Our Man in Tinseltown
Sunday, March 25, 10:32 p.m.: A limousine leaving the Oscar ceremony at the Shrine Auditorium blows the pages of the L.A. Weekly into a gutter. I lift a page to read a review of a movie called "Memento." In the film, a man loses his short-term memory after an accident. Although he can recall the distant past, he relies on snapshots and scribbled notes to remember what he is doing. The narrative is inverted, starting at the end of the story and working backwards to the beginning. I decide that the disruption of memory is an apt metaphor for Hollywood, where the names of the legends are impaled in the sidewalks but any building that pre-dates the Reagan administration is a prime target for the wrecking ball..
Sunday, 9:15 p.m.: Julia Roberts enters the interview tent behind the auditorium, cradling the gold statuette for which she would have murdered Laura Linney. Like every other journalist in this crowded room, I look up from my laptop and appraise the famous beauty on the flower-bedecked podium. The first question from the media gives her an opportunity to acknowledge the real Erin Brockovich, whom Roberts inadvertently excluded from the long and giddy acceptance speech she gave on the telecast. (Nobody asks her about her brother, Eric, with whom she reportedly hasn't spoken in years.) Although the foreign reporters are beguiled by her mile-wide smile, I keep remembering a press junket for "The Mexican" last month when Roberts repeatedly referred to the press as "you people." Tonight she's America's sweetheart and will party with Vanity Fair until she's hoarse form saying thank you; but I suspect that tomorrow she reverts to being a crabapple.
Sunday, 9:10 p.m.: Russell Crowe marches into the interview tent like he's daring somebody to throw the first punch. An Australian reporter calls him mate and asks him how it feels to win an Academy Award. Crowe announces that this process will go a lot smoother for everyone if we ask him questions that he can answer yes or no. But his attitude changes when somebody asks about the red medal that's pinned to his tuxedo jacket. Crowe says it's an M.B.E., which Queen Elizabeth awarded to Crowe's grandfather for his service as a war photographer. It turns out that Mr. Tough Guy is just a big softy.
Sunday, 7:45 p.m.: 300 reporters in tuxedos and gowns, hunched over computers on long picnic tables, listen to the Oscar broadcast on wireless headphones while the latest honorees step to the podium at the front of the room and wait for our questions. The reporters exclaim their collective surprise for Marcia Gay Harden and their collective delight for Benicio Del Toro. But although the winners in the technical categories wave their Oscars in our general direction, the only reporters how seem to care are Chinese. When the award for Best Documentary Feature goes to "Into the Arms of Strangers," Roger Ebert grumbles that you should never bet against a Holocaust movie. First-time filmmaker Tracy Seretean, an earnest young woman who won an Oscar for the documentary short "Big Mama," explains that her victory is a remarkable case of beginner's luck; but most of the reporters are busy watching the monitors and waiting to interview someone who can sell newspapers.
Sunday, 5:31 p.m.: In the parking lot behind the auditorium, I wait in the bathroom line next to Catherine Zeta Jones, who is smoking a cigarette. Inside the portable men's room, which has framed artwork, an electric shoe polisher and several dispensers of hair gel, a Mexican newspaper reporter exclaims that Zeta Jones is hot, not realizing that Michael Douglas is in an adjacent stall.
Sunday, 4:15 p.m.: At the side entrances of the auditorium, dozens of elegantly dressed "seat fillers" await their cue. These are the volunteers who will temporarily occupy the seats of the award winners so the cameras will not see any empty spaces. With their pleasant faces and generic finery, they look like they could pass for stars. Meanwhile, the real celebrities are pushing through the narrow entrance pavilion and past the gauntlet of on-camera reporters who are salivatng for sound bites. Hundreds of fans, perched in high bleachers, squeal at the first site of a famous face. In what other universe could they see such an incongruous cross-section of celebrities, from Ben Stiller to Charlton Heston to Jennifer Lopez to Julie Andrews, pressed together like beautiful beef on a blood-red carpet? This year, the analogy to the Roman Colisseum is hard to resist.
Sunday, 3:35 p.m.: The streets surrounding the Shrine Auditorium are clotted with limousines and police motorcycles, while the sidewalks are teeming with uniformed security guards, harried reporters, and curious students from the nearby University of Southern California. At the corner of Jefferson and Figueroa, a dozen protesters wave signs that say "Repent, movie scum!" Across the street from the auditorium, the crowds are five deep, and while they wait for the next celebrity to emerge from a limo, they are entertained by aspiring actors dressed as Superman, Marilyn Monroe and a bleeding Jesus Christ.
Saturday, March 24, 8:00 p.m.: I have dinner with my friend Matt, a set painter from St. Louis, at an Italian restaurant near Paramount studios. Matt has just completed a commercial for Hyundai, and his paint supplier has passed him some hot news: Steven Spielberg himself has declared that there won't be a writers' strike. Years ago, Matt and I moved to California together, and because he was the one who gutted it out, he's entitled to drop names. He mentions the afternoon in 1992 when he recognized Ed Harris in a Malibu diner, bought the actor a drink and ended up talking for five hours about Jackson Pollock. You do the math, he says.
