Hollywood Stars - 2009

© 2009 by John Varley/Lee Emmett; all rights reserved

The Miracles

  Tears of a Clown « You've Really Got a Hold on Me « Shop Around « My Girl « Love Machine
 

When: Friday, March 20, 2009 at 11:30 a.m.

Location: Corner of Hollywood Boulevard and El Cerrito Place

Smokey: "One thing I can say about the Motown acts is that we were a family. That's not a myth. "

It was the 50th anniversary of Motown (actually it was founded on January 12, 1959, but let’s not nitpick) and The Miracles were getting their collective star on Hollywood Boulevard. This one was almost to La Brea Avenue, far out of the prime real estate which, in recent years, has been in front of the Kodak Theater. It wasn’t discrimination; sometimes inductees pick a spot to be near someone else’s star, or for some other reason. (Suzanne Pleshette wanted hers in front of Frederick’s of Hollywood!) This time it was to be near the star of Stevie Wonder and Gladys Knight. (Say, do The Pips have a star?)

Stevie was there, and gave a nice speech, with his trademark head roll when he laughed, which was often. Smokey Robinson was there, too, and Berry Gordy. All the surviving Miracles were present.

Not much else to say.

Next up: George Harrison. I doubt he’ll be there personally, being scattered in the Ganges and elsewhere, but his wife and son will be. Also, speakers “TBA.” So you can’t help but wonder. Paul? Ringo? Yoko … oh, no, not Yoko!!!

We’ll let you know.

Tuesday, April 14

Stop the presses! Hold the phone! Pause whatever you’re playing on your iPod!!!

There’s more!!!

Today we attended the star ceremony for George Harrison (more on that in another post). We are never able to get pictures of the actual star in the cement after these ceremonies, as it takes a few hours to take down the podium, press gallery, and crowd control barriers, and we hate waiting around when it’s all over. So we come back the next day, or whenever, and Lee gets the shot.

But today we went out for other things a few hours after the festivities and decided to swing by the Capital Records building to see if it was accessible. It was, and Lee got her pictures. We remembered that we’d never gotten around to getting a picture of The Miracles’ star. It’s also near Stevie Wonder and some other Motown greats, which is why it was out in the remote hinterlands of La Brea and Hollywood Boulevard in the first place. So I drove there. As usual, there was no place to park, so I stopped in a red zone and let Lee out, told her I’d circle the block a few times until she was through. Which I did.

When I got back, Lee was bringing this woman, who looked vaguely familiar, to the car. She opened the door, and the lady looked in at me, smiled warmly, and said, “Hi, I’m Claudette Robinson.”

Well, imagine my surprise. The first thing I tell people who visit us here in Hollywood is that you will not see any famous people walking around. Just doesn’t happen. You might spot them for a few seconds at night arriving outside trendy clubs that you can’t get into, if you’re willing to hang around for hours and hours looking like a jackass. And you can get a longer look at some of them at these Walk of Fame ceremonies. But up close and personal? Never happens. Never.

So who does Lee run into and get into a warm and friendly conversation with? Nobody but the First Lady of Motown, the woman who the mega-hit song “My Girl” was written about, the woman who joined The Miracles in 1956 when her brother Emerson Rogers was drafted, back when the group was still called the Matadors. She stayed with them until 1972, and was married to Smokey Robinson until 1986.

She was there getting her picture taken near the Miracles’ star, as a not-quite-original member. No entourage, no bodyguards. (Well, she’s not that famous a face.) Now I ask you, how likely is that? How lucky is that? I mean, if we had come back the next day I could see it a little easier. But it’s been almost a month, and we just happen by in the same hour as she did. It almost makes me believe there is a god, and he’s smiling on us. But then, that’s the sort of thing that seems to happen to us all the time!

April 15, 2009

Hollywood, California

George Harrison

I Want to Tell You « While My Guitar Gently Weeps « If I Needed Someone « Here Comes the Sun « Something
 

When: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 at 11:30 a.m.

