Debunking Pink's Hot Dogs

[Jay Bushman]

A website I write for is doing a series on Los Angeles myths and legends. I was hoping to write a short piece debunking the claim that OW holds the house record at Pink's Hot Dogs for eating 18 in a single sitting. Anybody know of evidence supporting/denying?

[marcoshark]

Jay,
Have you tried contacting Steve Worth at http://www.hotdogspot.com/

[Jay Bushman]

thanks for the tip. I sent him an email, but he had no info.

I'm going to go ahead an write the piece anyway, but I'd love to actually have some supporting evidence.

[Tony]

I'm trying to imagine Welles's reaction to your endeavor.
???

[A Kid Ran]

[Jay Bushman]

C'mon, don't you think it's just another instance of piling on? As in Welles=fat, so it must be true. I just don't buy it.

Besides, Orson had better taste than that. Despite it's reputation, Pink's hot dogs are foul.

[Terry]

Shouldn't the evidence be strictly on the supporting end? Everything without evidence should be automatically denied. Where does this myth come from?

[Jay Bushman]

That's what I'm trying to find out. I live in L.A., and it's just sort of an accepted fact. But I've never seen a shred of supporting evidence, hence my disbelief.

Google "Orson Welles" + Pink's and you'll see what I mean.

[Kevin Loy]

Certain areas have been a bit inhospitable towards Welles in the past...

I won't say it is completely implausible. Even in his youth (from what I know), Welles had a remarkably voracious appetite (nothing particularly wrong with that). The problem for me, at least, comes from accepting that Welles would eat a hot dog anyway (I haven't eaten a hot dog in a decade, and I'm sure they haven't gotten any better in the ensuing years), let alone 18 of them in a single sitting.

[Roger Ryan]

Hi Jay, it's good to see you visiting Wellesnet again. Here's my two cents: The truth behind the Pink's anecdote could be determined by when the event reportedly took place. If it supposedly happened during Welles' initial stay in Hollywood ('39 - '47), it might be more likely. As a young man with a well-known voracious appetite, Welles probably would have been more carefree about setting some kind of hot-dog eating record (provided he liked hot dogs, of course). After his return to Los Angeles in 1970, he was much more self-conscious about his weight and rarely allowed the public to see him eating mass quantities of food. Even his closest associates have said he tended to eat modestly in restaurants in their presence. He must have been eating much more in private to maintain his weight, but his self-consciousness during the last 15 years of his life would have probably prevented him from downing 18 hot dogs in full view of Pink's staff and customers.

[akio]

Well, I don't know if the Pink's story is true, but I have to come to the defense of the hotdog. Granted, most of the heavily-processed bologna-textured dirty-water dogs you find in the grocery and tourist traps are truly nasty, that isn't all there is to hotdogs. There's the classic natural casing New York dog, the red hot, the loaded Chicago dog, the southern slaw dog, the deepfried New Jersey ripper, the Cincinatti chilidog, and my personal favorite the Washington DC halfsmoke. That there are people who haven't experienced all these truly unique hotdogs, I find greatly saddening.

And I doubt Welles was above having a nice hotdog. When his crews were running low on cash and couldn't afford the chefs flown in from LA, they had to make do with pizza and burgers. And this is the same guy who when he first arrived in New York City, broke, concocted elaborate tomato soups from the complimentary catsup and hot water at the automat.

A Rich Tapestry of Hotdogs

[Tony]

Actually, in a 1973 article in Cine-Action, McBride details Welles eating 8 steaks in a single sitting in Mexico in 53. And Bessy talks about a contest in Cuba in 59 where Hemingway beat Welles in a shark-fin soup contest: 12 bowls to 11 bowls. So it is plausible. It also makes sense that Welles usually entered these eating contests in America, as he was more derided for his weight problem in his home country, due to the obsession with obesity in our junk food/celebrity culture. However, there are philosophical differences between the States and Europe, the latter where he was more likely to get involved in 'macho' shooting contests, notably "fake" duels: the challenge would be made, the time and place set, and pistols filled with salt would be used. The legend persists (with strong evidence supporting it) that Welles was the unofficial salt-duel champion in England for several years running.

In fact, the male/male relationships at the centre of Welles's cinema, and so clearly based on his own repressed sexuality, can easily be linked to these kinds of competitions, in that these contests were invariably male-male. The underlying repressed gayness in Welles, increasingly seen as the very foundation of his films, is clearly expressed in the phallic nature of the hot dog competition, so I wouldn't be surprised in the truthfulness of this story. I'm just shocked that David Thompson didn't mention the infamous contest in his otherwise superb book.

:;):

[Terry]

I don't think Mr Hannaford would agree that it was a phallus.

[Tony]

Well, Mister Pister would!

[Jay Bushman]

Here's what I wrote. Thanks for your help.

http://blogging.la/archive....s.phtml

It actually came in at #5. I'm hoping that it sparks somebody from Pink's to actually provide some info. Or maybe a little dust-up.