Fully exhausted by Knott’s Berry Farm, we arrived quite late at Canoga Park. It is to the north west of Los Angeles – basically past Beverley Hills and turn left.
The idea for our next stop was to visit Hollywood, do the Walk of Fame and The Chinese Theatre, as well as seeing the Kodak Theater (ahem, now called Dolby since Kodak went pop.)
Hollywood
Hollywood was not what we were expecting.
Being greeted by a homeless drunken nutter, shouting at everyone he passed, including himself, made it feel a bit like a film set, but unfortunately this was a stark reality. He wasn’t the last homeless guy we saw by far and obviously Hollywood, is a mixed bag of wealth and poverty.
Imagine a street full of red granite stars. Now, imagine a block of streets, full of red granite stars. Finally, imagine a whole town full of red granite stars. We quickly realised that to walk them all, would take some time. In fact they planned for 2,518 stars originally, though due to a lack of space they are doing second rows in some places. That is a lot of walking on a hot day.
We parked quite a way from the main action, at the Los Angeles Film School on West Sunset Boulevard, so the parking was pretty cheap, in the end it cost $20 for about 4 hours stay. We only really parked there, because we didn’t realise that the centre is 20 minutes walk away.
Parking
There is a bit of a theme across the whole USA. When you get near to a landmark, everyone has a piece of land where you can park. Watch for the small print as from the street they say ‘Parking just $8’ then after parking, the words (for the first hour) are suddenly visible underneath.
Tip 42 – Watch out for ‘cheap’ parking near US Landmarks. It is often more expensive once they have your keys.
The Walk of Fame itself is actually several walks of fame and not easy to do in one single journey. Time for some more brutal honesty, we hadn’t heard of most of the stars. That is probably because either, they are from decades ago, they are only well known in the US, or simply because they weren’t in the major blockbusters.
After a while of wandering, a few questions popped into my mind.
- What is the qualifying criteria for getting a star?
- How can some people have more than one star – Michael Jackson for example?
- Can they retract a star after giving it?
- Why is Muhammad Ali’s star in a glass frame on the wall of the Dolby Theatre?
- Do people get to choose where their star is (some places are obviously better than others)?
I am not sure of the answers, but I guess you can find out. It is fascinating in some respects, but a little hammy in others. Just like some of the actors whose names adorn the stars.
Tip 43 – Get an idea of where the stars you want to see are in advance or you will be searching for some time.
At the other end of Sunset Boulevard from where we started, we found the Dolby Theatre. This is the home of the Academy Awards – aka The Oscars.
It is a very impressive building actually and if you climb the stairs, you can get to a shopping mall with two massive elephant atop skyscraping pillars. I may be guessing, but the whole concept seems to be a religious temple to shopping.
Which it most certainly is.
There is an awesome Candy store with a Ferrari gumball machine, sugar dispensing urinals and a Wonka store. You have to see it really.
Out the back of the mall to the left is a sign saying Tourist Information. When you get there it is the start point for the tours of Hollywood and Beverley Hills. I asked someone where we could see the famous sign and they said – “come on the tour…” everyone in Hollywood is a tourist or a tour salesperson.
Heading back up Sunset Boulevard, we passed a huge crowd. This was the Chinese Theatre. For those who don’t know, this is the place where famous actors have embedded their foot and handprints. This is much more fascinating than the stars for a few reasons.
First, you get to feel closed to the stars, as these are real imprints they have left, but more importantly, you can amaze yourself at how small their hands and feet are. Some stars are obviously very small people. I put my feet over Humphrey Bogart’s and realised why he was nicknamed the ‘Cinematic Dwarf’.
Once we left Hollywood, we headed for its sister city at Beverly Hills.
Beverly Hills
I was a big fan of the Clampetts as a kid, so interested to see how things had changed since then.
First of all, Beverly Hills is now in full colour, rather than black and white.
The traffic between the two places is quite heavy, but not as heavy as coming back later on. Once you reach Beverly Hills, it is as if a large fairy has waved her wand. The slightly downtrodden feel of Hollywood is replaced be clean, sparkling white mansions.
We decided to drive down Rodeo Drive which was kind of similar to you see it on the TV, but a lot more like a shopping street anywhere else. Obviously, the super brands are all there but it lots of other less ‘posh’ brands have a store in Beverly Hills too.
After Rodeo, we decided to go into the Hollywood Hills for a bit of a drive round the mansions. You can buy your own map of the celebrities houses and if you have a car, do it yourself. Either that or you can follow one of the many buses that is doing the same and earwig on the commentary. After you have seen a few big houses, they get a bit boring, so we decided to head back.
The kids asked if we would see any celebrities. I told them it was unlikely as they rarely come out to play or are travelling round the world filming. Some bloke was twittering in his Aston Martin next to us, probably on his way to work. I realised that it was Piers Morgan…
Quite funny to travel all this way and see a fellow Brit ‘celebrity’. Nice Aston Piers – good to see you are buying British. We gave him a wave but it was during the final Ashes test, so I reckon he was tweeting about it. Obviously, he hasn’t seen the distracted driving signs everywhere yet.
We were beside him for a while down Sunset Boulevard and he looked like he was heading for the CNN building. I bet he gets annoyed with the Yanks waving at him but at least we were fellow Brits abroad…
Next stop Visalia