It's been 30 years since Raymundo Romero became a valet at Chateau Marmont, and he's still the junior partner on the four-man crew. "He has to wait for one of us to retire — or be run over — to get a daytime shift," jokes Ray Garcia, 58, who joined the hotel four years earlier and is himself on duty from early afternoon to late evening.
"They are the unsung heroes, the unknown stars of the place — the big smiling faces," says actor Michael Madsen, a Chateau regular who once lived in Bungalow Four of the hotel for nearly a year in the 1990s. "When I roll up and Raymundo's there, I just hug the guy, for Chrissake — I just can't help it. It's become personal."
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