Photos courtesy of the Regal Biltmore Hotel

Box: (1) Who is Thelma Becker? (See Text)

(2) BILTMORE'S BEST-KEPT SECRETS (See Text)

(3) BUILD MORE MEMORIES (See Text)