Hollywood

not everyone's best comedian

Hollywood did not reflect what my TV based mind had envisaged. I was a little disappointed. Whatever Hollywood may have been, it is no longer.

Driving into Hollywood Boulevard renders two views that are antitheses of each other.  Look to one side of the street and see the brass “Stars” set in the footpath on the Walk of Fame, the Chinese Theatre and the Dolby Theatre resplendent in vibrant, almost royal, colours. Tourist cameras flash at each other capturing the garishness of both the building facades and fellow tourists. Everywhere there is colour, movement, sound, heat and sweat.

the other side of the street

Look to the other side of the street and take in the chemist shops, liquor stores, cheap souvenir outlets and homeless people selling $2 maps revealing the homes of the stars. Both sides of the street are not quite ying and yang and perhaps this is more of a comment on poor city planning that of the people occupying the space.

My rose coloured glasses slipped down my nose a bit. All of that American television, that I pay Foxtel dearly to watch, had brainwashed into believing that I would see the worlds best cars being driven by the worlds most glamorous people cruising up and down the Boulevarde.

What I got was a view of too many tour coaches, no parking and cheap American Whisky from “Hollywood Liquor”, which sits beside the hostel and opposite Madame Tussauds’.  Clutching my bagged liquor I pushed my rose coloured glasses back up my nose and stepped across the street to hug the pert bosom of a waxy Lucille Ball, looking like she had just stepped out of “The long, long trailer”.

 It was safe, Desi was nowhere to be seen. 

So how did it get to this…………  

In 1800, Hollywood was a grassy field. By 1870, an agricultural community was flourishing in the area.  In 1886 Hobart Whitley and his wife, who were just passing, bought 500 acres and moved in. They named the area “Hollywood” as the native trees covering the hillside were called “California Holly”, hence Hollywood. The name became popular and stuck.  By 1900, Hollywood had a post office, a newspaper, a hotel and two markets, along with a population of 500 people which has grown to approximately 300,000 today.

Shirley could no wrong

In the early 1900s, motion picture production companies from New York and New Jersey started moving to California because of the reliable weather and bright sunlight. Although electric lights existed at that time, none were powerful enough to adequately expose film; the best source of illumination for movie production was natural sunlight.

 The Biograph Company moved west to this little village called Hollywood with a troupe of young wannabe’s such as Blanche Sweet, Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, and others.  They then filmed the first movie ever shot in Hollywood called “In Old California”.  With this film, the Hollywood movie industry was "born". 

The now famous Hollywood sign was the work of an enterprising real estate salesman’s spin on marketing a new housing estate in the area and read "Hollywoodland". For several years, the sign was left to deteriorate until 1949 when the local Chamber of Commerce stepped in and removed the last four letters and repaired the rest, hence HOLLYWOOD.

Hollywoodland

Today, much of the movie industry has moved away from Hollywood but many historic Hollywood theatres are used as venues to premiere major theatrical releases, and host the Academy Awards.

I enjoyed visiting but it is now primarily a slightly seedy tourist draw-card, but so is Kings Cross.