Friends and family celebrate Sunset Strip legend Mario Maglieri at the Rainbow Bar & Grill

Mario Maglieri was a central character in the story of Los Angeles youth culture.

And Sunday afternoon at the Rainbow Bar & Grill on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, those who knew Maglieri, the late fixture of the Sunset Strip who co-owned both the longtime pizza-pasta joint to the stars and the iconic club the Whisky a Go Go, gathered to share tales of how a music scene created a family.

Maglieri, who recently died at 93, was feted on the same stretch of land where he helped build a rock ’n’ roll hub. Starting in the mid-1960s, the proprietor and longtime manager of the neighboring rock club the Roxy ruled the neighborhood with cigar in mouth and a patriarchal kindness.

One measure of his mark lay in the volumes of stories floating around the Rainbow on Sunday.

“Many of us grew up over here because we’d come over from the San Fernando Valley,” said photographer Brad Elterman, standing outside at a door to the Roxy’s upstairs club. In the 1970s he captured a shot of John Lennon and Ringo Starr after the Beatles’ breakup.

“We were 16 or 17, and there were no parental controls at all,” Elterman said, adding that Maglieri “was like a father to so many of these young kids who came over to discover the magic.” Another photo Elterman took on the Strip captured Bob Dylan hanging with Robert De Niro.

Mikael Maglieri, in sunglasses, receives condolences during a memorial for his father, Mario Maglieri, as his mother Scarlett looks on at the Rainbow Bar & Grill.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

The Rainbow, Roxy and Whisky a Go Go represented a bold contrast from his parents’ place in the Valley, Elterman said. It “was like you’d entered two different civilizations. It doesn’t have the feel of that today, and I can’t really explain why. Maybe it was because I was 18, but maybe it’s because inside were Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.”

Sipping a Sunday afternoon pint of beer, longtime music manager and former label boss Jim Maley recalled time spent at the Rainbow in the 1970s with wide-eyed wonder.

“I was here seven nights a week for seven years,” Maley said, noting that at the time the Rainbow was one of the only rock ’n’ roll bars in town, making it a destination for touring bands and musical expats.

Maley, who said that over the years he’s “done everything in the business except make a lot of money,” had an office at the nearby Hyatt House (now the Andaz), and when the Who’s notorious drummer Keith Moon was living there in the mid-1970s, the two would grab lunch and inevitably end up at the Rainbow’s bar.

Recalled Maley: “One time we came here and [Moon] was pretty buzzed, as usual, and he started playing drums on the table. We’d already ordered — and they actually threw him out because he wouldn’t stop banging on the tables.”

Aside from the scene inside the various venues, Maley said that the Rainbow’s parking lot played a crucial role in the after-hours social circuit. At 2 a.m. closing time, the lot would fill up, and Maglieri was never far away.

“I always knew where every party was,” Maley said. “Everybody would walk around — ‘Where’s the party tonight?’ And the New Yorkers would say, ‘What the … do people do now?

Sheila Lightfoot shows Jim Maley images she put together in memory of Mario Maglieri during a memorial for the late-night club owner.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Standing in line to sign Maglieri’s guest book, hairdresser Richard Vasquez pulled out a baggie filled with old ticket stubs from the Roxy dating back to 1978.

“He was so distinguished. We felt secure when he was standing next to us,” Vasquez said of Maglieri. “I remember him standing outside, smoking, taking the head count in front of the Roxy.”

Vasquez said he and his friends were into jazz fusion, and Maglieri greeted them while artists such as Ronnie Laws, Roy Ayers Ubiquity and the Blackbyrds were hitting the stage.

“We were young and dumb and naive, but he kept an eye on us and made sure nobody messed with us. Anybody in that line was treated all the same — fairly,” Vasquez said.

Actress Debbie Dutch called Maglieri her “rock ’n’ roll father. I could come and he’d be sitting out here with his cigar and I could talk to him. He called me Blondie.”

Dutch said her then-boyfriend was in the studio with George Harrison during her time spent in the neighborhood, and when she wasn’t helping out on backing vocals she’d hit the Roxy to dance: “Different wig on every night, with a different name — and I was underage and I never had to worry about anything.”

She pauses, on the verge of tears. “It’s my youth. This is like the end of part of my heart. And everybody feels the same way. Mario was like our father.”

Rick Fazekas met Maglieri in the early 1970s when Fazekas was a student and radio DJ at Cal-State Riverside. His student radio gig, on which he’d promote upcoming shows at the Whisky, paid dividends on the Strip.

Actress Debbie Dutch, left, becomes emotional while remembering her friend Mario Maglieri.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“Mario really appreciated that,” he said. “We could come down and see shows and meet the bands backstage. I saw Cream on their first U.S. tour — got to go backstage and watch Ginger Baker roll a joint with one hand.”

In 1980, Maglieri hired Fazekas to be a DJ at the Rainbow. It was a key musical moment in a neighborhood that was becoming home to a big Persian population. When the new clientele started requesting disco, the rockers took a stand. “They were afraid the Rainbow was going to turn into a disco club,” Fazekas said.

The DJ eventually got a job at United Artists Records, where he toured with Electric Light Orchestra and was charged with taking his label’s acts to Disneyland. Among those he guided? Hawkwind, when longtime Rainbow Bar & Grill patron Lemmy Kilmister was still in the band.

Although he didn’t know Maglieri well, Fazekas felt compelled to pay his respects on Sunday. “It was a true honor to know a man like that.”

Added photographer Elterman: “It was a magical time and a magical period. I don’t think we’ll ever see it again, and you’re not going to find a guy like him.”

For tips, records, snapshots and stories on Los Angeles music culture, follow Randall Roberts on Twitter and Instagram: @liledit. Email: randall.roberts@latimes.com.