December 27, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Tyler Measom and Craig A. Williams
Culture Representation: The documentary film “If These Walls Could Rock” (based on the 2013 book of the same name) features a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans and Latin people), mostly from the entertainment industry, discussing the history of the Sunset Marquis, a famous hotel in West Hollywood, California.
Culture Clash: The Sunset Marquis, which opened in 1963, attracted a celebrity clientele and developed a reputation for being lenient toward and discreet about decadence from the hotel’s guests, but the hotel fell on hard times in the early 1990s, when the Sunset Marquis was plagued by tax problems and being millions of dollars in debt.
Culture Audience: “If These Walls Could Rock” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of documentaries about celebrity lifestyles and true stories about failing businesses that made a comeback.
“If These Walls Could Rock” is a very entertaining documentary about the volatile history of the Sunset Marquis, a famous hotel in West Hollywood, California. Stories about celebrity decadence are expected, but the movie is also a bittersweet tale about the father-and-son executive relationship as the hotel’s driving force. “If These Walls Could Rock” features interviews with numerous people—most of them are showbiz celebrities who’ve been guests at the Sunset Marquis—but thanks to very good film editing, the documentary doesn’t feel overstuffed with these talking heads.
Directed by Tyler Measom and Craig A. Williams, “If These Walls Could Rock” is based on the 2013 non-fiction book “If These Walls Could Rock: 50 Years at the Legendary Sunset Marquis Hotel,” written by Williams and Mark Alan Rosenthal. The book is now out of print, but can be found at some places that sell used or rare books. The movie “If These Walls Could Rock” had its world premiere at DOC NYC in 2025.
“If These Walls Could Rock” begins with showing a montage of anecdotes and commentary from some celebrities talking about the Sunset Marquis, which opened in 1963. The movie’s stories mostly focus on what happened at the Sunset Marquis during the 1970s to 1990s, which were considered the peak years of the hotel being a haven for decadence and discretion about that decadence. The Sunset Marquis has been particularly popular with music stars, which is why most of the celebrities interviewed in the documentary are people from the music industry.
ZZ Top lead singer/guitarist Billy Gibbons tells a story about seeing Ozzy Osbourne at the hotel. Osbourne told Gibbons to toss a beer bottles and liquor glasses near the hotel’s swimming pool. By the end of the mayhem, Gibbons says, “There was so much glass around the swimming pool, no one could leave. That’s the kind of shit that happens at the Marquis.”
Bruce Springsteen has fond memories of staying with his E Street Band at the Sunset Marquis in the early-to-mid-1970s. He says the Sunset Marquis was the first hotel in the Los Angeles areas that he and his New Jersey-based band stayed at in the early years of their career. Springsteen comments in the documentary about the hotel’s atmosphere at the time: “You saw a lot of fellow musicians. We thought we were living in heaven.”
Nile Rodgers—a Grammy-winning producer/songwriter and a co-founder of the disco group Chic—says of the Sunset Marquis: “This was the great melting pot. Everybody was here.” Kiss singer/bass guitarist Gene Simmons adds, “I didn’t know any of the history, but it was like any other hotel that I’d ever been in.” Guns N’Roses guitarist Slash (whose photo is on the cover of the “If These Walls Could Rock” book) comments on the hotel’s ambience: “It was sort of a misfits kind of vibe.” Foo Fighters lead singer/guitarist Dave Grohl quips, “God, a if a bomb went off in this place, rock radio would be fucked.”
Sharon Osbourne—Ozzy Osbourne’s widow, who was his manager for his entire solo career from 1980 to his death in 2025—says the Sunset Marquis was one of the few hotels in the Los Angeles area that never banned Ozzy as a guest during his most notorious and wildest period in the 1980s. Sharon Osbourne says, “If you wanted sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, you stayed at the Marquis.” Even with all the debauchery, Sharon remembers the Marquis offering a cozy atmosphere: “It was like you were in your own home with a lot of friends.”
Later in the documentary, Ozzy’s daughter Kelly Osbourne comments: “It was the only hotel where my dad could stay in where my dad could be himself. We’d been kicked out of everywhere, but not the Sunset Marquis.”
