The last time the Democratic Convention was in Los Angeles, John F. Kennedy won the nomination but only after a hectic week of lobbying for votes and keeping the press fooled about his private activities which would leave Bill Clinton's in the shade.
Tonight at the convention there will be tributes to the role played by Jack and other Kennedys in American politics with speakers including his brother Teddy and daughter, Caroline.
Kennedy's official address was a suite at the Biltmore Hotel, the headquarters for the major candidates including Lyndon Johnson and Adlai Stevenson. But Kennedy aide, Dave Powers, had found a secret hideaway for the young senator who had left Jackie Kennedy back at Hyannis Port.
This was a penthouse apartment owned by actor, Jack Haley, who was a friend of Jack's father, Joe Kennedy. Haley who also had an Irish background was best known for playing the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz. Joe Kennedy was also in Los Angeles but stayed out of sight while keeping an eye on the convention from the Beverly Hills apartment of Marion Davies, former mistress of William Randolph Hearst. He was the inspiration for Orson Welles's Citizen Kane. Also in town was the high-living "Rat Pack" of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jnr, Shirley McLaine and Peter Lawford, the brother in-law of Kennedy. He joined them for parties when not seeking votes.
Eventually the press discovered Kennedy's hideaway and used to gather outside. But Powers after making Kennedy's breakfast would smuggle him down to a secluded driveway where a car was waiting for ferry him around to the different delegations.
According to one Marilyn Monroe biography, Kennedy first met her at a party during the convention at the beach house of Peter Lawford. She had come with Sammy Davis Jnr but later allegedly had affairs with Kennedy and his brother Robert.
At the party, Kennedy danced with actress, Janet Leigh, who was bowled over commenting years later: "Imagine a possible President dancing with just a girl like me?" She said: "He wasn't an actor but he had the charisma of a performer. But mostly he inspired an idealism about politics that we just don't have today."
According to an account in the Los Angeles Times this week, Kennedy during the 1960 convention had a tryst with a former diplomat's wife he had known for years. On another night he invited Judith Campbell Exner, whom he had met through Sinatra, to Lawford's suite at the Beverly Hilton.
When he got there, she was shocked to find another woman was waiting and rushed out of the hotel. To make it up, Kennedy got her tickets for the convention but she gave them to her mother and stayed away.
Not all the Hollywood stars fell for Kennedy. After he won the nomination, Shelley Winters asked Norman Mailer who was reporting the convention: "Tell me something nice about Kennedy so I can get excited about him."