California Baseball: Day 11
Hollywood
Photo by Michael E. Arth / CC BY-SA 4.0
The baseball-scheduling gods had decreed we would have one last off day on our 15-game odyssey through California’s Major and Minor League ballparks. Because that day off would take place on our way to Los Angeles, I had booked a Paramount Pictures VIP Studio Tour in Hollywood for the afternoon. This was another nod to Danny, who composes and does sound design for films and hopes to do the same someday for a major motion picture.
I spent my first 25 years living in nearby San Diego County, but I had never really visited Hollywood properly. I passed through it on the way to somewhere else, saw the famous sign from a distance by happenstance. I was never caught up in the Hollywood mystique: the glitz and glamour, the lives of the actors and actresses. The notion of taking a tour bus in the hopes of catching a fleeting glimpse of a real-live celebrity – no doubt annoyed at the stalker-like intrusion – was never a thing that interested me.
But I love movies like anyone else, so I was excited to rectify this gap in my home-state experience and start our day with a visit to the epicenter of Hollywood tourism: the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and North Highland Avenue.
After an uneventful drive from Visalia through Bakersfield and over the winding climb-and-descent into Los Angeles County known as the Grapevine, we parked at an outdoor shopping mall, where we were able to get a view of the “Hollywood” sign. Overlooking the city from Mount Lee in the Santa Monica Mountains, the sign was originally built in 1923 as “Hollywoodland” to promote a segregated housing development, with 4,000 light bulbs spelling out the letters and flashing the word in segments. In 1978, with several of the sign’s letters broken or fallen down, nine donors – an unlikely collection of locals that included Gene Autry, Hugh Hefner, and Alice Cooper -- sponsored the restoration of each letter for a total cost of $250,000.
We emerged on Hollywood Boulevard, an incongruous assemblage of historic theaters, tacky souvenir stands, and unlicensed characters taking photos with tourists. Along the sidewalk for several blocks in either direction are the stars of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. More than 2,600 terrazzo-and-brass stars line the streets to honor actors, directors, producers, composers, musical groups, radio hosts, fictional characters, and more. It’s a good bit of fun to stumble upon both the very famous and the nearly forgotten as you stroll down the sidewalk.
The look on his face.
A few steps away was the Dolby Theatre, which has hosted the Academy Awards ceremony since it opened as the Kodak Theatre in November 2001.
Just past the Dolby Theatre sits Grauman’s Chinese Theatre (now called TCL Chinese Theatre, after a Chinese electronics company), perhaps the most iconic spot in Hollywood after the sign itself. Working with “the Father of Hollywood,” real estate developer Charles E. Toberman, Sid Grauman opened the Chinese Theatre in 1927, soon after the duo launched the Egyptian and El Capitan theaters less than a block away. Built in the same Exotic Revival style architecture as the El Capitan, the Chinese Theatre’s first film was the premiere of Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings. Fifty years later, it hosted the premiere of Star Wars.
Most of the activity around the Chinese Theatre is focused on the handprints, footprints, and signatures set in concrete in the court of the theater. Nearly 200 celebrities have made their mark here since Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford did so in 1927. Plenty of other iconic celebrity markings have been made as well — from Betty Grable’s legs and Groucho Marx’s cigar to Whoopi Goldberg’s dreadlock and the wands used by the cast of the Harry Potter movies.
Satisfied that we had seen as much as we needed to see, we drove a couple of blocks to Sunset Boulevard for lunch at In-n-Out Burger — a quintessentially Californian choice — then made our way over to the Melrose Avenue entrance of Paramount Pictures for our studio tour.
Paramount founder Adolph Zukor was an Austro-Hungarian-born orphan who immigrated to the United States in 1891. A little more than a decade later, he had earned enough money in the fur industry to invest in a chain of early movie theaters in the northeast. In 1912, he established the Famous Players Film Company, distributing movies that featured top stars like Sarah Bernhardt. Four years later, Zukor brought 22 of his biggest stars under contract — including Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino, and Gloria Swanson — under a new production company. He then let everyone know he had locked up some of the industry’s best talent by launching a new logo for Paramount Pictures, arced by 22 stars. Paramount is now the second-oldest studio in the U.S. (Universal Studios is first), and the fifth-oldest in the world.
We paused in the tour lobby to admire costumes from Star Trek: Beyond, The Addams Family, and Sweeney Todd; the 1972 Best Picture Oscar for The Godfather; a replica of the Terminator, and the prosthetic head of Brad Pitt from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Also in the room was a rundown of every show that was shooting or preparing to shoot on the various stages at Paramount. Straight away, I spotted This Is Us — a show my family watches and loves — and immediately shed my cool-headed approach to celebrities. I felt a real desire to find and gawk at the stars of the show that makes us all cry, every damn week. It didn’t need to be Randall or Rebecca or Jack. Any of them would do. And when I found them here at Paramount, out in the wild, in their natural habitat, I would… well, you know, look at them! Those people from the TV! Right there!
Perhaps it would be Jane Fonda or Lily Tomlin from Grace & Frankie; their show was shooting this day. Or maybe it would be someone I wouldn’t even recognize, from NCIS-Los Angeles or Transparent. That would still be fun. Heck, I’d even take Dr. Phil!