Kelly Osbourne, who often traveled with her parents when Ozzy was on tour, also says the Sunset Marquis was the place where she had her first kiss, her first alcoholic drink and her first line of cocaine, with the cocaine supplied by one of Ozzy’s friends. (Kelly says in the documentary she does not want to say the name of this friend.) “I was like the Eloise of the hotel,” Kelly says, in reference to Kay Thompson’s “Eloise at the Plaza” children’s book series.
The Sunset Marquis catered so much to the music industry, the hotel opened a recording studio, called NightBird Studios, which launched in 1992. NightBird Studios owner Jed Leiber, who is also a music producer, is one of the people interviewed in the documentary. Aerosmith, Miley Cyrus and Drake are some of the famous artists who’ve recorded music at NightBird.
The Sunset Marquis has also been a popular spot for photo shoots and music videos. Morrissey, who is interviewed in the documentary, did photo shoots for several of his record sleeves at the Sunset Marquis, including “That’s How People Grow Up,” “All You Need Is Me,” “Now My Heart Is Full,” “Tomorrow,” “Hold on to Your Friends” and “The Very Best of Morrissey.” Music video director Russell Mulcahy remembers how things got kind of unruly when filming Rod Stewart’s 1981 “Tonight I’m Yours” music video at the Sunset Marquis.
Actor/musician Billy Bob Thornton, who call himself the “unofficial mayor of the Sunset Marquis,” gets quite a bit of screen time in the documentary. That’s because he says he’s lived off and on at the Sunset Marquis for many years, especially because he stays at the Sunset Marquis every time he gets a divorce, “which is often,” he says with a wry grin. In the documentary, Thornton gives viewers a tour of some parts of the Sunset Marquis.
Thornton says it wouldn’t be unusual for him to have famous neighbors at the hotel: “At one point,” Thornton says, Keith Richards [Rolling Stones rhythm guitarist] was below me. Chris Robinson [lead singer of the Black Crowes] was next door. Metallica, Steven Tyler [lead singer of Aerosmith], U2 would come in an out. It was like a rock-and-roll Friars Club.”
Many of the celebrities who are interviewed in the documentary say that one of the major appeals of the Sunset Marquis was the Sunset Marquis staff could be counted on to be discreet by not selling stories to tabloids or not telling the media about which celebrity guests were staying at the hotel. The Sunset Marquis actually has a policy for the hotel’s press releases and other publicity materials to not name any celebrities who stayed at the hotel. It’s also implied that the hotel’s employees have to sign confidentiality agreements not to publicly tell scandalous stories about the Sunset Marquis, even after their employment ends at the Sunset Marquis.
Duran Duran lead singer Simon LeBon says, “You always did feel there was an element of discretion at the Marquis. You cold really relax and be yourself, and for it not to hit the front page of the newspapers.” LeBon shares a story about how Duran Duran once stayed at the Sunset Marquis in the 1980s and had a loud party. A couple staying in a nearby suite knocked on the door. Instead of complaining about the noise, the couple asked to join the party, and the band welcomed the couple to party with them.
Lisa Hagen, who worked in Sunset Marquis’ sales and marketing team, comments in the documentary: “My job was to keep our name out of the press. My job would’ve been a lot easier if I advertised who stayed there, but I don’t think they would’ve kept coming back. I think they felt the secrecy we allowed them made them feel more comfortable and at home.”
Black Crowes lead singer Robinson says the Sunset Marquis was the band’s first-choice “home away from home” in Los Angeles during the 1990s and 2000s. He describes how the Sunset Marquis was the type of hotel where guests could feel free to leave illegal drugs out in the open in their suites without fear that the maid service would take away the drugs or that the drug possession would be reported to law enforcement. For example, Robinson says that Black Crowes and members of their entourage would leave marijuana and cocaine out on tables in Sunset Marquis suites where they stayed, and the drug stashes would be untouched when they would come back to the rooms, hours after the maid service had finished cleaning the rooms.
Robinson also tells a story from the early 1990s, about the Black Crowes being invited to stay at the then-newly opened Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills, which took some persuading because the band preferred to stay at the Sunset Marquis. At the Peninsula, Robinson says he was at the bar, when a hotel employee shushed him for cursing—and that’s when he says he knew he made a mistake of staying there instead of at the Sunset Marquis. When he went back to his Peninsula suite, he says he threw a potted plant at a mirror and demanded whoever was in charge of the band’s hotel bookings for the band to go back to the Sunset Marquis.
