Tom Runyon | Roadhouse owner, 89

Tom Runyon, 89, who shared his family name with a Hollywood Hills canyon and who served simple fare at his rough-hewn roadhouse on Mulholland Highway to the famous and famously interesting, died July 17 of cancer in Malibu, Calif.

Mr. Runyon was a fiction writer and occasional actor. His ties to the gorge in the heart of the Hollywood Hills date to 1919, the year before he was born, when his uncle, the coal baron Carmen Runyon, bought what was then known as No Man's Canyon, gave it his name and built a hunting lodge.

The Old Place, the restaurant-saloon Mr. Runyon opened with his wife, Barbara, in 1969 in Agoura, reflected an Old West that had long ago disappeared. The Old Place, invariably described as "ramshackle," had five booths, two entrees - steak and clams - and a single waitress, Barbara Runyon. Mr. Runyon was cook and dishwasher.

Actress Ali MacGraw would frequent the Old Place with her then-husband, Steve McQueen. Robert Mitchum, Bob Dylan, Sam Peckinpah, among others, could also be found intermingled with an array of bikers and other locals fit for central casting.

- Los Angeles Times