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Category 3: Long-form, well-known regional figure

Arturo Petterino

Arturo Petterino -- Chicago's most famous maitre d' and a stylish and singular part of Chicago's starlit nightlife of the 1960s and '70s -- died Tuesday at Loretto Hospital of complications from a stroke. He was 89.

Mr. Petterino was best known for his work at the Pump Room at the Ambassador East hotel. But he also worked at the Chez Paree in Chicago, the Copacabana in New York City and the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, Fla.

He once estimated he had seated half a million people in a 40-year-career as a maitre d' -- which means "man in charge," or "master of house."

He even played the role of the maitre d' in the 1957 Joe E. Lewis-Frank Sinatra mobster movie "The Joker is Wild."

There was always an air of dignity about him -- even on the night that Sinatra threw spaghetti at him from the Pump Room's famous Booth One.

"The place was packed," Mr. Petterino said in a Chicago Sun-Times interview in 1996. "We had a new captain taking the order. I assumed everything was OK. Sinatra -- he has swing moods, you know -- he told him he wanted spaghetti alfredo. Well, the Pump Room is not an Italian spaghetti house; it's French-American cuisine.

"The chef was off. They had the sous chef in, and they decided to make spaghetti alfredo. And it was garbage. They bring it to Sinatra, he takes a bite out of it, and he regurgitates. He says, 'Get me Arturo,' yells and throws the spaghetti at me, on my tuxedo and everything. A lot of people came to my defense, but I smiled. And I said, 'You're right. I'll speak to the chef.'

"And that's all I did."

Mr. Petterino knew the value of minimalism in a maximum world. When restaurant mogul Rich Melman reopened the Pump Room in 1976, one of the first things he did was to bring back Mr. Petterino as maitre d', a job he held until 1979.

"Arturo was a throwback to what the Pump Room was," Melman said Tuesday. "He was a very important person. He was the ultimate maitre d'. He had a great memory for the stars, what they liked and where they wanted to sit."

In 2001, Melman named Petterino's restaurant, 150 N. Dearborn, in tribute to his friend.

Mr. Petterino's grace extended beyond Chicago. In the mid-1950s, jazz singer Lena Horne became the first African American to perform at the famed Clover Club in Miami. The nightclub was owned by Jack Goldman, who built the Riviera in Las Vegas. Horne knew Mr. Petterino from her appearances at the Chez Paree. She requested that Mr. Petterino be hired as maitre d' for what she feared would be a tense engagement. Goldman flew Mr. Petterino in from Chicago. Horne's concert was a resounding success. The stage was showered with flowers.

Rinaldo Petterino, 47, had another perspective on Mr. Petterino. "I knew him as a famous uncle that was running around with the glamorous stars," he recalled Tuesday.

"He represented a class and elegance from a bygone era," said Petterino, a former nuclear engineer on the USS Enterprise whose Lane Tech High School and Northwestern University graduation parties were held at the Pump Room. "He was always dapper, always shaved."

Mr. Petterino always had two essentials as he seated someone: Look the guest directly in the eye. Sometimes look down at the hand.

Always a gentleman, Mr. Petterino wouldn't say who gave him his biggest tip or how much it was.

"All I can tell you," he told a Sun-Times reporter in 1996, "is that he owns three casinos in Las Vegas. And he owns a major movie studio."
Kirk Kerkorian of the MGM, he was asked. Mr. Petterino looked the reporter in the eye and just smiled.

Mr. Petterino grew up in Chicago's tiny kitchens. His Italian-immigrant mother, Gilda; his father, Charles, and two uncles were all cooks. After leaving the Army in 1943, Mr. Petterino found work as a busboy and waiter in California. One of his first jobs in Chicago was as head waiter for Hy Gingiss, who owned the Tradewinds on Rush Street.

For 15 years, Mr. Petterino lived next door to the late Cubs announcer Harry Caray at the Ambassador East hotel.

He spent his later years in an apartment on the Near North Side. During the afternoons, he read two or three newspapers. At night, he strolled his old turf, stopping in at Jilly's, Gibsons and Mondelli's Lounge.

In the 1996 interview, Mr. Petterino wondered if people knew he was still alive.

"I'm the last of the legends," he said. "Oscar of the Waldorf is dead. So is the Copa's Lopez. I admit I don't know much about wines or food. What's a great wine? Montrachet, Chateau Lafite, Pouilly Fuisse. That's all I know. But the one I thing I learned I got from Cary Grant: And that's how to dress."

Indeed, Mr. Petterino owned more than 50 tuxedos.

Mr. Petterino said he had just one regret in his rich life: He never married or had a family.

"I dated [actress] Janice Rule for three years," he said as he glanced away from the bar at Mondelli's Lounge into a foggy night in the 1996 interview. "She married [actor] Ben Gazzara. I know the real reason I never got married: I worked until 4 or 5 in the morning. I have all these memories; I don't know who I will give them to."

Besides Rinaldo Petterino, Mr. Petterino is survived by another nephew, Renato Petterino.

A memorial service is pending.