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New York Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Dan Tana, Whose Clubby Red-Sauce Restaurant Drew Stars, Dies at 90
Dan Tana, a promising teenage soccer player who defected from Communist Yugoslavia, bounced around teams in Western Europe and Canada, won a big poker game one night in 1956 and high-tailed it to Hollywood, where he opened the buzziest and most beloved Italian restaurant in Los Angeles, died on Saturday in Belgrade. He was 90. The death, at a hospital, was caused by cancer, his daughter Gabrielle Tana said. In 1964, after stints as a Beverly Hills maitre d' and a character actor, Mr. Tana (pronounced TAN-uh) opened his restaurant, named Dan Tana's and known as just Tana's. It occupied a 1929 bungalow, formerly home to a burger joint, and fit a little over a dozen tables. Tana's both did and did not perpetuate the spirit of the building's rustic origins. On the one hand, Tana's became the kind of restaurant where different tables might be occupied by Brad Grey, the chairman of Paramount Pictures, and Sumner Redstone, the chairman of Viacom — Mr. Grey's boss's boss. Generational succession transpired: Johnny Carson ate there before Jay Leno, Julie Christie before Cameron Diaz. Drew Barrymore was widely described as having had her diapers changed right on the bar. Yet other regulars included Luis the 911 operator; a lawyer known for his ponytail; a woman who ran a safari company; and David Naylor, Hollywood's 'Bachelor No. 1,' a serial dater of starlets, who labeled attendance at Los Angeles's other restaurants 'amateur hour.' On a scale of 1 to 10, The Los Angeles Times reported in 1989, 'the people-watching at Tana's rates 10.' It was often compared to New York's best-known clubhouse canteens, like Elaine's and Rao's, and Mr. Tana himself to its leading restaurateurs, like Toots Shor. The restaurant's hipness depended somehow on its orthodoxy. The interior and the menu remained locked in midcentury America's imagination of an Italian restaurant — including after a fire in 1980, when customers pleaded with Mr. Tana to exactly replicate the old saloon, and after Mr. Tana sold it to a friend in 2009. 'She didn't change anything,' Mr. Tana boasted to Air Mail in 2021 about his successor, Sonja Perencevic. 'Dan Tana's is as much a part of the Hollywood landscape as fan palms, Botox and tanning salons,' Air Mail wrote. The average experience of a night at Tana's went something like this: You walked under a green awning into a space so dark your eyes took a second to adjust. The décor was repeatedly described as 'bordello red': red Naugahyde booths, red-and-white checked tablecloths, red Christmas-tree lights on the ceiling and, everywhere, mounds of marinara sauce. Your table, lit by candlelight, would generally occupy a dark, recessed corner. Your waiter would not be the Los Angeles archetype — a beautiful but incompetent aspiring young actor — but instead, dressed in black bow tie, a professional, courteous gentleman from the former Yugoslavia. Mr. Tana himself, though frequently attending to his international soccer interests in London or Belgrade, where he had homes, might also stop by your table to greet you. He had an athlete's build — six feet tall, broad shouldered — but also the sophistication of a confident speaker of Russian, German, French, Italian, English and Serbo-Croatian. 'His manners are old world: He is one of the few men who can carry off kissing a woman's hand,' Los Angeles magazine reported in 1997. 'He does it swiftly, smoothly and without hesitation, the same way he lights your cigarette.' Ordering was, in a sense, not hard: 'Everything looks and pretty much tastes the same,' The Los Angeles Times wrote in 2006. A 1987 reviewer for the paper was more generous, crediting the cuisine with 'two varieties: red and white.' Even the New York strip steak came with pasta. But who thinks to order dishes called 'veal Jerry Weintraub,' 'chopped salad Nicky Hilton,' 'steak Dabney Coleman' or 'braciola Vlade Divac' for culinary reasons? The scene was the point. So many Los Angeles athletes visited that Craig Susser, a longtime maitre d', became superstitious about what he called the 'trading table.' Wayne Gretzky and Mr. Divac had sat there before being traded by their teams. Protectively, Mr. Susser refused to give the table to Shaquille O'Neal. Regulars during the 1970s described a particularly rowdy era: the musician Nils Lofgren serenading strangers with an accordion while high on acid; a fight between an agent and a producer over a third man's wife that left enduring blood stains on the restaurant's carpeted floor. 