Mary Davis Tributes

The Fabulous Fifties
NEWSLETTER
MARY DAVIS
Despite her stature as a striking, buxom
blonde, Davis faced more closed doors than
open ones because she was still, in fact, a
woman in an era when the glass ceiling was
much lower.
When she voiced her interest in buying
the fuel dock on the Redondo Beach waterfront—she was later forced by the city to bid
on the entire eight-acre parcel instead—men
would pat her on the head. And when she told
them her plans for a hotel and marina, they
would shake their heads. “Because you’re a
woman, you can’t do it. You just couldn’t do
it.” Davis said in a 2005 interview with the
city of Redondo Beach. “I started with nothing, literally, and I fought my way to the top
… I was very determined to make it go and I
did.”
The Portofino, inspired by an Italian
coastal village with the same name, turned
into a first-class inn and one of the three largest hotels in the South Bay when it opened.
On December 8, 2014, Mary Davis died.
She was one of the original non-members of
the Fabulous Fifties.
We are having a gathering to remember
Mary at the Portofino Inn, the hotel she
created in Redondo Beach. The affair will be
on Sunday, January 11, 2015, from 5 p.m.
to 7 p.m. in the Baleen Bar. The bar is in the
top floor of the Portofino restaurant which is
across the street from the hotel itself. Drinks
will be at “happy hour” prices with complimentary hors d’oeuvres. Dress: casual.
Obituary from the South Bay Daily Breeze
December 12, 2914: Mary Davis, the
cheeky, indomitable founder of the Portofino
Hotel and Marina who broke down barriers
as one of the country’s first female racecar
drivers and a pioneer of Redondo Beach waterfront development, died this week. She
was 86.
Davis passed away Monday from heart
failure in her home in La Quinta near Palm
Desert after a years-long battle with dementia.
The San Diego native had quite the fascinating life, with stints tinkering with tank
engines during World War II, driving Aston
Martin and Mercedes Benzes in races across
the country through the 1950s, opening a
West Hollywood restaurant and later as the
longtime owner of the Portofino, the state’s
first hotel situated in the center of a smallcraft harbor surrounded on three sides by
water.
Special Edition
Mary Davis
By Bill Pollack
Mary was more than an accomplished
driver of a variety of sports cars, she also
made her mark in other areas. In her youth,
Mary and fellow racer Bob Drake (her husband) had a successful restaurant called the
Grand Prix. This Beverly Hills establishment
quickly became the favorite of the motor
racing crowd from the sports car clubs to
U.S.A.C.
Mary moved on to convincing the Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce to raise
a bond issue in order to create the marine
facility which became King Harbor.
Mary also managed to acquire to the
rights to build a hotel, a gas dock and a free
standing restaurant. Oh yes, I almost forgot,
she also built an apartment house. The hotel
soon became the headquarters for all out of
town racing folk. Retiring to PGA West in La
Quinta she could look back and smile at a job
well done.
We will miss you, Mary.
LETTER FROM GINNY SIMS
My Dearest Mary,
It’s hard to believe you are gone. You
gave us so many pleasures in this life. Your
racing, the Grand Prix, building the Portofino, being a bank president and Woman of the
Year feted on the Queen Mary. In 1957, you
were selected as the first woman to be a driver in the Mobilgas Economy Run and you
won your class in that event.
It included a 225-boat marina, bar, coffee
shop, gourmet restaurant, 25-unit apartment
building, yacht brokerage, beauty salon—and
the fuel dock. The hotel and marina would
spur the future evolution of the Redondo
Beach waterfront, which in its heyday was
among the Southland’s most popular attractions.
Davis continually urged young girls to
fight for their dreams, but advised them not
to do anything wrong and to know their subject better than anyone else.
Best friends: Ginny Sims and Mary in 2000
We met in 1956 and became good friends
before the year was over. You became like
another sister to me. We always enjoyed each
other’s company, either working or playing.