Danny and I sat on the back of the large golf cart driven by tour guide Tyler, strapped on our headphones, and we were on our way. We started in the courtyard fountain in front of the attractive Bronson Gate (named for it’s location on Bronson Avenue). The gate was the main entrance to the studio until 1978 and has been featured in many films, including a prominent role in Sunset Boulevard.
Next we had a look at the Paramount Theatre, a 500-seat, state-of-the-art movie theater used for premieres and special screenings. Just outside, I had a seat on Forrest Gump’s bench with a prop box of chocolates.
Tyler steered our golf cart into the studio proper, then stopped in front of Stage 1. In all, Paramount has 30 “stages” — large buildings where sets can be constructed — and 10 of these can accommodate live audiences. Each stage has a long history. Stage 1, for example, has hosted filming for The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), The Nutty Professor (1963), and The Truman Show (1998), plus TV shows like the original MacGyver and Nip/Tuck. Thirteen stages on the west side of the Paramount property once belonged to Desilu Studios (founded by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz), and before that to RKO Pictures. There is a Stage 31 and 32, but the total number is still 30: Stage 10 has been converted into a post-production facility, and Stage 13 — well, no one wants to take their creative risks with the number 13.
What you see on the Paramount lot are a lot of these big buildings, and people working in and around them. A few seconds of TV or movie magic require hours of preparation. So you don’t see a big scene being filmed, or famous actors milling about. You see carpenters cutting wood for sets; painters applying color to their canvasses; lighting technicians moving equipment; and food-service personnel preparing meals. When all of this planning and production is complete, when every room interior has been carefully constructed, and the lights have been positioned and fine-tuned for the moment, and the props have been sourced and placed to seamlessly blend into the setting, and the actors have finally arrived in costumes and make-up, prepared to align their character’s thoughts with the director’s creative intention — then it will all come together, for a few moments, and it may even be magic. But until then, there’s work to be done.
We stopped at the Archive, where roughly 200,000 copies of Paramount films are stored, labeled for every imaginable format and language. The full archive numbers about 500,000. This includes about 800 cellulose nitrate-based films from the 1920s to the 1940s that are stored in an underground facility at nearby UCLA, because nitrate film is not only very flammable but begins to deteriorate at temperatures of about 70 degrees and humidity greater than 50 percent.
Moviola film-editing machines from the 1930s and 1950s.
From the Archive, our group walked through several narrows passageways that took us past props, costumes and jewelry used in Paramount films over the years.
Anchorman
Grease
Blades of Glory
Rocketman
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Sulu)
True Grit, The Coneheads, The Great Gatsby
Back in the golf cart, we went down an alley to see of the impressive electrical equipment that powers the magic. The alley itself doubles as a film location for scenes that take place in an industrial setting.
We continued on to see workshops for painting and sign construction. You don’t realize how many signs are used in a film — how much they communicate and how much they add to the ambiance of the film — until you enter a room full of signs, ranging from the mundane to the eye-catching.
We then went to the practical effects workshop, where two men worked on a huge metal object with valves and fittings. They were the only workers in sight in the huge warehouse building.
As we left, Tyler discreetly noted that he had just heard that, due to the ubiquity of computer-based special effects, the practical effects department was being shut down, and layoff notices had been handed out. The end of an era for a line of workers who provided a unique blend of art, science, and craftsmanship for so many movies.
Clowning around with a fake anvil in front of a set of knives from Dexter.
The golf cart continued its path around the Paramount lot. We passed what seemed to be an innocuous parking lot, sunk about four feet below street level, with a massive cloudy-sky backdrop. The “B” tank, as it’s known, can be filled with one million gallons of water to serve as the set for a scene on an ocean, lake, bay, or pool. This not-so-exotic location has been used to recreate water scenes in The Truman Show, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and several installments in the Star Trek franchise.
Part of our VIP Studio Tour experience was a champagne reception with appetizers in a building stuffed with props from Paramount films. We mingled as best as our social skills would allow, then perused the items on display.
Refreshed after our break, we climbed back into the cart and took a quick tour of the buildings that serve as street scenes in Paramount films and TV shows, ranging from old-time inner-city setups — singed with soot and festooned with fire escapes — to modern plazas with subways and buildings of steel and glass.
For our last stop, we were invited to a stage that had done some recent taping. It was for a Dr. Phil spin-off called Face the Truth, a daytime show hosted by Vivica A. Fox. Fox and her “panel of experts,” with help from the audience, searched for “constructive resolutions” to the personal problems posed by guests. it sounded dreadful. We were not allowed to film the set, but no matter: Face the Truth was canceled after one season.
As we headed back toward the entrance to the lot, we passed by the brick-lined private bungalow Lucille Ball lived in during the 1960s, when she worked at the old Desilu Studios. It is attached to Studio 25, which not only hosted her I Love Lucy episodes but also Cheers and Frasier. A little park in front of the home provides some respite from the otherwise industrial setting of Paramount Pictures.
Danny and I drove back to our hotel and had a nice dinner at a pizza place around the corner from our downtown Los Angeles hotel, fueling up for another big day on the road.