Although popular attractions like the Walk of Fame, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the El Capitan have kept Hollywood on tourists’ must-see list, the area’s seedy souvenir shops and run-down streets have kept Angelenos from going there unless it’s unavoidable.
But now, look out, Rodeo Drive, Sunset Plaza, Third Street Promenade and Universal Citywalk! A revived, revitalized Hollywood is back in the game with the brand spankin’ new Hollywood & Highland complex at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue.
The 640,000-square-foot complex, which took three years and $615 million to construct, was built not only to lure shoppers to the area but also with the specific intent of bringing the Academy Awards ceremony back to Hollywood. To that end, the retail mega-center’s symbolic centerpiece includes the colossal Kodak Theatre, Oscar’s future home, in addition to a number of shops, restaurants, a hotel, even a museum.
A thousand or so invited guests assembled outside the theater for the center’s impressive launch party on Nov. 9, which tapped Tinseltown royalty to remind everyone why they love L.A.
L.A.’s First African Methodist Episcopal Church choir got things off to an inspiring start with a rousing rendition of “America” that led into a Jumbotron-projected collection of classic and contemporary movie clips.
Actor-director Rob Reiner took the stage first. “I am announcing here today that Hollywood is back!” the director said. He said the old statement that “Hollywood is less of a geographical place and more of a state of mind” now needed amending: “Today it is both a place and a state of mind. This going to be an incredible venue for years to come.”
He went on to recall how his famous writer-director father Carl uprooted the young Reiner family from New York in the early 1960s to take a job on The Dinah Shore Show. The move became permanent as the senior Reiner went on to create such TV classics as The Dick Van Dyke Show. “Now almost 40 years later, my father and I each have stars here on Hollywood Boulevard right next to each other,” Reiner said.
Reiner was followed onstage by another Hollywood legacy-bearer, Oscar-winning actress Anjelica Huston, whose father John was one of filmdom’s most revered directors of the Golden Age and beyond, while grandfather Walter was among the top character actors of his day.
Huston recalled her own first trip to L.A., traveling from school in Europe as a teenager. From the airport she hailed a taxi and, with the enthusiasm common to many tourists who don’t know the local lay of the land, told the driver to “Take me to Hollywood!” The driver explained that while Los Angeles was filled with many different places, he didn’t
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think you could really call any of them Hollywood. “Well, here’s Hollywood,” she said with a gesture to the new complex. “I can assure you that Oscar will be very happy with his new surroundings.”
Singer-composer Randy Newman, also had a generational tale to tell, recalling how his uncle, film score composer Alfred Newman, journeyed to L.A. in 1930 to work on an Eddie Cantor movie, only to be followed by brothers (composers Emil Newman and Lionel Newman) and other relatives.
Newman has been nominated for an Oscar 14 times with zero wins. “Now I don’t have to go so far to be humiliated at the Academy Awards,” he cracked before launching into a live performance of Toy Story’s “You’ve Got a Friend In Me” and the closest thing Los Angeles has to an anthem, “I Love L.A.” Newman’s early-’80s hit. The crowd responded with an enthusiastic chorus of “We Love It!”
Then guests were ushered up the red carpet into the complex by the UCLA marching band as leggy, top-hatted dancers in tuxes waved American flags and high-powered air-cannons showered the crowd with a blizzard of confetti. The first lucky few visitors through the entrance were handed a top-notch goodie bag, which included Godiva chocolates, T-shirts and even a Kodak camera.
The mall includes more than 70 high-end retailers and restaurants (including Louis Vuitton, Tommy Hilfiger, Sephora, MAC Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret), a six-screen expansion of the neighboring Chinese Theatre, a 25,000-square-food Grand Ballroom (catering by Wolfgang Puck, natch) and the stunningly baroque Babylon Court, over which tower 33-foot-tall stone elephants straight out of a D.W. Griffith silent epic.
Other attractions at the complex, including the aptly named 640-room Renaissance Hollywood Hotel and a museum housing Debbie Reynolds‘ stunning collection of Hollywood memorabilia including costumes and movie sets, are soon to open.