Spending time on your yacht fishing in
Alaskan waters many summers was a delightful adventure. Also, having our mothers
meet one Sunday at a Portofino event was a
memorable day. The two dear ladies seemed
so close for new friends.
board in my hotel. We started going out and
ended up in Reno two weeks later getting
married by Judge A. J. Masreti. We stayed
together through thick and mostly thin for the
next 18 years. After the war, I went to the
Lumlow School of Real Estate and got my
license and worked selling Hollywood and
Beverly Hills property. Bob pursued his now
and then profession of deep-sea diving.”
Mary drove a lot of different cars during
the fifties and won a lot of ladies' races. She
was well-known for her long blond hair
streaming out from under her helmet.
Ginny Sims and Mary preparing for the Run.
Ginny Sims and Mary on Mary’s yacht.
We traveled to many places in the world
and it was always exciting. But as we grew
older, the Fabulous Fifties events were the
times we looked forward to.
She got interested in sports cars and racing after going to a race at Pebble Beach. “I
immediately had a tremendous urge to participate in road racing,” She remembered. So
she bought an MGTD and entered her TD at
Santa Barbara on September 6, 1953. She
won the Ladies Race and Bob drove her MG
in the under-1500cc production event. It was
the first running of the Santa Barbara series.
Her favorite course was Paramount Ranch.
“It was a fun track and I especially enjoyed
dicing with Betty Shutes and bugging the hell
out of her.”
A multi-day event, each car had a driver,
a navigator and a USAC observer to see that
the predetermined route was followed. Any
violations of traffic or speed law garnered
penalties. Mary asked another Ladies Race
hot shoe, Ginny Sims, to navigate. Their car
was a 1957 Plymouth sponsored by the
Chrysler Corp. Mary and Ginny won their
class, defeating three former winners and
earning several thousand dollars.
Mary, Carroll Shelby and Ginny in 2011
In this last year Mary, you missed two gatherings and that was the start of your bedridden days. I’m so glad your nephew, Tom,
came to stay nearby and watch over you.
Tears run down my cheeks as I reminisce
about our more than 50 years of friendship.
Mary, I’ll always love you. —Ginny
MARY DAVIS
By Art Evans
Mary Davis was a legend in her own
time. She was a WWII Marine Corps veteran,
a sport-car race driver, a successful restaurateur. a movie stunt driver, the creator of the
famous Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach and
the first woman to win the Mobilgas Economy Run.
One time Mary told me about her service
days: “In 1943, I joined the Marine Corps. I
was 15 years old. For the next year, I repaired
diesel engine fuel injectors on M4 tanks at
Isthmus Creek near San Francisco. In 1944,
the government somehow found out my age
and I was honorably discharged.” She went
on, “After leaving the Corps, I went to visit a
friend in San Francisco. There was this fellow named Bob Drake operating the switch-
Bob Drake (left) with Mary and Joe Lubin.
Her last race there was in Joe Lubin’s
Formula II Cooper Climax. She finished
second a few seconds behind Linda Scott in
an AC Bristol. Often she drove DB Aston
Martins raced in the main events by Bob
Drake.
Due not only to her racing successes, but
also her photogenic good looks, Mary was
asked to participate in the 1957 Mobilgas
Economy Run. For those who don’t remember or are too young, the Run was a big deal
at the time and garnered lots of publicity. It
started in 1936 and continued through 1968
except during the WWII years. The idea was
to compete for fuel mileage, i.e. who and
which car can travel a significant distance
over real roads and in regular traffic. Men
were the only drivers allowed until 1957.
Mary’s first business venture was to open
a restaurant in Los Angeles that became a
gathering spot for racer types. Before that, we
used to hang out at Rudy Cleye’s Blarney
Castle and the Coach & Horses where "High
School" Harry Givens was a bartender. Harry, Bob and Mary decided they wanted to
open their own restaurant, so they started
looking for a location. Their preference was
something on the Sunset Strip, but nothing
was available. Eventually, they found a
closed restaurant on Beverly Boulevard.