Saturday, 2:30 p.m.: My plans for lunch are derailed when I discover that C.C. Brown's Ice Cream Shop is gone. The birthplace of the hot fudge sundae, where the teen-aged Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland once held court, was shuttered in 1996 to make room for another souvenir stand. That's the one thing I hate about Hollywood. They tear it down, and then they sell you back the memories.
Saturday, 2:15 p.m.: A guy named Phil is collaring tourists who might want to be extras in the new "Spiderman" movie. He says there's no money involved, but participants receive free souvenirs, and director Sam Raimi has even selected some of the volunteers to be "featured extras" with prominent on-screen placement. He adds that Mondays' shoot, at an old Boeing factory that 's been decorated to look like New York City, will be especially fun because "they'll be blowing up Times Square."
Saturday, 2:00 p.m.: Two teenage boys gaze at a souvenir stall in the crowded courtyard of Mann's Chinese Theater while a clerk dressed as Marilyn Monroe waits for them to decide what they want. The boys want to have their faces superimposed on a celebrity's body and printed as a magazine cover. "You should be Bruce Lee," one of the boys suggests to his friend. "No," says the other, "Let's both be Playboy bunnies." Meanwhile, at the slab of cement that bears Marilyn's Monroe's imprint, Asian tourists compare their hands to the star's. A father with his young daughter in tow tries to explain what the fuss is all about. "You never heard of Marilyn Monroe?" he asks her. "How about Joan Crawford?" With so many artifacts underfoot, stepping through this pavilion reminds me of walking across a graveyard. It's a sensation I didn't get at Marilyn Monroe's actual grave, a crypt in nearby Westwood, where her neighbors include Truman Capote and child star Heather O'Rourke, who is handily identified as "Carol Anne from 'Poltergeist.'"
Saturday, 1:41 p.m.: Outside the Hollywood Wax Museum, a floral arrangement for the newly departed William Hanna stands atop the sidewalk star that honors the Hanna-Barbera animation team. Nearby, a black-clad fellow with tattoos on his neck is distributing dollar-off coupons for the Museum of Death. "It's the building with the big skulls out front," he says. "It's been remodeled."
Friday, March 23, 11:56 p.m.: At a liquor store between on LaBrea, a large dude with a yellow Range Rover and Phat Farm togs pays $315 in cash for two bottles of French champagne. Thirty seconds later, he rushes back into the store for a box of condoms. "Magnum," he says. "Extra large."
Friday, 10:25 p.m.: At an faux English pub called Ye Coach and Horses, I meet a limousine driver named Mike who says he has kin in Affton, Mo. He says he is excited about his new project, lesbianlimo.com. For a fee, a customer can cruise around town with two libidinous showgirls. The driver says he learned from his good friend James Cameron, the director of "Titanic," that there's still room in Hollywood for a man with a dream.
Friday, 9:11 p.m.: I've heard that the new Metro Rail station at Hollywood and Vine is an impressive specimen of post-modern architecture, so I descend the escalator with my camera in hand. At the end of a long hallway, a sign above the rail platform says "A ticket is required beyond this point." A uniformed policeman sees me hesitate and says I am welcome to look around. Then he continues frisking a Hispanic teenager that he has pressed against the wall. Although the platform features a pair of vintage movie projectors and a vaulted ceiling that is festooned with movie reels, I am too spooked to take any photos.
Friday, 6:00 p.m.: The lead item on all the local news shows is the countdown to Oscar. Reporters file their stories from the red carpet outside the Shrine Auditorium and chat with the corn-fed civilians who are camping out on the sidewalk to score bleacher seats for the ceremony. The reporters note that the top fashion designers in the world have descended on Southern California to pitch their wares to the stars, and a shoe store in Beverly Hills has announced that it will stay open 24 hours a day to accommodate the last-minute shoppers. None of the reporters mention the construction mishap that happened two days earlier on the very spot where they are standing.
Friday, 3:45 p.m.: A clerk at the Academy tells me that I need to have a tuxedo if I want to cover the Oscar ceremony. I realize that this late in the week, there's not an unrented tuxedo between here and Las Vegas, so I walk over to Melrose Avenue, one of the five most millennial places on the planet, to scour the vintage clothing stores. Among the shoe boutiques and record stores, next to shops called Golf Punk and Porn Star, I find my oasis, a thrift store called Aardvark's. For $75, I buy the Dean Martin-era tuxedo of my dreams, the tux I would have bought if I was actually attending the Oscars and not just leering at the luminaries from the safety of the press corral.
Thursday, March 22, 7:30 p.m.:. The American Cinematheque is a film society headquartered in the beautifully restored Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Blvd. Tonight is the L.A. premiere of "No Map for These Territories," a documentary about sci-fi author William Gibson, the man who coined the term "cyberspace." In the film, Gibson delivers his pronouncements from the back of a limousine that is cruising the streets of Los Angeles. (At one point he passes the cheap hotel where I am staying.) Gibson says that the Internet has become a neurological extension of the human organism, and living in a world where no experience is "unmediated" by technology induces a feeling that is a combination of terror and Christmas morning. He adds that the species probably reached the point of no return on the day that Michael Jackson married Elvis Presley's daughter.
