[2] The Pump Room was the preferred stopping-off point for celebrities changing trains in Chicago while travelling between New York City and Los Angeles.
Stage and screen stars of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s would be invited to join Byfield in Booth 1 at the restaurant and would often boast to their friends that they had "lunched with Ernie" while they were in Chicago.
He needs to be a greeter and a bouncer, pious but ribald, an interior decorator and bartender; he must understand the arrangement of flowers and the disposal of garbage; he may be forced into the acquaintanceship with accouchment and embalming; he should appreciate swing music but encourage quiet, be noted as a connoisseur and competent as a plumber; he must walk with beauty, but only walk with it… Only a man of very loose moral character should accept the job.
[1] His second wife was Kathryn "Kitty" Priest Rand, a gentile; they had one child, Jean, and soon after divorced (she would later marry film producer-director Mervyn LeRoy).
[7] His third wife was beauty salon owner Adele Sharpe Thomas, a gentile who was thirty years younger; they remained married until his death.