Brown Derby is said to have proposed to Carole Lombard there. Rival gossip columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper are recorded as regular patrons. In "L.A. at Last", the first of the Hollywood episodes of "I Love Lucy", Lucy (Lucille Ball), Ethel (Vivian Vance), and Fred (William Frawley) have lunch at the Brown Derby. During the misadventure, the trio dines in a booth with Eve Arden on one side and William Holden (who orders a Cobb Salad) on the other. This leads to the famous disaster scene in which Lucy inadvertently causes a waiter to hit Holden in the face with a
Lois Weber about 1935. In November 1939, Weber was admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital in critical condition, suffering from a stomach ailment that had afflicted her for years. Almost two weeks later, she died on Monday, November 13, 1939, destitute, from a bleeding ulcer. She was 60 years old. Her younger sister, Ethel Howland, and friends, Frances Marion and Veda Terry, were at her bedside. Her death was largely overlooked, with her "Variety" obituary only two brief paragraphs long, and a brief mention in the "Los Angeles Examiner". Gossip columnist Hedda Hopper contributed a more substantial tribute in "The Los Angeles Times".