In 1954, Detroit real estate magnate Ben L. Silberstein bought the hotel for $5.5 million. Courtright later became hotelier at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. The reputation of the Beverly Hills Hotel, as a leading luxury hotel with glamorous patrons, took off during the 1950s and attracted eminent guests such as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon, King Albert of Belgium, the Crown Prince of Monaco and Grace Kelly, John Wayne, and Henry Fonda. Elizabeth Taylor, one of the hotel's best-known guests, would stay with her numerous husbands in the bungalows and spent six of her eight honeymoons there. Her father owned an art gallery on the ground floor of the hotel. The Polo Lounge became associated with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and the Rat Pack, where they held heavy drinking bouts. In 1956, the pool of the hotel and cabana club was a filming location for "Designing Woman", starring Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall. Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand stayed at the hotel during the production of George Cukor's "Let's Make Love". Monroe's favorite bungalow was No. 7. George Hamilton and Rex Harrison enjoyed sunbathing at the hotel; Harrison would sunbathe in the nude in Cabana One and answer the door wearing "just a handkerchief over his private parts".