18 Facts About Donn Beach

Donn Beach is known for opening the first prototypical tiki bar, Don's Beachcomber, during the 1930s in Hollywood, California, which was expanded to a chain of dozens of restaurants throughout the United States.

Donn Beach later built the International Market Place and additional establishments in what was then the Territory of Hawaii.

Donn Beach then spent at least an additional year island hopping on freighters throughout the South Pacific.

Donn Beach is generally credited with establishing the entire tiki drink genre, creating dozens of other recipes such as the Cobra's Fang, Tahitian Rum Punch, Three Dots and a Dash, Navy Grog, and many others.

Donn Beach's restaurant was popular with Hollywood actors, some of whom became frequent customers and friends.

Donn Beach ran and expanded the operation while he was in the Army Air Corps from 1942 to 1945.

Donn Beach was awarded a Purple Heart when he was injured during a U-boat attack on a ship.

Donn Beach was awarded the merit version of the Bronze Star while setting up rest camps for combat-weary airmen of the 12th and 15th Air Forces in Capri, Nice, Cannes, the French Riviera, Venice, the Lido and Sorrento at the order of his friend, Lieutenant General Jimmy Doolittle.

Donn Beach turned it into one of the nation's first chains of themed restaurants, with 16 locations at its height.

Donn Beach created his first "Polynesian Village" at his Encino, California ranch, where he continued to entertain many Hollywood celebrities with extravagant luaus.

Donn Beach then moved to the Territory of Hawaii, where he continued his burgeoning entertainment and tiki-themed enterprises.

Donn Beach settled in Waikiki, where he opened his second "Polynesian Village", known as Waikiki Village.

The bar was named after a dagger that was allegedly a trophy that Donn Beach brought back from his time in WWII, a reproduction of an imperial Roman-style Puglia knife that he had gotten in Italy.

Donn Beach was honored with a House Resolution Tourism Award in 1957.

Donn Beach remarried in the early 1960s to a Costa Rican woman who would become Carla Donn Beach.

Donn Beach later became an actress who went by the name Carla Beachcomber and Carla Beachcomber Lutz.

Donn Beach built an elaborate houseboat, the Marama, a prototype for what he hoped would be floating housing in Hawaii, but failed to get the zoning for it.

Donn Beach eventually shipped the houseboat to Moorea, and lived there in retirement for a number of years before a succession of cyclones destroyed it.