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Well, I'm back from Los Angeles, and if the best indicator of a successful vacation is that you don't want it to end, it's safe to say that this one was a roaring success.
This was my first chance to travel with my Flo, and while I wasn't at all apprehensive about our prospects for a lovely and harmonious week in the City of Angels, it is common wisdom that the first trip a new couple takes together can be risky.
We came through unscathed and sans tension. It was a lovely week all around, and Flo was delightfully patient with me, as she always is.
Here's the blow-by-blow (for larger versions of all the photos below, just click on the images):
Saturday, Nov. 18 -- We arrived at LAX at 7 p.m., and after picking up our rental car (a silver-grey Ford Focus -- that's right, we were living large!), we spent a little time looking for the Foster's Freeze that was the "hamburger stand" cited in the Beach Boys' hit, "Fun! Fun! "Fun!"
The search didn't go so well, and I threw in the towel quickly. I didn't want to spend the first hour of the trip motoring aimlessly around Hawthorne, California. Next time, perhaps.
So we pointed the Focus north on La Cienega, and I pointed out to Flo a few key attractions along the way -- Canter's Deli, the Farmer's Market, Grauman's Chinese, Musso and Frank's. We finally arrived at the Motel 6 -- on Whitley just north of Hollywood Blvd.
The less said about that sorry excuse for a motel, the better -- suffice it to say that I expect any room I pay to sleep in to be accompanied by a parking spot on the motel grounds, not several blocks away. Oh, and there should be at least one, y'know, drawer.
We moved a couple of days later to the Travelodge at Sunset and La Brea and were glad we did.
But enough grousing. It was nine o'clock or so when we finally got settled, and we were a little beat from the long day of travel. But not so tired that we couldn't venture out. We strolled Hollywood Boulevard for a bit before ending up at Miceli's for a pizza pie and a couple of beers.
Miceli's claims to be the oldest Italian restaurant in Los Angeles, and I'm willing to believe it. The pies aren't up to the standards of New York's finest pizza emporiums, but they're pretty tasty.
To top it off, Miceli's is featured in the opening scenes of Nightfall, an entertaining film noir from 1957. Aldo Ray picks up Ann Bancroft at the bar there (and then the fun begins).
The travel fatigue and the beer caught up with us before long, and we called it a night. But Miceli's made for a fine start to a fun week.
Sunday, Nov. 19 -- In December of 1913, Jesse Lasky and Cecil B. DeMille leased a barn at the corner of Selma and Vine to serve as a studio for their production of The Squaw Man, the first feature picture ever shot in Hollywood (though not the first shot in the greater Los Angeles area).
That barn was later moved to the studio lot that would become Paramount Pictures, where it was designated California State Historic Landmark No. 554. It was then put into storage until, finally, in 1983. Hollywood Heritage, Inc. acquired it and moved it to its present site, just across Highland from the Hollywood Bowl. A restoration was undertaken, and the barn now houses the Hollywood Heritage Museum.
We paid a visit to the museum on Sunday morning and found it filled with an assortment of posters, flyers, and other artifacts from Hollywood history. I'm so glad the Lasky/DeMille Barn was preserved; it's a lovely spot and well worth a visit.
After that, we strolled over to the Hollywood Bowl. I've always wanted to attend a show at this venerable venue, but somehow have never managed to do so. But I did finally want to get a look inside, and Flo was game. Our visit convinced me further that I must take in a show here when next I visit during the performance season.
Next up was a quick jaunt up the 101 to Burbank, where my old friend Jim was appearing in a play. Jim and I worked together at Fat Tuesday's here in NYC many years ago, and I always try to look him up when I'm in Los Angeles. It was a special treat to get to attend a play he was involved in. The play, Dockers, is basically On the Waterfront in Ireland and it got a little preachy at times, but the performances were good and it was fun to see Jim.
That evening found us at my favorite LA burger spot, Astro Burger. Los Angeles is blessed with many great burger joints -- franchised and otherwise -- and I'm always left scratching my head over the fact that any self-respecting Angeleno would patronize the likes of McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's when they've got so many better options, including In 'n' Out Burger and Astro Burger.
I had avocado and cheddar on my burger, while Flo went for the garden burger deluxe (which also came with avocado) and we combined to demolish a huge basket of onion rings. It was a delight to sit outside and watch the traffic go by on Santa Monica Blvd. as we enjoyed our grub.
We closed out the evening with cocktails at the Formosa Cafe, a Hollywood stalwart since 1925 that I had not managed to patronize on previous West Coast sojourns.
Any number of Hollywood stars were patrons of the Formosa, among them James Dean, Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, and Marlon Brando.
Lana Turner, too, was a regular here in the 1950s, a fact that's recounted in the 1997 picture L.A. Confidential. Remember the scene where the detective mistakes Lana for a hooker mocked up to look like Lana Turner? That was filmed at the Formosa.
Monday, Nov. 20 -- Paramount, the only major studio still located in Hollywood proper, stopped giving tours after the events of 9/11, but that hasn't stopped me, in recent years, from stopping to give its iconic arch a gander. But it always disappointed me that I couldn't stroll the same sidwalks once trod by giants like the Marx Brothers, Preston Sturges, and Ernst Lubitsch.
Finally, though, the veil's been lifted, and the studio is again offering tours. So Flo and I made our reservations and presented ourselves at the Paramount gate first thing Monday morning.
Our guide was a pleasant, if callow, youth named Justin who arrived in Los Angeles from St. Louis just five months ago -- he's been at Paramount four months. I knew as much, if not more, than he did about the studio's history, but he did his best. I asked him if he could possibly point out any particular sites -- sound stages, offices, etc. -- where Preston Sturges had worked, and he appeared a bit thrown (though he insisted that he had, in fact, heard of the great man, which was of some small comfort).
Justin didn't manage to come up with any Sturges sites for me, but he have a few historic spots in his repertoire, thankfully -- Alfred Hitchcock's former office, for example. as depicted to the right.
But it was thrill enough just to know I was trodding the same ground many of my favorite filmmakers had once walked.
We followed the Paramount tour with lunch of chili dogs and onion rings at Pink's, an LA institution since 1939. I'd never managed to eat there (though I'd driven by it dozens of times) because the lines were so long and I never had sufficient time. But Flo and I lucked out on Monday, waiting only about fifteen minutes or so before reaching the front of the line.
And man oh man, was it worth it. That was some seriously delicious junk food. It was Flo's first chili dog (I know, I know, but what can you do?), and she's rock-solid sold. We'll enjoy at least one more when we spend a few days in Oklahoma City over the holidays. A visit to OKC's just not complete without a trip to Sonic.
But on this day, it was all about the Pink's, and I was thrilled to finally get to taste their wares. Memorable, indeed.
With time to kill before we were to take in a double feature at ironically named New Beverly theatre, we motored over to Westwood to take a peek at some of the beautiful old movie houses in that part of town. My favorite is the Fox Village, but the Bruin and the Crest are beauties, too, and Flo was duly impressed.
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We wrapped up our day with a classic double feature at the aforementioned Beverly. Flo had never seen either Out of the Past or The Big Sleep.
They're a great pair of movies, and though the latter's probably the better known to the average movie fan today, it's the former that's by far the stronger picture, in my view. I was pleased to introduce Flo to them both.
More to come soon...