Dave Zuchowski
New Castle News
August 28, 2007 10:08 am
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Sitting on the porch of Elaine’s Bed and Breakfast in Hollywood sipping my morning coffee, I gazed up at Stephen Spielberg’s mansion, which dominates the top of one of the Hollywood Hills. The prolific film director’s home was an apt image that got me geared up for a tour of the town synonymous with the movie industry.
Armed with a Hollywood Pass ($49.95 for adults), which gives admission to several movie and television landmarks, I headed for the Kodak Theatre, where the Academy Awards gala is held each year. On my way down Hollywood Boulevard, I spotted Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, which has a newly refurbished look and offers half-hour tours as well as screenings of some of Hollywood’s latest films.
Part of the bustle along the boulevard is created by iconic celebrity look-alikes such as Zorro, Elvis, Charlie Chaplin, Johnny Depp and more, who pose for photo shoots with visitors — for a tip, of course. At the corner of Hollywood and Highland, a four-level megacomplex loaded with restaurants, shops and hip nightspots also houses the Kodak Theatre where I caught a group tour.
Out on the street, crystal plaques list every film that won an Academy Award. Inside, the walls of the theater lobby are covered with photos of the stars who took home the coveted awards.
On the tour, visitors enter the theater’s George Eastman VIP Room, see an actual Oscar up close, sit in the 3,400-seat hall where the Oscar awards are televised and gaze at the massive stage that is larger than a pro basketball court.
They also get clued into a myriad of interesting insider information like the cost of the theater ($94 million), the origin of the name Oscar (an Awards secretary once said the image looked like her uncle, a fruit farmer from Texas and the name stuck ever since), the number of Oscars passed out during the past 79 years (2,669) and Oscar stats (each one weighs more than 8 pounds, is 13-inches tall and is covered with 24-carat gold plate).
To see some of the stars’ homes and other film industry landmarks, I jumped on a Starline Tour, which departs throughout the day in front of Grauman’s. Thanks to my informed, entertaining guide, who doubled as the bus driver, I got to see the onetime homes of celebs such as Truman Capote, Tom Cruise, Doris Day, James Dean, Douglas Fairbanks, Marilyn Monroe, Kirk Douglas and one-time newlyweds Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow.
I also cruised Beverly Hill’s Rodeo Drive and the 2-1/2-mile long Sunset Strip (home to the Laugh Factory, Whiskey A Go-Go, the Roxy — where Meg Ryan once worked as a cocktail waitress, and the Viper Room — where River Phoenix died of an overdose). Interesting discoveries included the church attended by Nancy Reagan and Carmen Diaz, some of the less trafficked byways off Sunset Boulevard, Bill Cosby’s attention-grabbing sculpture park and the synagogue where Liz Taylor and Eddie Fisher were married.
I also heard a lot of Hollywood trivia such as where the Halloween series was filmed on Orange Grove, that there are, at last count, 2,975 stars in the Hollywood Walk of Fame and that it costs $15,000 to have a star installed on the sidewalk. Bob Hope has five.
The tours let out near the landmark Roosevelt Hotel, whose 4,386-square-foot Blossom Room was the site of the first Academy Award presentation in 1929. The historic hotel recently underwent a $30 million upgrade.
A trip to downtown Los Angeles to hear the LA Philharmonic perform at the Walt Disney Concert Hall gave me a chance to ride the fairly new Metro Rail subway, a sleek, clean and quiet way to beat the freeway traffic. The concert hall designed by renowned architect, Frank Gehry, is named after Hollywood’s master of animated film, has wonderful acoustics and is visually extraordinary and stimulating, reminiscent to some degree of Sydney’s Opera House.
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