Hurray for Hollywood...sort of
March 19, 2013
Oh to return to those glamorous days of yesteryear, when on star-studded nights, Carmen Dragon conducted the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Lana Turner placed her hands and shoes into wet cement in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, the chaste lives of the stars were chronicled in the movie mags, actors were immortalized with a star on the “Walk of Fame,” and a huge real estate sign promoting the housing development, Hollywoodland, watched over Tinseltown.
The magazines I devoured as a kid are gone. No more Photoplay, Silver Screen or Modern Screen with their marvelous, intimate, first person stories and pictures of Doris’ or Debbie’s home life, how Lucy fixed Desi’s favorite dinner, Janet and Tony’s1 domestic chores... sigh. I believed every word they [ghost] wrote and felt like I knew each one of them personally. Why, oh why wasn’t my life like theirs? (Of course my parents did manage to stay married for over 60 years and live quite well.)
Sometimes I just see the dark side...
Today’s magazines are cluttered, dark and called “Film...something.” FilmFax, Total Film, Filmstar, Filmfare. Scattered amongst them are old star specials. The new gossip is not so genteel and is covered nightly on TV.
A visit to the Hollywood Bowl, and I fixated on the half-clothed man down in a stairwell bathing in the run-off water from the Art Deco Entranceway Fountain.
Grauman’s Chinese Theater was so crowded with tourists, the imprinted cement foot- and handprints of the stars were all but impossible to see.
I did smile a bit - The mostly-Asian tourists loved Sully and he was happy to pose for photographs with them.
We could never get anywhere near the Hollywood Sign - It was windy and the only access to it was a 45 minute climb up a hot, dusty trail in the wind, and it looked like it came out behind a high chain-link fence barring close access to the sign anyway. No Picture of the Day there! Darn.
Sunset, Vine and Hollywood Boulevards ... just streets, really crowded, traffic-jammed streets, with Gaps, Rite-Aids, fortune tellers, electronic/souvenir shops and fast food emporiums. Lots of pizza, lots of burgers and lots of revealing starlet clothing, and smog or haze...
The Walk of Fame was OK, there were homeless in doorways, but Sully finally found his favorite actress’s star.
Check! All is well, we finally hit the important spots.
1 Doris Day, Debbie Reynolds, Lucile Ball, Desi Arnaz, Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis
My old stomping grounds.
Nancy
Wonderful email! Thank you! I too feel same way re Glory Days of Hollywood. Not even close in this day and world. Sad. OMG you made my day! Blessings in Abundance and I am praying for safe and soon delivery of maiden mares foal.
ST
You may still be missing the REAL H'wood...
When Lana leaned over to press her hands into the cement in front of Graumon's, someone yelled out, "Oh, come on, sweater girl!"
Now she wouldn't say, as she did, how crude that was, she'd think of making the "right impression."
Sam
From sub-zero Estonia, where Hollywood is but a fantasy, I salute you!
Ilo-Mai
You are a terrific writer and storyteller. The only thing is you really made it sound like you were in the 1800s before they even had magazines. I know you are not that old, or you have really aged well. (hee hee). I hope that you attempted to keep Bernie from taking off his clothes to get cooled off from your beauty.
Kathy
Hi Peg,
Sully is so elegant!
If you still have a taste for Hollywood gossip. You would enjoy the Tony Curtis autobiography "American Prince." He really loved Marilyn Monroe. And the only person he ever feared, was Audie Murphy. You need to know these things.
I love coming along on your travels.
Our watercolor class still asks about you.,I tell them that you are aout on bail.
Happy Trails
Pat
Hope you got to see Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable who happen to be my two favorites!
Sully looks so happy to be in close contact with Lassie. : - )
Donna
HOORAY for Sully!!!!! (and you, too!)
Bob
Love it! Sully is a star! xxoo
Leah
