Donn Blog
A deep dive into the history of Donn Beach, Don the Beachcomber restaurants, and all things related to that story. Never-before-seen items from Donn’s personal archives.
Singapore Manila War Tokens
On July 22nd of 1942, Donn, on active military service, announced the opening of a Singapore and Manila Don the Beachcomber, and then on the 26th issued 1,000 tokens for a free Barrel of Rum at these locations. Note the lines in the top left where there were cuts and...
Protected: Estelle Carey – The Gal Who Exposed the Mob
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Donn’s Notes on the 1930s
Here is another sample of Donn's handwriting. I'm getting better at interpreting it mainly by virtue of knowing a lot of the subjects already and being able to piece it together. I decided to actually type up my interpretation of this page. Maybe I know something the...
Protected: Secret Recipe for Colonel Beach’s Plantation Ambrosia
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Donn’s Notes on the War Years
There are various pages, some hand written, some typed, of notes by Donn on his life. The hand written ones are very slap-dash stuff that was only meant to jog his memory. Being notes written for himself, they are often completely unreadable. His writing his barely...
Ethel Merman and Bob Six at DtB Waikiki 1952
Ethel and Bob at DtB Waikiki 2-14-1952 If the date is correct, this is before they were married. Box Six was the CEO of Continental Airlines and when they married in 1953, he urged Ethel Merman to return to her career. She had just starred in "There's No Business Like...
Rudy Vallee’s “The Drene Show” 1946 Featuring Donn
Part of the archive was this script for Rudy Vallee's "The Drene Show" which was a 30 minute radio program in the early 40s. This particular script revolves around Rudy trying to steal a secret recipe from Don the Beachcomber to make his place more popular. Rudy was a...
Hawaii Tomorrow 1966 by Bob Van Dorpe and Herb Kane
This is one example from 1966 of the vision of Bob Van Dorpe and Herb Kane for the islands, in particular for Kona. This is an example of their attitude of "Cultural Tourism," which Donn Beach also embraced, in which the character, culture, and people of an area are...
The Archive is (mostly) digitized
150 pounds of documents. It may not look like much, but it took me four and a half months to go through it to digitize it. Approximately 3800 items. About 1200 scanned images, which I mostly also Photoshopped. It was a lot of work and was literally painful. I bought a...
Donn’s Car in 1948 Hawaii
1947 Buick Roadmaster convertible in Desert Tan. This is not Donn's actual car. January 28, 1948
Notes From Home in WWII for Donn
1) Betty Grable When Donn was off at war, his friends sent him words of encouragement via signed publicity shots. I can read some, but I'll need your help with the rest. UPDATE: That was quick! Thanks for the IDs! 2) Merle Oberon 1942 3) Harry James 4) Priscilla Lane...
Donn’s Handwritten Autobiography
Among the Phoebe Beach Archive are the notes and writings of her late husband Arnold Bitner, who wrote a biography of Donn published in 2007. Those notes are interesting and help flesh out the story. Arnold was able to interview people who knew Donn. He has lots of...
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