While entertaining visitors a few years ago, we took a tour of Iconic Hollywood Filming Locations and were praised by the guide for being locals. Too many people, he said, never play tourist in their hometowns. If you haven't noticed from this blog, we do not suffer from this problem. (And, by the way, we're damn fun hosts. Come on out!)
In 5 years, we have taken 3 bus tours in L.A. We have found that while some tours go past the same location, not everyone provides the same information. Some will let you know that the Dan Tana's restaurant was a favorite hangout of the Rat Pack while ignoring their neighbor, the Troubadour - the legendary concert venue where Guns-N-Roses were discovered. And not all of the tours include the strip club where Demi Moore did her research for Strip Tease. Or, for that matter, the litany of strip clubs immortalized in the Motley Crue song Girls, Girls, Girls. So we need to exhaust the tours to become true experts on L.A. But for now, we have a few tidbits to share.
We took the first tour within a month of our move, climbing aboard the red double-decker buses of Starline to be whisked around the city while straining to hear the less-then-clear audio system commenting on both sites and history in L.A. (www.starlinetours.com) I regularly use their shared facts to wow visitors with my knowledge of the area, including the detail that the residential streets in Beverly Hills have 'designated trees,' such that if you look down any street it is lined with the same foliage for each street. They are very pretty, just don't ask me what any of the varietals are. The tour didn't say. They did say how you can tell when you have crossed from Los Angeles into Beverly Hills....there are suddenly no overhead utility lines. Cross back into L.A. and there they are again.
Our second tour garnered the previously mentioned compliment. We spent 4 hours in chauffeured comfort watching movie and TV clips while driving past the corresponding filming locations. (http://www.dearlydepartedtours.com/hollywood-movie-tours.html) The same company has a few more morbid tours, such as the Manson Murder tour, hence the name. The filming location tour, however, is much more lively. Among some of the highlights were houses from Happy Days, Grease, Six Feet Under and Halloween. One high school has hosted scenes from Nightmare on Elm Street, Pretty in Pink and Gross Pointe Blank in the front, and the final scene from Grease on the back fields. One of my more favorite sites was a park bench used by Michael J. Fox's character in Back to the Future as the launching point for his DeLorean's path out of the 1950's. I can take you there, it's in Griffith Park. Sadly, that is probably the last thing I can show you - I was so mesmerized by the videos in the comfortable van to pay attention to where we were going. If you come visit, we'll just have to take the tour again!
But I can take you back to the house built in Beverly Hills for The Witches of Eastwick. It's actually fantastically close, and I am glad it was pointed out on our recent Rockin' Hollywood Tours ride. (www.rockinhollywoodtours.com) This was actually my least favorite tour, mostly because it focused mainly on celebrity homes. I do not care to see the homes of celebrities any more than most of them want anyone peering at their private personal space. As a result, most of the homes are not terribly visible anyway. So if you take a tour of the homes, be prepared to see a gate, large, thick foliage and maybe the corner of the garage. In one neighborhood the tour guide pointed out a particular roof with two white chimneys and said it was home of the Beckham's. So....I've seen their roof tiles. Fascinating. We were shown a road that was once the private drive to where Tom Cruise used to live with his second wife. Chilling. They also show the gate on the house where Michael Jackson died. Disturbing.
They did have a few interesting tidbits, however. The tour highlights a building once home to a rising movie star named Ronald Reagan. The tour guide mentioned that the group who convinced him to run for Governor of California had initially approached James Garner, who turned them down. Garner was a Democrat and became vice-president of the actor's union while Ronnie went from Sacramento to DC. Rob us of the Rockford Files? Perish the thought!
I will leave you pondering what life under the President Maverick could have been like, and remind you that we are continuing to Survive L.A. Come on out and find out for yourself....we'll show you where Richard Gere climbed to 'rescue' Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, and where Brad Pitt got his start in acting.....as the El Pollo Loco Chicken mascot. It's true, they said it on the tour.
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