Location: In front of Capital Records on Vine

George: "The biggest break in my career was getting into the Beatles in 1962. The second biggest break since then is getting out of them. "

We figured the crowds might be rather large for this one, so we resolved to get an early start. We set out at about 10:40 for a ceremony scheduled to start, like all of them, at 11:30. Lee walked, I took the subway, since we knew there would be no easy parking within half a mile. I just missed a train, so Lee got there ahead of me. And we might as well have waited. Officer Hancock of the LAPD, who Lee got into a conversation with later, told her that people started arriving at 9:00 to get a spot close to the rails. (Hancock, by the way, has been doing these shindigs for years, he told Lee, as well as the Oscars and other celebrity events. He says it’s a great gig. He’s been at it so long he’s got his own reserved parking spot at the Oscars!) The crowd was very big, probably the largest we’ve seen, though it’s hard to judge the ones that happened around the Kodak, where there are always large crowds anyway. As I was arriving the police were blocking off Vine Street between Hollywood and Yucca, something they’ve never done at any other ceremony. They moved the barriers back to the double yellow line in the middle of the road, which gave a lot more space, but it still wasn’t enough. We were packed in. Lee couldn’t see a thing, so she gave me the camera and went off the make the acquaintance of Officer Hancock.

They ran a little late. A few people showed up on the other side of the ropes and got some applause from the crowd, but I didn’t recognize any of them. Later, I learned that one of them was Jeff Lynne, who I don’t know much about. Seems he was a founding member of the Traveling Wilburys, the group that George Harrison recorded with in the ‘80s and included Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Roy Orbison. Tom Petty was also there in the crowd of friends and family, but I never spotted him.

Speculation had been running wild in the crowd. Will he be here? Do you think he’s coming? I heard he’s not coming. I heard he is coming! I’m not talking about George, of course. Maybe you can guess …

Finally, at about 11:45, the doors of the Capital Records Building opened, and the Big Name Celebs started to file out. Suddenly there was shouting. He’s here!

It’s Paul!!!!!

Paul! Paul! Paul! Look over here, Paul!

Tell you the truth, it got a little frightening. A thousand camera were raised as high as they would go, in hopes of getting a picture. Of course, what you mostly get a picture of is the backs of other people’s cameras … Shouting, jostling, calling out … what must it be like to get that sort of reaction every time you step out in public?

… of course, my camera was high in the air, too. But I wasn’t shouting …

The nice thing about being 6’6” is that my camera was higher than almost everybody else’s. I got some okay shots.

The ceremony commenced with Leron Gubler, who’s taken over for the late, great Johnny Grant, “Mayor of Hollywood.” (Hollywood doesn’t have a mayor, we’re a neighborhood, not a town. We have a Chamber of Commerce, and that’s Leron.)

First he introduced Eric Idle. As you might expect, Eric had the best lines of the day:

“Sir Paul is here in California for Coachella. Until recently I thought that was a vaginal infection.”

“George actually died at Paul’s house. Which is why I never visit John Cleese.”

Next, Tom Hanks, who as usual was the most moving, working without notes, having memorized his lines like he did in his two Oscar acceptance speeches. Funny, it’s hard to get a picture of him where his face doesn’t look goofy. Well, there is a natural goofiness to him, I guess, but when he’s speaking his face contorts in odd ways, and a snapshot is likely to look odd.

Finally, George’s widow Olivia and son Dhani. Olivia spoke movingly about her late husband. Dhani, when invited by his mom to say a few words, just leaned toward the mike, flashed the peace sign, and said “Hare Krishna.” George was always called the “Quiet Beatle.” Dhani, who really resembles his father, must have inherited that, too.

There was the unveiling of the star, the posing of various groupings of people. I got one decent shot of that, in profile.

Then it was just about all over but the clean-up. The disappointment was palpable that McCartney didn’t come to the mike and say a few words. The chanting and shouting resumed, until finally he stepped up on the podium and favored the crowd with about ten seconds of face time, giving us the thumbs-up. Then the building swallowed up all the VIPs, who left by the back entrance in their limos.

Just another day in our home town.

April 16, 2009

Hollywood, California