2/12/23
Newsletter #245
The Crack of Dawn
In the mid-1980s a Xeroxed little rag of a publication began appearing around the Detroit area called Film Threat. I took such umbrage at the misinformed, poorly-written, idiotic articles that I wrote a lengthy screed denouncing their magazine and sent it to them. In issue #2 they printed my entire letter, which I found kind of charming. In time I became acquainted with the editor/publisher, Chris Gore.
In the early-1990s Chris managed to sell the magazine to Larry Flynt at Hustler magazine, and suddenly Film Threat was being published internationally as a good-looking glossy magazine. I ran into Chris at a party in L.A. and he asked me if I’d like to write for his magazine and he could actually pay me, and of course I accepted. Over the next two years I wrote quite a few articles for Film Threat, a couple of which became the main, cover piece. Here is a condensation of my article on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (which I just traversed numerous times last week) from April, 1992.
The stars embedded in the sidewalk that are collectively known as The Walk Of Fame stretch east and west for over a mile on Hollywood Boulevard, from Sycamore St. to Gower St., and four blocks north and south on Vine St., from Sunset Blvd. to Yucca St. There are approximately 1970 [certainly more now] of these coral terrazzo stars, outlined in brass on a charcoal terrazzo background, bearing the names of personalities from movies, TV, radio, and records.
I have personally witnessed that when the terrazzo surface of The Walk of Fame has the slightest bit of moisture on it – like every single morning – it becomes extremely slippery and slick. On a rainy day it is not uncommon to see poor unsuspecting tourists from around the world slipping and falling down upon the stars.
But who are these people on the stars and how did they get this immortal privilege? I've always wondered about this since, for example, Humberto Luna, a local L.A. disc jockey, has a star and Francis Coppola, winner of five Academy Awards, does not. A few other notables who do not have stars are: Lon Chaney, Jr., Howard Hughes, and David O. Selznick, producer of Gone With The Wind (although his father, Lewis J. Selznick, an early film distributor, has one).
The order form from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, sponsors of The Walk Of Fame, states, "In order to be selected to receive a star on the famous Walk, a person must have their sponsor complete and return a nomination form with the biography and photo of the nominee. If the nominator is a fan, there must be a guarantee that the fee of $4,800 will be paid and that the celebrity is in accordance with the nomination." [Thirty-one years later, I’ll bet the fee has gone up].
Here are aspects of the Walk of Fame that I found interesting:
—Michael Jackson has two stars, and The Jacksons have one (not the Jackson 5), and Janet has one as well.
—Only nine people do not have a movie camera, a TV, a microphone or a record insignia, but instead have a happy face/sad face which I would believe indicates a stage career, but you judge for yourself: George Carlin, George Burns (whereas his vaudeville, radio, movie and TV partner, Gracie Allen, has a TV), Gene Autry, The Fourstep Brothers, Joel Gray, Gene Barry, Jim Nabors and James Nederlander.
—Both of the directors of King Kong have their names misspelled. Ernest B. Schoedsack (who always used his middle initial B.) hasn't got the B. and his last name is spelled "Schoedsach"; Merian C. Cooper’s name is spelled "Meriam," and in fact there was a silent screen actress named Miriam Cooper, but if it's supposed to be her then it's still spelled wrong.
—There are three stars for people named Pee-Wee: Pee-Wee Hunt, Pee-Wee King and Pee-Wee Herman.
—One sports team has a star, The Harlem Globetrotters [I recall that the LA Lakers have one now].
—Father and son actors Tex Ritter and John Ritter have their stars next to one another.
—A father and his two sons, all next to each, are: Lloyd Bridges, Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges.
—Two inventors have stars: Thomas A. Edison and Mark Serrurier, inventor of the moviola.
—The only stars that state the actor's name and the character they became famous playing are: Clayton Moore The Lone Ranger; Freeman Gosden Amos and Charles Correll Andy (since there are no quotation marks one might easily construe that Amos and Andy were their last names).
—The only name that contains a small case letter is the 'e' in Dom DeLuise's name.
—The only company that has a star is Hannah Barbera.
—The only novelist with a star who never worked in the movies, but had a number of his books filmed, is Harold Robbins. (Sidney Sheldon, also a best-selling novelist with a star, was an Academy Award-winning screenwriter long before he wrote any novels).
—Faye Emerson's name is misspelled ("Fay Emerson").
—Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle is only listed as "Roscoe Arbuckle," whereas Eddie "Rochester" Anderson is only listed as "Rochester."