It was supposed to be a three-way partnership, but Mary was the only one who had
any money. Harry paid for his part working
as a bartender while Bob thought Mary’s
money was his.
The Grand Prix opened on Valentine’s
Day 1957 at 8204 Beverly Boulevard. Mary
and Harry worked all day every day. But
according to Mary, the only thing Bob did
was to go in every morning and count the
take from the previous day. Ted Davis (not
related to Mary) was a sometime bartender.
At the time, he needed a place to live, so
Mary let him stay in a little house in the back
of the property. Everyone who was anyone in
Southern California sports car racing could
be found at the Grand Prix at one time or
another. A scene was shot there for the movie, The Devil’s Hairpin, with Cal Club Race
Chairman Joe Weisman bartending. Mary
and a number of others (including me) appeared in the film as drivers.
Mary told me that by 1961, “I finally got
fed up with Bob not working and wanted out
of the marriage and the restaurant too. So I
gave the Grand Prix to Bob in the divorce
settlement. Soon thereafter, he sold it and the
new owners transformed it into a gay bar.”
While the Grand Prix was a success, two
years later an even greater challenge and
opportunity presented itself. In 1960, the City
of Redondo Beach was developing its yacht
harbor. Mary wanted to have a boat fuel dock
there, so she bid $8,000. The city told her she
would have to bid on the entire eight-acre
parcel, not just the dock. So she borrowed
another $1,800,000 and built the famous
Portofino Inn. Even though she started the
project with a contractor (Frank Arciero who
entered cars in sports car races), because of
labor problems Frank was forced to bow out.
So Mary took over as the general contractor!
The complex included the hotel plus two
restaurants, two bars, the yacht harbor slips,
some offices and an apartment building. In
1964, Mary became the president of the Portofino Corporation and the complex opened
on the weekend of January 22-24, 1965.
I was living in Pasadena at the time. In
those days, there was a lot of smog in the
L.A. basin and was particularly bad in Pasadena. Not only that, it was hot in the summer
and I didn’t have air conditioning in my
apartment. One time I was having a drink at
the bar in Rudy’s Blarney Castle and struck
up a conversation with Ted Davis, who had
worked for Mary at her Grand Prix. One
thing led to another and Ted took me to visit
Mary at the then-new Portofino. I feel in love
with the area due to the fact that the westerly
wind pushed the smog away from Redondo
Beach … and it was cool! After talking with
Mary, a few weeks later I moved into her
apartment building. Mary lived there too. My
apartment was on the second floor and hers
was on the third, so I always said I lived under Mary Davis.
Cannonball Run II and Speed Zone as well as
a TV show, Cannonball Run 2001. Mary
allowed filming at the Portofino and the hotel
was an important part of the films.
Dan Gurney, Mary and Brock Yates
One of Mary’s boat-slip tenants was a
guy named Bill Smith who rented sail boats.
One day I rented a 14-foot Newport and sort
of taught myself how to sail. I really liked it
so I would often go for a sail. When Smith
became a Newport dealer, I bought a 20-foot
Newport and became one of Mary’s slip tenants. There were a number of sail-boat races
in the bay and I started to race. Eventually, I
bought a 30-foot Newport, cruised and raced
for the next 20 years or so. One time my
wife, Alicia, decorated the boat for Christmas. It was a competition Mary had devised
among her boat-owner slip tenants. My wife
won and Mary presented her with a trophy.
In the early seventies, Mary and the Portofino garnered nationwide publicity due to
the Cannonball Run (officially the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial
Trophy Dash). The Cannonball was an unofficial, unsanctioned race from coast to
coast. It memorialized “Cannon Ball” Baker
who made the trip in his Graham-Paige in 531/2 hours. In part, the race was a protest
against the recently imposed nationwide
speed limit of 55 mph.
The Cannonball started in New York City
and ended at the Portofino Inn. The first was
a solo run by Brock Yates, his son and two
friends on April 1, 1971 (April-Fools Day).
