The Chez Paree

The Chez Paree The Chez Paree was Chicago’s legendary Near North Side nightclub, open from 1932 to 1960. Help us identify the faces!

Jazz legends, Hollywood stars and the greatest entertainers of the era all performed here. From 1932 to 1960, the Chez Paree, located on the third floor of the building, played host to many of the world's best known entertainers, including Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Sammy Davis Jr., Sophie Tucker, Joe E. Lewis, Lena Horne, Jimmy Durante, Tony Bennett, and many others.

The Chez Paree in Chicago, 1950s. Back row from left, co-owner Jack Schatz, Frenchie Medlevine, Al Torre of the Vagabond...
05/10/2026

The Chez Paree in Chicago, 1950s. Back row from left, co-owner Jack Schatz, Frenchie Medlevine, Al Torre of the Vagabonds, co-owner Donjo Medlevine and Attilio Rizzo of the Vagabonds. Front row, Dominic Germano of the Vagabonds and co-owner Dave Halper.

The Vagabonds were a comedy and musical quartet who worked their way up through the nightclub circuit before landing on Arthur Godfrey and His Friends, one of the most watched television programs in America. That exposure made them genuine stars and they became one of the most sought after acts on the circuit, eventually opening their own club in Miami that Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Jackie Gleason were known to frequent. They were genuinely funny, musically gifted and completely at ease in any room they walked into.

The owners of the Chez Paree adored them. What started as a professional relationship turned into a real friendship and you can feel it in this photo. Three of the four owners and three of the Vagabonds, arms around each other, nobody performing for the camera. Just people who genuinely liked each other.

© Chez Paree Chicago

The Key Club bar at the Chez Paree in Chicago, early 1950s. Co-owner Jack Schatz in the brown suit, second from left.Loo...
05/07/2026

The Key Club bar at the Chez Paree in Chicago, early 1950s. Co-owner Jack Schatz in the brown suit, second from left.

Look at this room. The leather bar stools, the bottles lined up behind the bar, the bartender in his white jacket. This is the Key Club at some point in the evening, before the crowd arrived or well after it left. Hard to tell and it does not really matter.
Whatever the occasion, this group looks completely at ease in one of the most exclusive rooms in Chicago. That was the whole point of the Key Club. You were not just having a drink. You were somewhere that most people in this city never got to be.

We do not know who the others are. If you recognize anyone please tell us below.

© Chez Paree Chicago

Attilio Rizzo of the Vagabonds at the Key Club bar at the Chez Paree, mid-1950s, with one of the club’s bartenders.The V...
05/05/2026

Attilio Rizzo of the Vagabonds at the Key Club bar at the Chez Paree, mid-1950s, with one of the club’s bartenders.

The Vagabonds were a comedy and musical quartet who earned their reputation the hard way, working the nightclub circuit until they landed on Arthur Godfrey and His Friends, one of the most watched television programs in America. That exposure turned them into genuine stars and they became one of the most sought after acts on the circuit, eventually opening their own club in Miami that Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Jackie Gleason were known to frequent. They were exactly the kind of act the Chez Paree loved. Funny, musical, completely comfortable in any room and impossible not to watch.

Attilio looks like a man who has nowhere else he needs to be. At the Key Club bar with a good drink in hand, that was entirely reasonable.

© Chez Paree Chicago

A night at the Chez Paree, 1950s. From left, Leon Mandel, Rose Palmer, Potter Palmer IV, Carola Mandel and Chez Paree co...
05/05/2026

A night at the Chez Paree, 1950s. From left, Leon Mandel, Rose Palmer, Potter Palmer IV, Carola Mandel and Chez Paree co-owner Jack Schatz.

Leon Mandel was the head of Mandel Brothers, one of the great department stores that defined State Street for generations of Chicagoans. His wife Carola was born in Cuba, was frequently named among the Ten Best Dressed Women in the United States and was one of the most extraordinary shotgun shooters in America. She captained the All American Women’s S***t Team from 1952 until 1956, became the first woman ever to win a men’s national s***t shooting championship and was inducted into the National S***t Shooting Association Hall of Fame in 1979. Her talents extended well beyond s***t and she competed at the highest levels across shotgun disciplines. Their Oak Street home had a swimming pool on the second floor.

Potter Palmer IV and his wife Rose carried one of the most storied names in the history of Chicago. The original Potter Palmer built the dry goods store that eventually became Marshall Field’s, developed State Street into the commercial heart of the city, created Lake Shore Drive out of what had been swampland and built the Palmer House hotel. When the Great Chicago Fire destroyed it just thirteen days after it opened, he borrowed $1.7 million to rebuild it, the largest private loan in American history at the time. His wife Bertha became the undisputed queen of Chicago society and left her extraordinary Impressionist art collection to the Art Institute of Chicago, where it remains among the museum’s greatest treasures. Four generations later that name still meant everything in this city.

These were the people who filled the Chez Paree on a Saturday night.

© Chez Paree Chicago

Pearl Bailey at the Chez Paree in Chicago, 1950s, with husband Louis Bellson (far right), co-owner Jack Schatz (2nd from...
04/30/2026

Pearl Bailey at the Chez Paree in Chicago, 1950s, with husband Louis Bellson (far right), co-owner Jack Schatz (2nd from right) and co-owner Donjo Medlevine (left).