—Three of the four Warner Brothers, Harry, Jack, and Sam, have stars, but brother Albert does not. Jesse Lasky and Adolph Zukor, founders of Paramount Pictures have stars (as well as Y. Frank Freeman who was head of production there for a while, and the joke at the time was, “I don’t know, Y. Frank Freeman?”), as do Louis B. Mayer from M-G-M, Carl Laemmle from Universal, and William Fox, Darryl Zanuck and Joseph Schenck from 20th Century-Fox, however Samuel Goldwyn, Harry Cohn (and his brother Joe), and Howard Hughes do not.
—Nat "King" Cole has two stars, one with quotation marks around King, one without.
—Only three animals have stars, all dogs: Lassie, Rin-Tin-Tin, and Goodheart (a silent screen German Shepherd surprisingly similar to Rin-Tin-Tin).
—Four cartoon characters have stars: Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Snow White, and Woody Woodpecker [this may have changed].
—Mauritz Stiller (who directed many Greta Garbo pictures) used to be misspelled as “Maurice Diller,” then it was fixed with letters that don't match the others.
—Ignace Paderewski only has the name "Paderewski" (but perhaps he was like Cantinflas or Madonna).
—Robert Goulet, co-star of the Broadway show Camelot (not the movie), and best-selling singer, has a movie camera insignia.
—Ronald Reagan, second-lead movie actor, former Governor of California, and former President of the United States, has a TV (he was the host of the TV show, Death Valley Days).
—Charles Boyer has two stars: one with a movie camera, and one with a TV (I don’t believe he had much of a TV career), located five stars away from one another.
—Basil Rathbone, character actor in many great films and star of the Sherlock Holmes film series, has three stars, all for the movies.
—The musical groups with stars are: The Jacksons, Crosby Stills & Nash (not Young), Sons Of The Pioneers, The Spinners, Bee Gees (no "The"), Beach Boys (no "The"), The Monkees, The Mills Bros., Bob Seger And The Silver Bullet Band, The Steve Miller Band, and The Original 5th Dimension (not to be confused with The Fake 5th Dimension, I presume).
Here is a list of the people with stars who have silly names:
Melachrino, Blanche Thebom, Ted Weems, Tommy Riggs & Betty Lou, Phil Spitalny, Joseph Szigeti, Little Jack Little, Renata Tebaldi, Schumann-Heink, Smilin' Ed McConnell, Zino Francescatti, Mabel Taliaferro, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Feodor Chaliapin, Spade Cooley, Louise Glaum, Tichi Wilkerson-Kassel, Beniamino Gigli, Amelita Galli Curci, Kirsten Flagstad, Aileen Pringle, Oscar Micheaux, Ferlin Husky, Licia Albanese, Toby Wing, Viola Dana, Harry Von Zell, Graham McNamee, Abbe Lane (cousin to Abbey Road), Jetta Goudal, Rusty Hamer, Constance Binney, Carmen Cavallero, Jessica Dragonette, Art Acord, John Bunny, Lottie Lehman, Meiklejohn, Heine Conklin, Ralph Staub, Blue Barron, Robert Casadesus, Pinky Lee, House Peters, Smiley Burnette and, of course, Parkyakarkus.
The list of people that I didn't recognize is hundreds of names long. I looked them all up in Leslie Halliwell's Filmgoer's Companion and about a third of them were listed.
Here are a few interesting ones:
—Lina Basquette: Silent screen actress, former child star who had six husbands.
—Susan Peters: Leading lady of the forties; badly injured in an accident and continued her career from a wheelchair.
—Jane Froman: (who has three stars) Former band singer, whose heroic resumption of her career following an air crash was portrayed by Susan Hayward in the move, With A Song In My Heart.
—Tom Brown: Child star of the thirties; the "boy next door" type, who reemerged in the sixties as one of the villagers in the TV series Gunsmoke.
—Gilda Gray: A Polish dancer who went to America and is credited with inventing the "Shimmy."
—Cass Daley: (who has two stars) Comedienne whose shouted songs and acrobatic contortions were a feature of several musicals of the forties.
—Kathlyn Williams: (whose name is misspelled, "ee" instead of "y") Leading lady of silent films; one of the first serial queens, on screen from 1911.
—Houdini (AKA Harry Houdini): world-famous magician actually made a number of silent movies between 1918 and his death in 1926.
—Olive Borden: Silent screen actress whose real name was Sybil Tinkle.
—Marie Doro: Played the role of Oliver Twist in the 1916 version of the film.
—Texas Guinan: Entertainer of the twenties whose catchphrase was "Hello, sucker!" Betty Hutton played her in the film, Incendiary Blonde.
—Betty Bayne: Whose real name was Pearl Von Name.
—Lila Lee: Whose real name was Augusta Apple, mother to novelist and playwright James Kirkwood (Pulitzer Prize-winner for A Chorus Line).
—Helen Gahagan: Star of one single movie, the 1935 version of She, and also married to Oscar-winning actor, Melvyn Douglas.
Off we go, into the wild blue yonder of another day. I say, have fun.