Close-up Productions Pays Their Respects

Thank you Close-Up Productions.

Close-Up Productions Statement on Facebook: Mac Klein, died last week: 101 years old. Mac, like the Club Deuce he owned, was a Miami Beach legend. Time Magazine called the Deuce a “dingy, black-tiled bar that has seen better years, and those years occurred a very long time ago. But in a town where hot drinking spots come and go like the tide, the Deuce still stands alone.” The building was constructed in 1926 with the story being that it was constructed with wood from shipwrecks.

The Miami Vice crew drank there after late night shoots and the cast wrap party was held there at the show’s end. Playboy named it one of the best bars in America. Anthony Bourdain said it's one of his favorite spots.

Two years ago we talked to Mac in his cramped office-storeroom for the Miami Beach Visual Memoirs Project, that we have been producing with partner MDPL under a Miami Beach VCA grant. The safe was in the corner, the better booze lined the walls and his leather office chair took up most of the floor space. This was his world for 51 years, ever since he bought the place in 1964. 

In this excerpt from the interview, Mac tells how he came to get and refurbish the Miami Beach landmark.