Some Like it "Hot"

• This Billy Wilder Movie featuring Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, was filmed in 1958 at "The Hotel del Coronado". The plot of the film required Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis suitably disguised as members of a female band to accompany the Band to Florida (to the Seminole Ritz in Miami). In fact the Hotel del Coronado, affectionately known as "The Del", is situated on the Coronado Peninsula in San Diego.
• The hotel, in existence since 1888, although now enlarged and modernised, still retains for the most part its original character. Materials and labour were scarce at that time and the builders employed a large pool of unskilled Chinese labour imported from the Bay Area of San Francisco to work on the construction of this timber building. Amazingly for such an individual building the period of construction was begun in March 1887 and the hotel opened just 11 months later.

• The Hotel when opened, benefitted from the very latest technology and its installation of electric lighting in a public building was the largest west of New York City.
• To date the hotel has played host to many international statesmen and 14 American Presidents. It is rumoured also that Edward Prince of Wales, later to abdicate when King of England, met his American wife to be (a citizen of Coronado) at the hotel.
• Other f eature films made at the hotel include "The Stunt Man" starring Peter O'Toole, "Loving Couples" with Shirley MacLaine and the television series "Hart to Hart" with Robert Wagner. Parts of "Top Gun", featuring Tom Cruise was filmed on Coronado Peninsula.