2/4/23
Newsletter 239
The Crack of Dawn
I’m staying at Loew’s Hotel Hollywood on Highland and Hollywood Blvd. Around the corner is Grauman’s Chinese Theater, started by Sid Grauman in 1927, which is when the earliest hand and footprints are dated (Janet Gaynor is dated 1927). For many years the theater was renamed Mann’s Chinese, but now it’s back to Grauman’s. The forecourt with the hand and footprints looks shabby and neglected, but still draws tourists from around the world. An Australian fellow and I were both looking at Gary Cooper’s prints, dated 1943, and we both mumbled something like, “Gary Cooper. Cool,” and thus connected began to talk old movies. He was in his 40s and was trying to interest his 14-year-old daughter in Gary Cooper and couldn’t do it. But there were people from all over the world.
Directly across the street is the building where they shoot Jimmy Kimmel Live. If I’m not mistaken the building used to be a Bank of America, then Hamburger Hamlet, then went bust. Next to that is the El Capitan Theater, which I had completely forgotten. It’s all fixed up and looks good. I passed what remains of the Egyptian Theater – Sid Grauman’s first theater on Hollywood Blvd. – and it’s a construction site. I asked a workman, “Are you tearing the theater down?” He said, “No, we’re rebuilding it.” I sighed gratefully and said, “Good.” I happily recall seeing the opening night show of Alien in 1979 at the enormous Egyptian Theater and having the shit scared out of me. That’s also where I saw an Easter Sunday screening of The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) with Charlton Heston introducing the film. He plays John the Baptist and he told us about shooting in the freezing cold Colorado River.
Next to the El Capitan is the Hotel Roosevelt, where the very first Oscar ceremony was held in 1929. There were only about six awards and it took half an hour after dinner.
I walked past the bungalow where I used to live on McCadden Ave. This is where good old Quentin Tarantino used to hang out endlessly discussing bad movies (not with me). He and my roommate, Scott, would say over and over again, “You think that’s bad, have you seen . . .” On multiple occasions I had to flee the premises.
A couple of blocks from there is DeLongpre Park, which is also known as Rudolph Valentino Park. There are two statues of him: one is an accurate bust of his handsome face; the other is an extremely deco full-body statue of him as sort of a god looking upward with the inscription, “ASPIRATION.”
I also passed the Panavision headquarters. I used Panavision equipment on my film, If I Had a Hammer. Because they had recently introduced their Panavision Platinum camera, nobody wanted their older Panavision Gold cameras and they were giving the best deal in town. I thought, “How cool is it to have a Panavision camera, and be able to use the Panavision logo at the end of the movie? Way cool.” Two days into the shoot the camera took a complete shit and stopped working. I’d never had an Arriflex camera stop working. Luckily, we were shooting right here in town. The DP called Panavision and within an hour we had another camera. They were wonderful, and highly apologetic. Great. But if I had been on location and that happened, I would hate Panavision forever. As it is, I love them.
It’s sunny and 66 degrees here in Hollywood. I’m wearing shorts and flip-flops. When I left Detroit yesterday it was 7 degrees.
Let’s all party like it’s 1999.