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L.A.'s got a dark side? Who knew?
Aug. 14th, 2006 12:11 pmQuote of the day:
"Every work of art is an act of faith, or we wouldn't bother to do it. It is a message in a bottle, a shout in the dark. It's saying, 'I'm here and I believe that you are somewhere and that you will answer if necessary across time, not necessarily in my lifetime.'"
—Jeanette Winterson
So! The Dearly Departed tour was tons of fun. We wound up going on the regular tour rather than the Helter Skelter tour, which was good. It was so much fun to play tourist in my own town. We drove past some places I'd passed a zillion times, sometimes knowing the shady history, sometimes not, and we also got into some obscure corners of H-town. (Actually, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Hancock Park.) It was amazing to see it all from the other side of living here.
Scott Michaels, the owner/operator, puts on a good show for his vanload: his commentary is entertaining, combining humor, respect, pathos, and a clear love for his adopted hometown of Hollywood. His knowledge and research is extensive. (I know because I've done some of this research myself.) There is snark--of course there is snark!--but it wasn't a snarkfest. Just darn funny, and lively. And it covers not only the dark side, but the alive side of Hollywood.
The tour doesn't just consist of his running commentary. He combines it with a picture book and a soundtrack, ranging from 9-1-1 calls to movie music and voice tracks. I appreciated that he allowed the tour participants the option of whether they wanted to view the more explicit shots by covering them up. You have to lift the flap yourself if you want to see. And the subject matter wasn't just murder and death. You got a little bit of everything: old Hollywood/New Hollywood, history and context, film locations, tours of the stars' homes, infamous murder sites, haunted places, then-and-now comparisons.
I found that to be one of the more interesting things. He took us to a residential corner in Hollywood. In the picture book, we saw it as it was when D.W. Griffith used it to build the set for Intolerance: open fields with three little California bungalows in the foreground. Now it's jam-packed with buildings, but amazingly, two of those three bungalows are still there. In fact, he said a guy who lives in one of those houses once came out to ask why Scott always stops his van in front of his house. "I'm not telling you! You'll have to take my tour!" He said the same thing to Billy Bob Thornton when he asked why the van parked in front of a neighbor's house, and to some fellows who bought another house where...I can't remember what happened. But they actually did take the tour and had a great time.
It's a very full three hours. I can't remember half of what we saw, but: some Manson locations, the Menendez brothers house, the Viper Room, the former Mack Sennett and Desilu studios, Paramount, Hollywood Forever cemetery, star homes, a spectacular view of the Hollywood sign and the little house Peg Entwistle lived in before she hiked up there and threw herself off the sign, the Alto Nido hotel (where William Holden's character lived in Sunset Boulevard), the Las Palmas hotel (where the famous balcony scene at the end of Pretty Woman happened), Vampira's favorite coffee shop, some James Dean locations...tons and tons of stuff. It was a real good time!
http://www.dearlydepartedtours.com/DDT/index.html
"Every work of art is an act of faith, or we wouldn't bother to do it. It is a message in a bottle, a shout in the dark. It's saying, 'I'm here and I believe that you are somewhere and that you will answer if necessary across time, not necessarily in my lifetime.'"
—Jeanette Winterson
So! The Dearly Departed tour was tons of fun. We wound up going on the regular tour rather than the Helter Skelter tour, which was good. It was so much fun to play tourist in my own town. We drove past some places I'd passed a zillion times, sometimes knowing the shady history, sometimes not, and we also got into some obscure corners of H-town. (Actually, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Hancock Park.) It was amazing to see it all from the other side of living here.
Scott Michaels, the owner/operator, puts on a good show for his vanload: his commentary is entertaining, combining humor, respect, pathos, and a clear love for his adopted hometown of Hollywood. His knowledge and research is extensive. (I know because I've done some of this research myself.) There is snark--of course there is snark!--but it wasn't a snarkfest. Just darn funny, and lively. And it covers not only the dark side, but the alive side of Hollywood.
The tour doesn't just consist of his running commentary. He combines it with a picture book and a soundtrack, ranging from 9-1-1 calls to movie music and voice tracks. I appreciated that he allowed the tour participants the option of whether they wanted to view the more explicit shots by covering them up. You have to lift the flap yourself if you want to see. And the subject matter wasn't just murder and death. You got a little bit of everything: old Hollywood/New Hollywood, history and context, film locations, tours of the stars' homes, infamous murder sites, haunted places, then-and-now comparisons.
I found that to be one of the more interesting things. He took us to a residential corner in Hollywood. In the picture book, we saw it as it was when D.W. Griffith used it to build the set for Intolerance: open fields with three little California bungalows in the foreground. Now it's jam-packed with buildings, but amazingly, two of those three bungalows are still there. In fact, he said a guy who lives in one of those houses once came out to ask why Scott always stops his van in front of his house. "I'm not telling you! You'll have to take my tour!" He said the same thing to Billy Bob Thornton when he asked why the van parked in front of a neighbor's house, and to some fellows who bought another house where...I can't remember what happened. But they actually did take the tour and had a great time.
It's a very full three hours. I can't remember half of what we saw, but: some Manson locations, the Menendez brothers house, the Viper Room, the former Mack Sennett and Desilu studios, Paramount, Hollywood Forever cemetery, star homes, a spectacular view of the Hollywood sign and the little house Peg Entwistle lived in before she hiked up there and threw herself off the sign, the Alto Nido hotel (where William Holden's character lived in Sunset Boulevard), the Las Palmas hotel (where the famous balcony scene at the end of Pretty Woman happened), Vampira's favorite coffee shop, some James Dean locations...tons and tons of stuff. It was a real good time!
http://www.dearlydepartedtours.com/DDT/index.html
