Content area
Full Text
Hollywood is for seniors.
That's not to say that it isn't still alive with a million tourists of all ages, many of them from faraway lands. And, yes, it still has an entertainment industry: "Dreamgirls" was made here, the Academy Awards are still given out here, Paramount Pictures remains and at least one TV talk show emanates live from Hollywood Boulevard.
But it's not the same. The legendary glamorous, glitzy Hollywood of the '30s and '40s belongs to the onetime Saturday afternoon double-feature-at-the-Valencia crowd. We sat through five hours of movies plus animated cartoons and March of Time newsreels and we swallowed whole all the hype about the private lives of the stars.
They all live on here; Hollywood doesn't forget its past. Reminders of old movie stars show up everywhere, in the celebrity footprints in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre and on posters and photos in museums, parks, storefronts, the metro center, subways and on street signs.
After years of serious decline, Hollywood is enjoying something of a renaissance. The streets are clean and reportedly crime-free. No guarantees of that, of course, but my friend, Karin Eckert, and I felt safe enough as we strolled down Hollywood Boulevard, reading the names on stars...