Lost Angeles

I knew I was going to move to Los Angeles for years before I actually did it.  People thought I was obsessed and my high school teachers rolled their eyes every time I mentioned Hollywood, L.A., or the things that were going to happen in my life after I graduated and flew the coop.  If I had to do a geography report, career report, Spanish project, sociology report -- you name it -- my subject matter was predictable.  I knew that Los Angeles was short for El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula (The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels on the Porciúncula River) even before I had access to the Internet -- thanks to a book we had to use back then called an encyclopedia!

When the summer after my senior year finally rolled around I had three choices -- three roads to choose from.  The first and most obvious choice was Ball State -- a school far enough away from home that people probably wouldn't drop by unexpectedly but close enough that someone could get to me in an emergency.  A teacher I respected a lot told me that she thought I would be very comfortable there because it had a small town feel (as opposed to an overwhelming large university campus).  My second choice was Marymount Manhattan College in New York City.  I had interviewed over the phone and had not qualified for many scholarships.  The amount that I was expected to pay for tuition (also known as "family contribution") was pretty much the same amount that it would cost for tuition at choice number three -- acting school in L.A.  Neither Marymount Manhattan or Stella Adler Academy offered student housing, and I actually wasn't even considering acting school seriously because going to college was the right thing to do.  I was told by my guidance counselor that if I moved to New York I would end up in a gutter.  She literally told me that.

My dad was arranging our trip to New York with the travel agent but I had an icky feeling about something -- something just didn't feel right.  We discussed it.  The only thing I could put my finger on was that I was not looking forward to New York weather.  I really wanted to go to Hollywood.  He called the travel agent.  My grandmother bought me a new, sleek, feminine, sleeveless pinstripe suit to wear to my interview with the stipulation that I had to fit in it by the time I left.  I did.

L.A. felt good the minute I stepped out of LAX.  I can't really explain it except that the climate was perfect, the city felt energetic, and I felt connected to something inexplicable -- like for the first time I was part of something historic that my heroes were part of, too.

I could tell a thousand different stories about the places I lived, the places I visited, the people I met and spoke to, the pieces of the city that became familiar to me and that I started to claim as my own, the descriptions of the city that were proven wrong, and the ironies of my experiences versus what people back home assumed about them.  I lived in L.A. on and off for only about two years, and it has been almost 10 years since I left.

Still, even looking at pictures makes me feel like I am looking at a place I can call one of my homes -- a place where even when I tried to grow up too fast and lost track of my true self, I still feel like was the only place in the world where I was allowed to really be myself.

I made a point to take a lot of pictures when I lived in L.A. and I took some really-really good ones, but back then we used something called film ... so they are mostly in boxes, scrapbooks and in black plastic canisters, undeveloped.

My first stop in L.A. was the Hyatt on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood.  The balcony faced the entire city.  I had no idea how much time I would spend in West Hollywood during the next couple of years.

The Highland Gardens Hotel on Franklin became my "most often" home.  I'm not telling you which room but since it faced the street and not the pool, I got to watch the limos drive by and the searchlights dance in the sky on premiere nights.  The hotel has been refurbished and re-glamorized since then.  The Hollywood I lived in was a little more gritty and ... realistic?

When I lived in Hollywood, I had to walk through the madness in front of the Chinese Theatre every day on the way to school.  Braving the tourists, sweet Mexican guy in the tourist shop that always wanted to talk, and the French guys in front of the Roosevelt Hotel was the obvious choice in comparison to the creepy, off-the-beaten-path streets before the Hollywood & Highland Center/Kodak Theatre was built.  I was there when they gave Kevin Spacey his star next to the big black plywood wall that hid the construction.

I spent hours and hours here at Stella Adler Academy, which shared the building with a little ice cream shop (that also sold cigarettes, I think?) the Snow White Cafe, and the Wax Museum.  They liked to sneak celebrities in through the service elevator in back that students were not supposed to use.

This is an authentic speakeasy from the old days that they keep hidden in the walls of the school/theaters.  They pretty much only open it for special events and/or cast parties when people have paid the right price to use it.  That bookcase on the right opens to a hidden staircase leading to the roof so people could hide if the police came.  The greats of Hollywood used to party here.  During the L.A. bus strike when I was stuck in Hollywood for hours on end, I volunteered and was honored to clean this place after a party, but was appalled that anyone could make a mess in there because I felt it was a place to be honored.  I couldn't get the mirrors to quit streaking and was told later that there was hairspray on them because they'd been filming in there and it reduced the glare.  Some guys that were going back and forth in the hallway working on a set were going nuts because James Coburn was in the building.  It turned out he was filming his part in a fundraising video that I cannot for the life of me find online anywhere!

Toward the end of my stay in L.A., I used to hike up Runyon Canyon a lot.  From this popular vantage point you could see my hotel at the bottom, my school on the far left, and downtown in the far distance.  It usually looked less hazy and more smoggy than this, but the sky as I remember it was blue.

None of this was here!  I do remember peeking in as I walked by from time to time and seeing that white elephant and some of the Egyptian architecture, but for the most part the Renaissance Hotel in the background was a construction site and Hollywood and Highland was a stop on the new red line metro rail that I rode in from the valley -- Van Nuys to Sherman Oaks via Sepulveda, Sherman Oaks to Universal City via the Rapid Bus on Ventura, and then down the rail to Hollywood.  (By the way, the Sherman Oaks Galleria was a construction site then, too.  I worked across the street at Sisley.)

I love these "Photographs of Hollywood by Scott Supak" because they show the grittier vantage of the streets that are familiar.

I also very much enjoyed reading this article that really captured the essence of L.A. -- "On (Not) Leaving Los Angeles" by Sarah LaBrie at This Recording.

If any of the images above belong to you and you would rather I didn't use them, I apologize and will happily remove them.  You can tell me here.