Dizzy Dali Dinner

  • 17 years ago
This short clip is from a 1941 newsreel, featuring scenes from a Salvador Dali-hosted event called 'Night in a Surreal Forest'. Held on September 2, 1941, in California, the dinner was a fundraiser for artists in exile during the Second World War. Notable invitees included Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Ginger Rogers.

Dali planned the entire event, ordering 2000 pine trees, a wrecked car and 24 animal heads (among other things) to transform the ballroom of the Del Monte Lodge Hotel into a surrealist forest, and featured Gala laying on the "largest bed in Hollywood" all night, hand-feeding a tiger cub, who shared the bed with her.

Meredith Etherington-Smith goes into great detail of this event in her book, 'The Persistence of Memory: A Biography of Dali'.

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