The Athenaeum's celebrity past

Celebrities are often portrayed as a fickle bunch. Restless as a murmuration of starlings. Drawn, magpie-like, to the next shiny opening, the newest restaurant, the freshest resort, the place everyone is talking about this week. In this familiar narrative, the beautiful people arrive, generate a buzz simply by being there, and depart just as quickly, leaving the rest of us wondering where all the famous faces went.

There may be some truth in that for a certain kind of fly-by-night celebrity. But there are also places that transcend trends. Places that, through a combination of circumstance, good fortune and, above all, consistently delivering the goods, earn a lasting place in the little black books of more discerning names. For more than five decades, The Athenaeum Hotel has been one such place, quietly welcoming the great, the good, the gregarious and the publicity-shy through its doors.

The story began in the early 1970s, when The Rank Organisation expanded beyond entertainment into property, acquiring what was then known as Athenaeum Court. Rather than house visiting actors and directors working at Pinewood or Ealing Studios in rival hotels such as Claridge’s or The Savoy, Rank chose to bring them here, to 116 Piccadilly. It helped that The Athenaeum already offered something rare then, and still valued now: self-contained apartments tucked discreetly behind the main building. They provided space, privacy and a sense of home that hotel rooms rarely offered.

Before long, staff grew accustomed to seeing Marlon Brando, Cary Grant, Cubby Broccoli, Sean Connery, various Bond girls, Peter Finch, Joan Collins, Robert Mitchum, Elizabeth Taylor and many others passing through the lobby. But the Athenaeum’s place in celebrity folklore was about to be sealed in a way no one could have predicted

In 1976, Sally Bulloch walked in looking for a job.

On paper, she was an unlikely candidate. Her life had been colourful and unconventional: a bohemian upbringing, a childhood acting career including a turn in The Pure Hell of St Trinian’s, time as a nanny to Peter Cook’s children, a stint as a radio presenter in Malta and even a brief spell as a Butlin’s Redcoat. Now she stood in swanky Mayfair, asking for work. Fate intervened when she was interviewed by duty manager Gordon Campbell Gray, later a celebrated hotelier in his own right. It should have been a mismatch. Instead, he took a chance.

“I like individuality,” he later said.

He also saw something else. “Sally had a star quality about her that I leapt at,” he told Lynda Berry, author of Say Hello to Sally For Me. “And she had a fab voice, very theatrical, like warm treacle.”

She got the job. Over time, her title would evolve and settle on Executive Manager, though no job description could ever fully capture what she did. She worked across PR, sales and front of house, but she was also confidant, fixer, party-thrower, crisis manager and trusted friend. As one admirer described her, she was “a kind, big-hearted hedonist”. For many, Sally Bulloch didn’t just work at The Athenaeum. She was The Athenaeum.

Sally had found her calling. A former actress, she saw the hotel as a stage for a performance that never closed. Her years among creatives meant she was unfazed by fame. From her time at Peter Cook’s, she already knew Paul McCartney, John Lennon, the Pythons, Trevor Nunn and many of the defining figures of the satirical Sixties. Her family connections didn’t hurt either: half-brother Robert Watts was a major film producer behind Star Wars and Indiana Jones, while her brother Jeremy would gain cult status as Boba Fett.

But contacts alone do not create loyalty. What kept people coming back was Sally herself. Her un-British can-do attitude (“the answer is always yes”), the force of her personality and her belief that almost any situation could be improved with a glass of champagne. World-weary, exacting guests softened. They returned. They told their friends.

Michael Douglas once said, “Knowing Sally Bulloch is like getting your raincoat caught in a fast-departing roller-coaster.” Richard Dreyfuss recalled, “There wasn’t a guy who would not have taken a bullet for that girl. She was such a delightful talent, so bright, a great hostess. I never had a better friend, ever.”

The Whiskey Bar became legendary. The guest list dizzying. Steven Spielberg edited Close Encounters, E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark from an Athenaeum apartment. Albert Finney, Larry Hagman, Linda Gray, Dionne Warwick, Warren Beatty, Michelle Pfeiffer, Stacy Keach, Russell Crowe, Harrison Ford and Sandra Bullock all passed through, some staying long into the night. Hollywood Reporter veteran George Christy dubbed The Athenaeum “Tinseltown on the Thames”.

When Rank sold the hotel in the early 1990s and it returned to family ownership, the glamour did not fade. The atmosphere remained electric, as though the party simply refused to end.

Eventually, of course, it did. After a few false exits and returns worthy of the stage she loved, Sally left London for South Africa, where she died in 2008 at just 59. She was mourned around the world, and deeply at The Athenaeum.

There is an old BBC play, The Stone Tape, in which a building remembers and replays the events that once took place within its walls. At times, The Athenaeum feels much the same. It is easy to imagine the Whiskey Bar echoing with Sally’s unmistakable laugh, the clink of her champagne glass, another story in full swing.

Her spirit remains. The belief that hospitality should be generous, instinctive and joyful. That every guest matters. That the answer is always yes.

It is why a new generation of guests, from Christian Bale to Harry Styles, Samuel L Jackson to Alex James, Natalie Portman to Kim and Kanye, continue to choose The Athenaeum. And it is why, famous or not, everyone who walks through our doors is treated with the same warmth, care and quiet sense of occasion.

The party goes on. Just as Sally would have wanted.