Lonely Planet recently published a list of hotels in which famous people have died and surprise, surprise, the Chelsea Hotel is at the top of the list. Now, Here’s a tourist who claims that “Stan” showed him the room where Sid “shot” Nancy. Almost everybody knows that nobody “shot” Nancy at the Chelsea. This is the first we’ve heard of Stanley Bard facilitating murder-tourism. The tourist goes on to refer to the Hotel’s residents as an “eccentric bunch.” Usually they just call us all flat-out crazy. Perhaps, given this and the other discrepancies in his tale, we have to question if he ever stayed at the Chelsea at all.
Sid & Nancy aren't the only Chelsea Hotel links to The Lonely Planet list of fatally famous lodgings.
Shelton Hotel, Eugene O'Neill, who wrote The Iceman Cometh and A Long Day's Journey into Night, was 65 when he died, broke and unhappy, in Suite 401 of the Shelton Hotel in Boston on November 27, 1953. His last words were: ''I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room -- and goddamn it -- died in a hotel room.'' He had been born in a Broadway hotel room in New York, the son of an Irish-American actor.
Landmark Hotel, Janis Joplin was 27 and recording her classic rock album Pearl when she died of a heroin overdose on October 4, 1970. She died in Room 105 of Hollywood's Landmark Hotel, now renamed the Highland Gardens Hotel. The singer had finished her last recordings three days earlier; among them were the song Mercedes-Benz and a birthday greeting for John Lennon. Jimi Hendrix had died just two weeks earlier. He was also 27. (The Courier Mail (Australia), 11/25/06)
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