'Our best clients are the regulars who come at least once or twice a week,' Mr. Susser told The New York Times in 2005. 'Even a studio chief might not get a booth at the last minute if they haven't been in for a while.' Mr. Susser, who had the tab of an early date with his wife unexpectedly picked up by George Clooney, considered himself the Tana's heir apparent — until 2009, when Mr. Tana sold out to Ms. Perencevic, an independently wealthy friend, also from the Balkans. In 2011, Mr. Susser opened a rival restaurant, called Craig's, not far away, drawing investors partly from Tana's regulars. The New York Times asked Mr. Tana for comment. He brushed off the defection with an empire builder's long historical view. 'Craig was my eighth manager in almost 60 years,' he said. 'With each one, I lost some new customers and regained some old ones.' Dobrivoje Tanasijević was born on May 26, 1935, in Cibutkovica, a small town outside Belgrade, where he grew up. His father, Radojko, was a restaurateur. His mother, Lenka (Miloseviv) Tanasijevic, resourcefully kept the family afloat during World War II, when Radojko was arrested. He was considered an ally of the old ruling classes by the Yugoslav Communists, and he wound up becoming an accountant at one of the restaurants he had owned. In the early 1950s, Dan, still a teenager, was on the farm team of Red Star Belgrade, a professional soccer club. The team traveled to Belgium, where he got into a fight with the chaperone. He and a couple of friends promptly defected. After playing soccer in the Southern German League and in Montreal, he won his big poker game and set out for America. He changed his name when his fledging acting career began. He tended to play Germans, Russians, gangsters, communists, fascists and criminals, he told Los Angeles magazine. 'I always got killed, and I never got to kiss the girl,' he added. He earned a living by working at restaurants like La Scala, in Beverly Hills. When some friends were having trouble running a pub called Domenico's Lunch Spot, he offered to take over the lease for a dollar down and subsequent payments over the years amounting to $30,000. Initially, there was little indication of the restaurant's future success. One winter evening in 1966, the only customers were a party of six. Mr. Tana decided to comp them appetizers. One diner turned out to be Art Ryon, a columnist for The Los Angeles Times. He called Tana's 'new and charming,' boasting 'tasty stracciatelle' and the distinction of being 'the only restaurant in town that serves Chicken Lisbon.' While presumably smiling wryly at his typewriter, Mr. Ryon added, 'Reservations might be wise.' 'From then on, we never had a night when we served less than 220 dinners,' Mr. Tana told Variety in 2014. Mr. Tana's name gained a widespread sense of vague familiarity when he agreed to lend it to the main character of 'Vega$,' a series about a private eye named Dan Tanna that ran on ABC from 1978-81. His first marriage, to Andrea (Wiesenthal) Tana, ended in divorce. He married Biljana (Strezovski) Tana in 2006. In addition to his wife and Gabrielle, he is survived by another daughter from his first marriage, Katerina Tana. Unlike other Los Angeles restaurants, the walls of Tana's do not have signed pictures from movie stars so much as soccer paraphernalia. There is a poster — but it is from 'Vega$.' A bartender told The Observer of Britain that this aloofness was actually the restaurant's appeal to Hollywood. 'All these stars come to Dan Tana's because of Dan Tana,' he said. 'I think they know he's a man with a history. Sure, he's one of them; but he's different: He's lived a very different life.'
