Jay Fiondella, 82; restaurateur traveled the globe

LOS ANGELES - Jay Fiondella, the flamboyant owner of Chez Jay, a scruffy restaurant-bar he opened almost 50 years ago that became a Santa Monica landmark and something of a shrine to his exploits as an adventurer, has died. He was 82.

Mr. Fiondella died Nov. 6 at a care facility in Santa Monica after a long battle with Parkinson's disease, his family said.

In 1959, he was hustling for small acting parts and tending bar on the Santa Monica Pier when he heard about a small coffee shop for sale and decided to turn it into Chez Jay.

From the start, Chez Jay drew celebrities. One reason was that Mr. Fiondella carefully protected them from fans and gawkers, according to a 2002 Los Angeles Times article on "splendid dives." When customers walked in with cameras, he threw them out.

After opening Chez Jay, Mr. Fiondella brought on his widowed mother, Alice, to help run the place so that he would not have to give up his swashbuckling ways. Mementos from his trips were hung on the restaurant's walls.

He helped finance the 1973 search for the treasure of the sunken ocean liner Andrea Doria off Nantucket that turned up "silverware, a bottle of perfume, and some trays," Mr. Fiondella said at the time.

Two decades later, he was part of a team that recovered silver coins worth millions from the wreck of the John Barry.

A competitive hot-air balloonist, he reveled in taking chances and in creating a romantic image for himself, but never seemed to miss an opportunity to promote the tiny restaurant that made his travels possible.

Recounting an archeological dig in the Arabian Desert, Mr. Fiondella said he ran into four Chez Jay customers there.

When his homemade 65-foot pirate ship fell off a trailer in 1989 while being hauled locally, it caused a massive rush-hour traffic jam and briefly made him a cable news star.

"Every time they got a little sound bite from him, he always managed to slip in the restaurant's name and address," said Jon Stebbins, who is finishing a biography of Mr. Fiondella that he wrote with the restaurateur.

The boat Mr. Fiondella had worked on for 25 years "was my shrink, my guru, my Shangri-La," he told the Times after the hauling incident. "Now it's history. . . . It's the USS Never Sail."

Stories of the famous who frequented Chez Jay were often repeated: Daniel Ellsberg, who worked at the nearby RAND Corporation, supposedly passed the Pentagon Papers to a reporter there; Marlon Brando allegedly waltzed off with a waitress; and Henry Kissinger spent so much time in the back that a rear table was dubbed the "Kissinger Room."

In the early 1950s, Mr. Fiondella roomed with actor Leonard Nimoy, who told the Times in an e-mail after the restaurateur's death: "He was a gregarious, great guy. . . . I ate at his place occasionally. Always had great stories and good food."

Jay Anthony Fiondella was born in East Haven, Conn. His mother was a teacher and his father was an artist who often took him hunting for Indian artifacts.

During World War II, Mr. Fiondella was a Navy Seabee who served in the Philippines and China. After the war, he attended the University of Miami. He moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting after a brief marriage ended in divorce.

Between 1958 and 2000, he had small parts in about 30 films and TV shows using the pseudonym Jay Della. His first role was in the series "Sea Hunt," and his last was in the movie "Luck of the Draw."

Alice Fiondella, who helped run Chez Jay for 30 years, was hit by a car while crossing the street near the restaurant in 1991 and died at 89.

Mr. Fiondella's second wife died.