Says Melanie Griffith: "That was the thing: to dance, hang out at Helena's and do drugs."

In 1985, a private membership-only nightclub on the corner of L.A.'s Rampart Boulevard and West Temple Street called Helena's opened. It was operated by an actress and belly dancer named Helena Kallianiotes, who had performed memorable roles in such seminal '70s films as Five Easy Pieces. Helena's was a big hit despite its location on the then-gang-ridden Eastside, in part because Kallianiotes counted Jack Nicholson as a friend and investor. "Oh, he was there every Friday," she recalls. Kallianiotes also was close to Madonna, Sean Penn, Anjelica Huston, Harry Dean Stanton and Marlon Brando, all of them charter members and frequent guests.

But Helena's wasn't a roaring success only because it attracted huge stars. It was where huge stars could comfortably hang out, dance and drink and misbehave, at a time before the internet and smartphones ended Hollywood's tradition of anything-goes nightlife. Helena's thrived when a no-photography rule could be enforced like biblical law by a proprietress who wasn't a deep-pocketed hospitality conglomerate but merely a once-in-a-generation host — one who has never talked about the club publicly since its heady six-year run 30 years ago. Until now.