Paul Hartford > Quotes

“It was entertaining to watch the dance play out in silence, through the glass, like an old silent movie. I’m sure many of those early movie stars drank and dined here. Maybe their ghosts even haunted the grounds and were at least partially responsible for luring me behind the walls.”
― Paul Hartford, Waiter to the Rich and Shameless: Confessions of a Five-Star Beverly Hills Server

“Sometimes you start focusing on the strings rather than the marionettes, and suddenly the entire illusion is lost for you”
― Paul Hartford, Waiter to the Rich and Shameless: Confessions of a Five-Star Beverly Hills Server

“A vice is a vice, a drunk is a drunk, no matter what the booze costs. You can be a useless piece of shit drinking high-end Scotch whiskey just as easily as you can drinking swill at a neighborhood dive. You just feel better about yourself.”
― Paul Hartford, Waiter to the Rich and Shameless: Confessions of a Five-Star Beverly Hills Server

“During this period, I served many celebrities, including Jennifer Aniston, Vince Vaughn, Gary Oldman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Juliette Lewis, Rob Lowe, Colin Farrell, Tom Selleck, David Spade, Thomas Haden Church, Sharon Osbourne, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tara Reid, Toby Maguire and Diane Keaton. You know all of them, so no explanation needed. The hardest thing about serving such famous Hollywood icons, at least for the first time, is trying not to stare at them. It’s so otherworldly to see someone like Selleck, who’s not just huge -he’s bigger than life- and who you´ve watched on big screen and small for years… they are, invariably, taller or shorter than you’d imagined. And the women are either spectacularly beautiful or very ordinary without screen makeup. But you can’t stare. It’s verbatim by ownership.

Brad Pitt was cool and very humble. He had a few Pyramid beers with a producer friend, and then took off on his motorcycle down Sunset Boulevard, heading West towards the Palisades. Am I saying that he was driving drunk? No. He was there for two hours and had two beers, so he wasn’t breaking the law. At least not with my assistance. He had been there many times before, I just hadn’t been the one serving him. I remember when he came in during his filming of Troy. He had long hair and a cast on his leg. Ironically, he had torn his Achilles’ tendon while playing Achilles in the epic film.”
― Paul Hartford, Waiter to the Rich and Shameless: Confessions of a Five-Star Beverly Hills Server

“Rossese di Dolceacqua,”
― Paul Hartford, Waiter to the Rich and Shameless: Confessions of a Five-Star Beverly Hills Server

“Lola was a tall blonde with no particular body features that worked in her favor.”
― Paul Hartford, Waiter to the Rich and Shameless: Confessions of a Five-Star Beverly Hills Server

“the message I want to communicate:”
― Paul Hartford, Waiter to the Rich and Shameless: Confessions of a Five-Star Beverly Hills Server