At exactly 10 o'clock be at the foyer of this penthouse. you will be escorted in and give the check to madame china. yawn...big deal...however this penthouse had bodyguards downstairs and all over, i usually peeked in envelopes for everybodies safety--this one was for 20,000 a lot back then..but what got my interest was the memo- for booth in front of arnies. the booth was only as wide as a chimney..man i'm in the wrong biz. the booth was used to promote time share tours gifts etc. but it generated 150,000 a mo. in sales, o.k that wasnt hard to figure out. Arnies by the way was a small private museum owned and operated by Arnold Coward, he had been a jewish
prisoner of war and had been severely tortured by the nazis. He had quite a collection of torture apparatus from all over and all ages, he bought some murano glass from me. I dont remember
the details but he was hit by a car real bad. Not many people that i saw went in for the tour, i mean heres clem and ethel on their 50th anniversary, who never really took a vacation before
and here they are on kuhio ave. should we take the torture tour or the time share tour? the torture tour had no free lunch. The chinese rented the 3 story museum bldg. for 6000 a mo. and got 20,000 for the booth the size of a door! these chinese landlords had a vast holding of property all over waikiki and were rude to me everytime i delivered checks. I saw them once at holiday mart arguing over the price of malasadas. Arnie also had some priceless ancient art, some from egypt, thats why he appreciated the things i would sell him. God bless his soul
he had a penchant for life after what he had been thru.
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Greetings,
ReplyDeleteI am an award winning independent film producer seeking contact information for the descendents of Arne Coward and/or any information on Arne himself and/or the museum. Can you help me with more information on Arne/Arnie/Arnold Coward? I would really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Arnie & my Father Vince Buono were associated in business in the mid 1960's. Arnie's antique shop was on Nahua Street in Waikiki. I recall several odd "transactions" between them. I believe the first was when he convinced Vince to use the families savings to but three nude velvet paintings by French/Tahitian artist Letag. Years later Arnie expressed a desire to "see" my Dad's shrunken head (yes our family had a shrunken head). My dad brought it wrapped in a sheet. Arnie opened the sheet saw the black long haired head against the white bed sheet, grabbed the head and sheet and ran like Monsieur Gustave H. the concierge of the Grand Budapest Hotel. Arnie locked himself in his back office.The story was that New Guinnea banned the export of shrunken heads when they started to be white instead of black so shrunken heads were on their way to being a rarity. I still have a chest of drawers from Arnie and lots of happy memories. Once he handed me three one thousand dollar bills and said to "just hold them for a little while".... what a guy! Arnie never did return the head. I suppose somewhere along the way he horse-traded something for it. I imagine later that the head was proudly displayed by Arnie in his museum of torture on Kuhio Avenue although I never wanted to go in. Just looking through the front display windows was horrifying enough for me!
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