Thursday, 1:45 p.m.: "Welcome back, my friend," says the greeter at the turnstile of the Universal Studios theme park. I tell him I've never been here before. "Sure you have," he retorts. I ask him who he thinks I am, and he winks like it's our little secret. Inside the gate, the theme park is a mad spew of sensations, a combination of pop-culture bazaar and thrill-ride emporium. But the driver on the tour ride reminds us that Universal is also a functioning movie studio, the place where the stars work. "And here's one now," he says, "award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard." On a half-dozen video screens that flip down from the ceiling of the tram, the former Opie recounts the origins of the studio in an L.A. County orange grove. As the tram passes through the plywood villages that comprise the backlot, we don't see any stars, but we do see their parking spaces.
Thursday, 11:30 a.m.: On Hollywood Blvd., bloated singer Rick James ("Superfreak"), wearing a House of Blues baseball jacket, ducks into a check cashing outlet, a block from the corner where he was once arrested for buying crack. I'm guessing that he doesn't have a bank.
Wednesday, March 21, 8:40 p.m.: In the parking lot of my hotel, I compliment a fellow on his '69 Plymouth Fury. His name is Glen, a Teamster from San Francisco who is trying to cash in on the last-minute rush of film production before the anticipated writers strike. When I tell him I am a reporter form St. Louis, he says he went to high school in Jerseyville, Ill., and his father started the Elsah Landing restaurant. "But out here, the cars don't rust," he says.
Wednesday, 2:40 p.m.: CNN reports that a scaffolding has collapsed over the entrance pavilion at the Shrine Auditorium, injuring five workers, one critically.
Tuesday, March 20, 11:25 p.m.: In the back booth of a noodle shop in Thai Town, I spy actress Marisa Tomei. Although I met her at a press junket in December--she had a bite of my Christmas cookie, the remains of which I now display on a shelf in my home--I resist the temptation to intrude on her dumplings.
Monday, March 19, 11:55 p.m.: A venerable old restaurant called the Pig N' Whistle is reopening with a gala party and fashion show. On the curb side of the velvet rope, professional autograph seekers wait for their quarry. Each of them carries a spiral notebook filled with alphabetized glossies. They've already visited the premier party for "Heartbreakers" at a movie theater up the street, and they are trading anecdotes about Jennifer Love Hewitt and Sigourney Weaver. As the party dwindles, the restaurant disgorges a succession of B-list celebrities: Andy Dick, Rachel Hunter, the guy who played J. Peterman on "Seinfeld." When Alan Thicke emerges, he's allowed to pass unmolested.
Monday, 7:30 p.m.: Unless you count the hallway murals of Erroll Flynn, Mae West and Alfafa, you won't see a lot of celebrities at the Hollywood Celebrity Hotel. What you will see is a lot of German, English and Japanese tourists. From my window I can see a curb where I slipped on a grease spot on Thanksgiving Day in 1982. The fall split open my chin, and I fibbed to my then-girlfriend that I had been knocked down when the cops were chasing a pickpocket at the Hollywood Christmas Parade. She immediately called the police and insisted they take me to get stitched up. Which they did.
Monday, 1:40 p.m.: As I exit the 405 freeway and ease into the city limits of Los Angeles, I see a hand-lettered sign on a palm tree. It reads "Teen movie," and an arrow points to the left. Sometimes it's hard not to believe that this whole place is a movie set. Some of us are stars, and some of us are extras. (In Hollywood, they call those people "atmosphere.")
Sunday, March 18, 12:30 p.m.: I stop for Sunday brunch at the swank Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, where "Some Like it Hot" was filmed. I tell Michael the waiter that I've come to California for the Oscars. He says that he served many of the greats, from Oprah to Kevin Costner to "Colonel Klink from 'Hogan's Heroes'" ("He was kind of difficult," Michael confesses.) The waiter tells me that if I stick around a few minutes, I'm in for a treat. Soon there's a commotion at the center of the grand dining hall. Several of the waiters surround a table and sing "Happy Birthday" to an old guy in expensive clothes. As soon as they finish, a graying fellow in a jogging suit spontaneously bellows "Happy birthday to you/Happy birthday to you/Happy birthday to whoever the hell you are/Happy birthday to you." The honoree blinks before realizing that the singer is Jerry Lewis. "Jerry!" he exclaims as the comedian totters toward a mountain of chilled shrimp on a buffet table. I introduce myself and ask Lewis for his Oscar prediction. '"Gladiator' was so well made and so entertaining that nothing else is in the same category," he says. Lewis' young daughter pulls at his sleeve. "Have a nice day," he tells me, and under the circumstances it's hard not to believe that I will.
(Originally published, in different form, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 2001.)