After that, it became a race with quite a number of entrants. It took place four more times
during that decade. Perhaps the most famous
one was won by Dan Gurney in a Ferrari
Daytona in 1972. Dan remarked that “At no
time did we exceed 175 mph.” His average
speed for the 2,863 mph was 80. The 1976
film, The Cannonball Run, starred Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise. That same year
there were two others, Cannonball and The
Gumball Rally. Later, there were two sequels,
Right out of the box, the Portofino became a landmark as well as a racer hang-out.
Mary ran th e wh o le kit an d cab o o d le
with a wise and even hand. Vasek Polak
maintained an apartment there as did Danny
Ongais, Peter Revson and others. Mario Andretti and the Unser brothers were frequent
hotel guests as were many other luminaries of
the sport.
During her time in Redondo Beach, Davis served as the president of the Redondo
Beach Chamber of Commerce, was an
elected member of the South Bay Hospital
District and was proposed for mayor, an honor she chose to forgo.
Mary Davis was born on June 10, 1928 in
San Diego. Her parents were of pioneer stock
from Texas and Virginia. She grew up in Los
Angeles and attended Fremont High School.
After her parent’s death, her family consisted
of her sister, Sylvia, a niece and a nephew. In
1981, Mary started her own bank in Redondo
Beach, the Bay Cities National Bank. I still
have my checking account there. In 1987,
Mary sold the entire Portofino complex for a
rather large sum. A few years ago, the bank
was merged with another and Mary sold out
for more well-earned gains. At one time, she
remarked that her ambition was to be “the
world’s richest woman.” While she may not
have achieved that, she came close.
Close friends: Mary, Ginny Sims and Mary
Heffley Hauser O’Connor (H2O).
After Mary sold the Portofino, she married
her longtime companion, Steve Wideinger,
who had been her hotel manager. Mary acquired an ocean-going yacht and they looked
forward to a fun-filled retirement, cruising
the world. Unfortunately her new husband, a
heavy smoker, died from lung cancer about a
year later. She and Steve had moved to La
Quinta and sold the yacht when Steve fell ill.
I remarked to her that next time I hoped she
would choose a non-smoker for a boyfriend.
Later she bought a condo on Coronado Island
and divided her time between the two.
Bob Drake died from brain cancer in
1990. Mary passed away in her sleep on December 8, 2014. She is survived by her nephews Tom and John Preston and her niece,
Gail Doelman plus their offsprings.
LETTERS
An era has passed. I especially got to
know Mary and the Portofino crowd in the
80s, when I ran Brock Yates' 'One Lap of
America' three times, sponsored by Chrysler,
Audi and Volvo. Along the way, my professional activities in Torrance and El Segundo
were active enough that I bought one of the
former cheepo fishing shacks on the Esplanade, a couple blocks south (which became a
$400K triplex with NO grass!). I'd spend
many nights at the Crow's Nest restaurant,
which often had Brock Jr. bartending, and
frequented by Bill Simpson, Bill Stroppe,
Dean Batchelor, Chris Pook, Don Morton and
the AAR bunch from Santa Anna, plus the
manufacturers were represented by the likes
of Larry Taulbee and Don Prieto, as well as
Bob Thomas and 'Mr. K' from Datsun and
often Jim Press from Toyota. It was also a
favorite haunt for the Goodyear blimp crew
from Torrance. With an abundance of lubrication, most of us wound up believing other's
tales. And somehow the bar bill usually didn't
seem to tally with the glasses emptied and
hours spent ... especially when Mary was
around. I hope more of you benefited from
Mary's special Prix Fix Sunday late night
dinners at the Wharf restaurant, when you
just ate what was put in front of you ... cleaning out the larder from the weekend. It always came with a tasty fresh 'catch of the
day' theme and I recall invariably the number
of courses exceeded the dollars in the $8-10
tab .God Bless, Mary! Cheers, —Bob Storck
Hi Art! I just heard about Mary and
just got off the phone with Ginny. My memories are probably not reverent but I do have
some. Many, many wonderful evenings at the
Portofino with her when OCee was with us
and my most personal memory was that when
she and I shared many trips on the" Good Old
Mobil Gas Economy Run", we navigators
were told never, never, drive on the shoulder.