Not all of the drug-related stories at the Sunset Marquis are about fun and games. Rock star Slash went public many years ago about being addicted to heroin, cocaine and alcohol during the height of Guns N’Roses’ popularity in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. In the documentary, Slash talks about being at the Sunset Marquis sometime in the 1990s, when he had a major drug-related freakout where he hallucinated that creatures were trying to kill him. It was also at the Sunset Marquis where Slash said he had an intervention that led to him going to rehab.
Past and present Sunset Marquis employees are interviewed in the documentary, including general manager Rod Gruendyke, bartender Mia Heldt, bellhop Logan Steppart, valet Peter Bartolota and publicist Kelly Cutrone. “George Rosenthal is a genius,” gushes Cutrone. “Let’s face it: The guy is a G.” Most of these employees refuse to tell stories that they know about celebrity guests who stayed at the Sunset Marquis.
The exception is Gruendyke, who tells a story about how rock band Green Day got banned from the Sunset Marquis for a year because the band threw furniture out of a window. A year later, after the ban ended, Gruendyke says Green Day was banned again (for three months) for pulling potted plants off of the hotel property and for painting the band’s suite floor green. Green Day came back to the Sunset Marquis after the three-month ban had ended. And the most mischief they got up to was filling the hotel’s Jacuzzi with bubbles.
Most of the celebrity stories told in the documentary aren’t very scandalous and just involve pranks or some lewd actions. Thornton tells a story about how he once had sex on some Sunset Marquis outdoor stairs with his “beloved at the time” (he doesn’t say who she is) while another an actor and his wife (whom Thornton does not name) walked by and congratulated Thornton on whatever award he had been nominated for at the time. Thornton remembers that the other couple acted like seeing them having sex in public was no big deal, which Thornton says is an example of people’s overall attitude at the Sunset Marquis during the times that he stayed there.
Gruendyke mentions that the Red Hot Chili Peppers once jumped from their hotel suite windows into the hotel’s swimming pool. And speaking of the Sunset Marquis swimming pool, which gets mentioned several times in the documentary, another story told about the pool comes from Steven Van Zandt, guitarist for Springsteen’s E Street Band. Van Zandt says in the documentary that Springsteen was so disenchanted by the first pressing of the 1975 album “Born to Run” and being on the cover of Time and Newsweek, Springsteen threw this early pressing and the magazine issues into the Sunset Marquis pool.
Years later, it was also at the Sunset Marquis where Springsteen met Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic, who became the subject of the 1989 movie “Born on the Fourth of July.” Kovic also inspired Springsteen to write the song “Born in the U.S.A.,” which was the title track of Springsteen’s blockbuster 1984 album. Springsteen and Kovic became lifelong friends as a result of this meeting.
But behind the tales of celebrity glamour and decadence, the documentary tells a story that can be just as riveting. It’s the story of the hard-driving, workaholic founder of the Sunset Marquis and the founder’s son who spent a lifetime trying to please him and ended up being the leader who saved the hotel from the brink of financial ruin. Sunset Marquis founder George Rosenthal (who was born in 1931) and his son Mark Rosenthal (who was born in 1959) are both interviewed in the documentary and give candid commentary about their often-troubled relationship and how it became intertwined with the Sunset Marquis’ business.
George Rosenthal (a native of Medford, Massachusetts) made his fortune in construction and property development, in a career that began when he moved to California in 1953. He founded the company Raleigh Enterprises in 1955. In 1963, George launched the Sunset Marquis, which he describes as the “first all-suite hotel” to open in the United States. Mark Rosenthal says that part of the hotel’s name was inspired by his childhood nickname Marky, which rhymes with Marquis.
George says he was inspired to open the Sunset Marquis after he went into business with Playboy founder Hugh Hefner to help launch the first Playboy Club in Los Angeles. The Playboy Club in Los Angeles opened in 1964, after a few years of development. George says he wanted to build a hotel to accommodate entertainers who visited Los Angeles and who would be the type who would also go to a place like the Playboy Club.
Unlike most high-profile Los Angeles/West Hollywood hotels located on busy commercial streets like Sunset Boulevard or Hollywood Boulevard, the Sunset Marquis is located on Alta Loma Road, a mostly residential street off of Sunset Boulevard. The residential location of the hotel made the Sunset Marquis feel more “discreet” and more “off the beaten path,” but it also caused problems when residents on the street complained of noise or other disturbances coming from the hotel.