Pearl Bailey was one of the most gifted and joyful performers of her generation. She started singing in Black nightclubs as a teenager, went on to Broadway, Hollywood and television, and won a Special Tony Award for her legendary turn as Dolly in the all-Black production of Hello Dolly. She performed for troops overseas, appeared at the White House more times than almost any other entertainer, was appointed a special ambassador to the United Nations by President Gerald Ford and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Reagan in 1988. And through all of it she never lost the warmth and humor that made audiences feel like she was singing just for them. There was nobody quite like her.

The man on the far right is her husband Louis Bellson, one of the greatest drummers in the history of jazz. Duke Ellington, who knew something about surrounding himself with the best musicians in the world, called him the greatest drummer alive. Bellson played with Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Count Basie and Ellington himself, recorded more than 200 albums, composed over a thousand pieces and received the NEA Jazz Masters Award in 1994. He also pioneered the use of two bass drums, sketching the design in a high school art class in Moline, Illinois. That one idea changed drumming forever.

They married in 1952 and remained together until Pearl’s death in 1990. The Chez Paree was lucky to have them both.

© Chez Paree Chicago

Sophie Tucker and Lyn Durant at the Chez Paree, 1950s.Sophie Tucker was the Last of the Red Hot Mamas and one of the mos...
04/30/2026

Sophie Tucker and Lyn Durant at the Chez Paree, 1950s.

Sophie Tucker was the Last of the Red Hot Mamas and one of the most celebrated performers in the history of American entertainment. Bold, funny, completely on her own terms and impossible to upstage. The Chez Paree was one of her favorite rooms and she played it many times over the years.

The man to her left is Lyn Durant, one of the founding pioneers of the American coin-operated amusement industry. He co-founded United Manufacturing Company in Chicago with pinball legend Harry Williams in 1941 and invented the Shuffle Alley puck bowling game in 1949, which became one of the most popular arcade games in the country and was reportedly earning him $50,000 a day before overhead in 1949 dollars. He was also one of the Chez Paree’s most colorful regulars. Durant had carved out his own private alcove between the second and third floors of the building, accessible only by stopping the elevator at exactly the right spot, where he kept a personal stash of whiskey. Building owners found the hidden niche during renovations in 2012, decades after the club had closed.

His generosity at the Chez Paree was the stuff of legend. Sitting at the bar he would announce his intention to buy a new car for every single woman there and follow through on his promise the next day. Sometimes he gave mink coats instead.

Nobody questioned it.

© Chez Paree Chicago

The Chez Paree, Chicago. The room before the room came alive.White tablecloths as far as you can see, the dance floor po...
04/28/2026

The Chez Paree, Chicago. The room before the room came alive.

White tablecloths as far as you can see, the dance floor polished and waiting, the stage just beyond. Every one of those tables set and ready for a night that somebody had been looking forward to all week.

What this photo cannot quite convey is how close you actually were. Closer than you expected. The people at the next table might be Frank Sinatra’s party. Or Judy Garland. Or Sammy Davis Jr. Or Lena Horne still in her gown after the last show. Nat King Cole. Dorothy Dandridge. Mae West. Pearl Bailey. Carmen Miranda. These were the people who performed on that stage and then sat in these very chairs. The Chez Paree was not a vast concert hall. It was a room where you could feel the performance and where the greatest entertainers in the world were genuinely right there beside you.

Three shows a night, nearly three decades, and every seat in this room filled with people who knew exactly where they were.

© Chez Paree Chicago

A night at the Chez Paree, early 1950s. Jack Schatz, co-owner, second from left.Look at that chair in the foreground. Th...
04/28/2026

A night at the Chez Paree, early 1950s. Jack Schatz, co-owner, second from left.

Look at that chair in the foreground. The Chez Paree script on the back says everything about where you are. The fruit bowl centerpiece, the drinks on the table, four people dressed for an evening that clearly meant something to all of them.

We do not know who the others are. A good night at the greatest cabaret nightclub in Chicago.

Do you recognize anyone in this photo?

© Chez Paree Chicago

Helen Rose and Chez Paree co-owner Jack Schatz at the Chez Paree, Chicago, 1950s.Helen Rose was one of the most celebrat...
04/28/2026

Helen Rose and Chez Paree co-owner Jack Schatz at the Chez Paree, Chicago, 1950s.

Helen Rose was one of the most celebrated and influential costume designers in the history of Hollywood. Born right here in Chicago, she got her start designing costumes for nightclub and stage acts in the city before heading to Los Angeles and becoming the head of costume design at MGM, where she dressed the most glamorous women in the world for nearly two decades. Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Judy Garland, Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, Debbie Reynolds. The list reads like a roll call of the golden age of Hollywood.

She won two Academy Awards for Best Costume Design. She designed Grace Kelly’s legendary wedding gown when she married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, a dress that required 30 seamstresses and 300 yards of antique lace and has influenced bridal fashion ever since. She designed Elizabeth Taylor’s wedding gown when she married Conrad Hilton. When Louis B. Mayer gave her one standing instruction at MGM, it was simply this. Just make them beautiful. She did, across more than 200 films.

A Chicago girl at the absolute top of her field, back in the city where it all began.

© Chez Paree Chicago

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610 N Fairbanks Court
Chicago, IL
60611

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(312) 944-6207

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