My Uncle Larry came to stay with us for a while in Hollywood. I was happy because I would finally have a straight-shooting male role model that I could look up to. I didn’t even mind giving up my bed (with its cool Superman bedspread) to him while I took a spot on the floor nearby.
“Welcome to Hollyweird.” I heard it first as an 11 year old (fresh faced and fresh-lunged) from my Mom when my sis and I arrived from Oklahoma. My first impressions were: a lot of buildings, hills and palm trees. I felt there was “more civilization” than what I was used to in Tulsa. But things seemed a little dirtier too, but you had to look carefully, like the cleaning didn’t get all the way into the crevasses. The weather was really nice all the time; I noticed that as well, while throwing our Nerf football around in our apartment’s parking lot.
The actor Victor Kilian was bludgeoned to death at the Lido Apartments in Hollywood in 1979, a few weeks before I moved in. Around that time and in that area, though I certainly wasn’t aware of it, there was apparently a lot of dying going on. A few miles west of my place, and just a couple of years before, Sal Mineo had been stabbed to death. At the time of Victor’s death, a guy named Lionel Williams was on trial for the Mineo killing, he would shortly thereafter be convicted.
Sometimes the outside appearance of a building gives no clue to what the inside looks like. The Villa Elaine on Vine Street was not only an example of this but also a serious case of false advertising. From the outside it looked (and still does look) like a sleazy set for some old film noir movie. It stubbornly stood on Vine Street, right in between Fountain and La Mirada Avenues, an apartment building of dubious repute for many decades. I was nothing short of astounded when I’d heard it survived the Northridge quake back in ’94.
Marilyn Monroe died almost exactly five years before I was born (and exactly fifty years before this writing). Living as she did before my era, I, of course never met her, and in fact have only ever met one person who ever knew her. But more importantly, for the purposes of this story, she died about 20 years before my nostalgia and longing for the past gained its own sentience.
Boxing used to be a lot more popular than it is now. There seemed to be big fight going on all the time, especially in the Welterweight and Middleweight divisions, where there was always a scrum for the number one spot. I never knew better boxing analysts than those 7th and 8th Graders back in 1980-1981 at LeConte Junior High. They were old school, like little Bert Sugars (only substituting Dodgers caps and candy cigarettes for Bert’s fedoras and stogies), offering not only their insights, but also the prospect of a wager.
My time in Hollywood wasn’t one Celebrity encounter after another. Although I went to school then and later with a couple of people who turned out to be famous, my personal experiences were of a more “jejune” variety… that is, except for getting to see a hirsute (hairsuit?) Ed Asner anchor one end of a tug-of-war for ABC at “The Battle of the Network Stars;” IN PERSON!
A smoggy day, in LA town.
At first I thought getting the signatures would be the hardest part. I was 14 years old, in a gang ridden Junior High School (it wasn’t called Middle School yet, and it wasn’t Bancroft) and at 14 I already knew I loathed the idea of work. I could see the Hollywood sign from the play yard (concrete) and always dreamed of being on that hill and away from everybody. It’s funny that I envisioned the air being cleaner up there: 1982, LA, look up smog levels back then in Google and you’ll see that farcity.