By the time the Sunset Marquis opened, George was a divorced father who was enjoying his bachelor lifestyle. Celebrity photographer Timothy White, who has done many photo shoots at the Sunset Marquis, describes George as a “gentle man, but a playboy.” By George’s own admission, he wasn’t an attentive father, and he could be very tough on Mark, whom he expected to be involved in running the hotel when Mark was old enough to do so.
Mark describes his father as being a hard-driving individual who liked to win, no matter what the emotional cost. Mark tells a story of when he was a child, the Rosenthal family got into a legal dispute with a neighbor over the Rosenthal family’s dog. Instead of spending money on legal fees for a lawsuit that George might have lost, Mark says that George gave away the family dog, just to make the neighbor’s complaint go away.
George also had a more vulnerable side, according to Mark, who says that George identified with outsiders and misfits because of the brutal antisemitism that George experienced when George was growing up. Mark says that George wanted to create an environment at the Sunset Marquis for outsiders and misfits to feel welcome—including those who were banned or kicked out of other hotels.
Mark also remembers when he was child, his father often dated beautiful women and had a proverbial revolving door of girlfriends and lovers. In the documentary, George freely acknowledges why he was able to date so many beautiful women: “The ego side of me said it was me. But the reality was the hotel was a great attraction.” George indulged in women who were willing and available because he says he enjoyed their company and it made him feel good.
When Mark went into the family business as a Sunset Marquis executive in the 1980s, Mark started as a corporate liaison and rose through the ranks to become president/CEO. Mark describes his father as being demanding and overly critical, partly because that was George’s management style and partly because George didn’t want Mark to get special nepotism treatment. By the 1980s, George had let the Sunset Marquis go into a dilapidated decline because he had become distracted by other business ventures.
Mark stepped in to make renovations and to restore the previous rock-star glamour to the Sunset Marquis. However, by the early 1990s, the Sunset Marquis faced its biggest obstacle: According to Mark, the Sunset Marquis was about $50 million in debt. To make matters worse, in April 1991, the insurance commissioner for the state of California sued the Rosenthals for “billions of dollars.” Mark became the Sunset Marquis’ attorney to sort out this legal mess. The result of this lawsuit (the Rosenthals won) is included in the documentary.
The 1990s was also a major transitional period for the Sunset Marquis because of the arrival of the Whiskey Bar, an exclusive nightclub created by promoter Rande Gerber. The Whiskey Bar, which had a maximum capacity of only about 60 people, opened at the Sunset Marquis in 1994, and soon became a magnet for A-list celebrities and paparazzi. Guns N’Roses, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and her “Friends” co-stars were among the famous regulars at the Whiskey Bar during its heyday.
The Whiskey Bar closed in 2006, after the Sunset Marquis declined to renew the Whiskey Bar’s contract. Gerber, who is interviewed in the documentary, says he was disappointed by this decision because he says he wanted the Whiskey Bar to continue for much longer at the Sunset Marquis. It’s implied that Sunset Marquis management made this decision because the hotel got tired of how much of a paparazzi zoo the Whiskey Bar had become.
Other people interviewed in the documentary include The Who lead singer Roger Daltrey, former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, Def Leppard lead singer Joe Elliott, Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen, former Guns N’Roses drummer Matt Sorum, singer/songwriter Richard Marx, musician John Oates (of Hall & Oates fame), singer/songwriter Darius Rucker, photographer Ross Halfin, music executive Merck Mercuriadis, singer/songwriter Cyndi Lauper, musician Sheila E., singer Gloria Estefan, music producer/musician Emilio Estefan, , singer/songwriter Sheryl Crow, music manager Doc McGhee, photographer Bob Gruen, singer Michael Des Barres, Halestorm singer Lzzy Hale, Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson, singer Julian Lennon and singer/guitarist Joe Bonamassa.
Although Mark Rosenthal and his father George went through some rough times, Mark and George seem to have a much stronger and healthier relationship now, compared to previous decades. In the documentary, George gives credit to Mark saving the Sunset Marquis and steering the hotel to a path of financial stability. The Sunset Marquis doesn’t have the wild “let it all hang out” reputation that it used to have in the 20th century, but “If These Walls Could Rock” is an enjoyable glimpse into the ups and downs of a bygone era of the Sunset Marquis, before the Internet and social media made celebrity life much less private and more exposed.