The shoulder then became, "The Mary Davis
Memorial Highway". and we used it a lot. I
certainly hope to be at her service. Love,
—Beverly (Ritch) Williams
Dear Art, I was sorry to hear about Mary,
I stayed at the Portofino the first few times I
came to visit Vasek in the early '70's and met
her then. A Remarkable lady. Also met Bill
Simpson, who was living on his yacht in the
marina! A Very Merry Christmas and Happy
New Year to you and yours! Kind regards,
—Brian Redman
Ginny Dixon -- Your tribute to Mary
Davis made me think of my mother. Thank
you for sending this out to us. "Fight for your
dreams" is good advice for anyone. My
Mother was the first person - man or woman
- to earn a doctorate in music from Western
Reserve University in Cleveland (we were
Midwesterners) . Like Mary Davis, she
would never let anything get in her way
and she would never take no for an answer.
She fought for her dreams and achieved her
reward. -- Carl Goodwin
Hi Art, So sorry to hear about Mary.
This must be very hard for you. I would like
to offer this image of her at Paramount Ranch
'56 if you want to use it. One of her relatives
purchased a 16x20 of it at one of our events
and I know she really liked it. She signed an
8x10 of it for me saying, "With much Affection". Something I'll always keep. A true
pioneer. —Allen Kuhn
I just heard of Mary’s passing on facebook this morning. Those who knew her lost
a true jewel of Motorsport. I first met her at
the end of the 1971 PRDA Cannonball Baker
memorial trophy dash finish line. She was
there to greet us at her Portofino Inn. Mary
was a gracious lady welcoming the three
Polish guys—Oscar, Brad and Tony—with a
dream in our Polish Racing Drivers of America Chevy Van. She thought we did a pretty
good job of finishing second to winners Dan
Gurney and Brock Yates in a Ferrari. We
made her a lifetime member of the PRDA
and she never forgot that moment and neither
have we. Best, —Tony Adamowicz
The photo of her in Nick Pastor's TR2
brought back many memories of her. She was
Bob Drake's constant companion and was a
fierce competitor in her own right. Her battles
with Ruth Levy were every bit as fierce as
any mens race. She gave Joe Lubin's Cooper
some great drives. She was also a lot of fun
off the track. She will be missed! Thanks for
letting me know of her passing. There are
not many of us '50s Cal Club racers left.With
Best Regards, —Bill Rudd
Art: We have lost a giant of the Racing
World. Mary Davis was a true racer, strong
business women and friend. Mary always had
a great smile, and when you asked her "how
are you?", she answered, "outstanding" -- and
she was! Mary and Bob Drake let me help
serve drinks at the Grand Prix restaurant on
movie nights. It was fun and I had my own
apron! A salute to a strong woman who was a
pioneer in breaking the glass ceiling!! Rest in
peace Mary, —Dusty Brandel
This photo, taken by Lester Nehamkin after
Mary had won the Ladies Race at Santa Barbara shows the way many of remember her.
I never had a chance to meet her, but
having covered the old original 'Cannonball
Races' that finished up there - a real pistol,
we certainly need more like her, original
thinkers with chutzpah. —Al Satterwhite
Art, Time marches on too fast! It is always sad when we lose another non member
to time, and now, it is a matriarch of Cal
Club/SCCA racing. Mary and her generation
of women racers paved the way for other
women to realize it was OK to race their
sports cars. Mary's contribution was huge, not
only racing, but the Grand Prix Restaurant in
LA , with Bobby Drake, and Portofino Inn &
resort in Redondo Beach, which opened the
water front to development in Redondo. As a
friend Mary will be missed for a very long
time. The loss of Mary to the Fab 50's will be
felt for a long time. Good by Mary Davis. —
Mary Mcgee
Portrait by Art Evans