Hotel

Hotel is a 1965 novel by Arthur Hailey. It is the story of an independent New Orleans hotel, the St. Gregory, and its management's struggle to regain profitability and avoid being assimilated into the O'Keefe chain of hotels. The St. Gregory is supposedly based on the Roosevelt Hotel, although the old St. Charles Hotel is also cited as the basis for the novel. Adaptations The novel was adapted into a movie in 1967, and in 1983 Aaron Spelling turned it into a television series, airing for five years on ABC. In the TV series the St. Gregory Hotel was moved from New Orleans to San Francisco. Characters Peter McDermott, manager Warren Trent, proprietor Christine Francis, secretary to Warren Trent Herbie Chandler, villainous Bell Captain Aloysius Royce, administrative assistant to Warren Trent Curtis O'Keefe, owner of the O'Keefe chain Dorothy "Dodo" Lash, O'Keefe's starlet companion Albert Wells, aging hotel guest The Duke and Duchess of Croydon, guests in the Presidential Suite Ogilvie, house detective Julius "Keycase" Milne, hotel thief Marsha Preyscott, one night guest in the hotel Plot Peter McDermott: The main character is Mr. Peter McDermott; the general manager with a past. He is a graduate in Hotel Management from Cornell University and subsequently got a job in a hotel. However, he had been involved with a lady at a time when he was supposed to be on duty. This gave Peter's wife and the lady's husband a reason to ask for a divorce. McDermott's dalliance was not a big thing for the hotel, but the newspaper coverage was such that he was dismissed from his job and blacklisted. But Warren Trent, the head of the St. Gregory Hotel, ignoring the past and considering the skill, hired him. The novel is about McDermott's attempts to deal with several crises in the hotel which involve a range of other characters.