Chicago Tribune
05-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Biblioracle: ‘Fleetwood Mac All the Songs' is my kind of coffee table book
When I found out that there is a 608-page book weighing in at over five pounds titled 'Fleetwood Mac All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track,' I knew I had to get my hands on a copy and see what's doing. It's not that I'm anything more than an average (or slightly above) Fleetwood Mac fan. Like everyone else, I'm well-versed in the 'Rumours'-era mega-hits like 'Don't Stop' and 'The Chain,' and I even have some passing knowledge of their pre-Buckingham/Nicks incarnation as a heavy blues outfit led by Peter Green, but that's about it. Sure, I've watched the 'Classic Albums: Rumours' episode three or four times, relishing the story of how interpersonal drama mixed with drug use and alcohol abuse was turned into one of the greatest albums of all time, but who doesn't like a story that's both a train wreck and something like the opposite? When 'Fleetwood Mac All the Songs,' was delivered to my doorstep, the thumping noise scared the dogs, and when I opened the box and saw the book inside, it was love at first sight. This is my kind of coffee table book, and if you're at all interested in the ins and outs of a band — even if you're not a huge Fleetwood Mac fan — I think you will find it fascinating. Produced by two French music journalists, Olivier Roubin and Romuald Ollivier, the book delivers on the promise of its title. It truly breaks down every song by Fleetwood Mac, starting with its blue-rock origins, moving through a middle period where they were led by singer-songwriter-guitarists Bob Welch and Danny Kirwan, on through the mega-act years, and even beyond into some Fleetwood Mac incarnations I didn't know existed and that members of the band would maybe prefer to forget. But not Roubin and Ollivier. They forget nothing. Each song is broken down in terms of origins, songwriting and production, plus frequent trivia tidbits that were often my favorite parts. For example, I discovered that 'Second Hand News,' a favorite somewhat lesser-known track from 'Rumours' has a rhythm pattern borrowed from The Bee Gees, and the percussion is augmented by Lindsey Buckingham pounding on a Naugahyde chair with a pair of sticks. Maybe that's not interesting to you, but there's a real pleasure to learning these things, and going back to the music and listening with more attentive ears to see what you can now hear. In addition to the breakdown of each song and album, the authors include profiles of all of the band members over the years, and also of the producers, engineers and others who worked with Fleetwood Mac. Mini-essays work through the big events in the band's history, the tours, the drama, the break-ups. There was absolutely no culling process in terms of what was included in the book. Everything is present. It would be ridiculous to claim that I've read the entire book. I haven't even come close. It's 608 pages! But after initially going through the material I was most familiar with, I turned back to the beginning of the Peter Green-era and started reading along as I listened to music I'd been aware of, but never really, truly heard. It's been both fun and instructive. Deep down, I think I just appreciate a truly obsessive project like this. I can't imagine the depth of dedication it would take to pull this book together. It seems like a lifetime of work in and of itself. This is a book that would make a great gift for the right person, and you probably all know one right person. John Warner is the author of books including 'More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI.' You can find him at John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you've read. 1. 'Lonesome Dove' by Larry McMurtry 2. 'The Power of One' by Bryce Courtney 3. 'Cutting for Stone' by Abraham Verghese 4. 'North Woods' by Daniel Mason 5. 'The Wide Wide Sea' by Hampton Sides — Jim G., Naperville For Jim, I'm feeling like it's a good time to bring one of my top-5 all-time novels into the mix, 'Mrs. Bridge' by Evan S. Connell. 1. 'We Are the Culture: Black Chicago's Influence on Everything' by Arionne Nettles 2. 'If Beale Street Could Talk' by James Baldwin 3. 'John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy' by Luke Mayville 4. 'The Captain's Daughter' by Alexander Pushkin 5. 'Abide with Me' by Elizabeth Strout — Bill B., Des Plaines Bill should dive into Kent Haruf's 'Plainsong' next. 1. 'Becoming Madam Secretary' by Stephanie Dray 2. 'A Woman of Substance' by Barbara Taylor Bradford 3. 'Still Life' by Sarah Winman 4. 'The Bandit Queens' by Parini Shroff 5. 'The Rose Code' by Kate Quinn — Lynne A., Waukegan This is a little outside Lynne's list, but I think it's a reasonable reach, 'The Book of Goose' by Yiyun Li.
