Memory Lane: When Palm Beach was ready for its close-up

Although “Palm Royale,” the currently streaming Apple TV+ comedy-drama about Palm Beach social climbing, wasn’t filmed in Palm Beach (except for a few aerial shots), the island has had its close-up in many other TV shows and movies over the years.

The Breakers, Worth Avenue and other venues for decades have been filmed for scenes in productions starring everyone from Frank Sinatra to Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Lopez in such roles as solipsistic rich people, grifters and gum shoes.

Just think of all the scripts that might have a scene or two — or more — that call for a wealthy Xanadu with pristine locales — but here’s where the town of Palm Beach yells, “Cut!”

That’s because the island’s officials, who have expressed that the privacy and well-being of residents are paramount, notoriously have been stingy about issuing commercial-filming permits.

That wasn’t always the case.

A century ago, when motion-picture-making was in its infancy, the fledgling island incorporated in 1911 welcomed filmmakers and their portrayal of Palm Beach as the semaphore of the good life.

As early as 1916 for instance, a sparsely populated Palm Beach — nonetheless already liberally sprinkled with household-name wealthy winter residents — welcomed the filming of the silent motion-picture “Island of Happiness,” with its outlandish plot of mayhem.

The production, which happened to star Palm Beach bluebloods, was followed in 1917 by another society film, “Isle of Tomorrow.”

Before long, silent movie stars such as Billie Burke (who later played Glinda the Good Witch in the original “Wizard of Oz” movie) swooped in for winter visits and Palm Beach was enthralled.

But increased scrutiny came during the decades after World War II. Residents increasingly wanted privacy and an undisrupted lifestyle.

Projects that passed muster during that time included filmmakers’ proposal for a one-day shoot for a 1967 movie about fictional South Florida detective Tony Rome, played by Frank Sinatra.

During the shoots at The Breakers, “Sinatra … frequently joked with fellow actors and production workers and seemed pleased,” an observer then said.

Residents’ attitudes soured about filmmaking on the island after Columbia Pictures in 1985 shot a handful of early-morning scenes — including from overhead in a helicopter — on Worth Avenue for "Happy New Year," a flick starring Peter Falk.

Irked town officials, who had approved the project, decided it was high time for a tough filming ordinance. The 1986 ordinance they cobbled together and approved banned filming in residential areas and restricted filming to dates and certain hours between April 16 and Nov. 15.

It also included, among other things, hefty insurance requirements, permit-application procedures and daily filming fees.

The ordinance has been tweaked since — the permit fee is now $1,500 and the daily filming fee is now $1,000, among other things — but its goal of protecting residents’ well-being remains.

Just last year, town officials denied a permit to a production company to film scenes here for a TV series called "Apples Never Fall,” now streaming on Peacock, starring Annette Bening and Sam Neill.

Nevertheless, projects have been approved since 1986, including for scenes in major movies, plus TV shows, such Burt Reynolds’ 1989-1990 detective drama “B.L. Stryker” and a 2005 episode of “Access Hollywood.”

Parts of a car chase on the Royal Park Bridge and scenes at The Breakers and on Worth Avenue were filmed for the 1991 movie “Traces of Red,” starring James Belushi, Lorraine Bracco and Tony Goldwyn.

During filming of the movie, which is about a police detective, a wealthy widow and a young waitress, onlookers watching a scene unfold at The Breakers pressed their noses against the squeaky-clean glass in the doors of the hotel’s entrance.

“Money doesn’t buy happiness,” one onlooker was heard to say to another as they both marveled.

Actors Sigourney Weaver, Anne Bancroft and Jennifer Love Hewitt were seen around town in 2000 as they were filmed in scenes at The Breakers and on Worth Avenue and Royal Poinciana Way for the mother-daughter con-artist plot of “Heartbreakers,” which also starred Ray Liotta and Gene Hackman.

Among other films made in recent years in Palm Beach: a 2013 action-thriller called “Parker.” That movie stars Jennifer Lopez and Jason Statham, who was spotted during filming sitting in a convertible reading the Palm Beach Daily News.

Filmed in 2011, “Parker” included street scenes on Worth Avenue and elsewhere, but a party scene Flash Productions wanted for the movie at Mar-a-Lago was denied by the Town Council.

Not long after that denial, town officials reviewed — and upheld — the island’s ordinance provision forbidding commercial filming in residential areas, which applies to private-club Mar-a-Lago, where owner, former president and current presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump, lives.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach has had love-hate relationship with filmmakers