The question in Los Angeles is never what to do, but where to begin. In all honesty I have always found L.A. to be a dirty city that you pass through while going to Disneyland , however, being the “celebrity gossip junkie” that I am, I finally convinced Dennis to join me on a tour of the city of “Angels (including but not limited to a tour of the “Dearly Departed”).
Our trip began with a stay at the Westin Pasadena from May 29th – June 2nd. Although Pasadena is best known as the host of the annual Tournament of Roses Parade and Rose Bowl football game, we like Pasadena for our new favorite restaurant (President Thai), top retailers (Orvis for Dennis, Anne Taylor for me) and the fact that Leonard and Sheldon reside there in the fictional world of our favorite show The Big Bang Theory.
We started off our adventure with a VIP tour of the WB Studios.
Not only did we make a couple of "FRIENDS", but we got to go behind the scenes to see how the magic happens....
We also visited some old tourist standbys such as Grauman’s Chinese Theatre
and the Hollywood Museum where we managed to hit the first day of a MarilynMonroe – Hollywood Legend exhibit. From the old to the new, here you can find your favorite celebrities immortalized throughout Hollywood.
“Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Legend”
An Intimate Look At The Legend (1926 –1962)
The Nation’s Largest Exhibit Of Authentic Memorabilia Honors Monroe’s Life and the 50th Anniversary Milestone of Her Passing
“Red Velvet” photo session and infamous “Golden Dreams” calendar: In 1949, Marilyn Monroe was a struggling young actress. To earn quick money for a delinquent car payment, Marilyn accepted $50 to pose nude for photographer Tom Kelley, in what became known as the legendary “Red Velvet” photos.
The million-dollar honeymoon dress that Marilyn wore on her honeymoon with husband, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio in 1954. This was Marilyn’s favorite personal gown, designed by Ceil Chapman, hand-beaded in Marilyn’s signature style. She wore this gown on numerous occasions over the balance of her life, including on her USO tour to Korea (1954) where she entertained 10,000 oops over the course of several days
And while on the topic of celebrities that have passed too soon...our next stop was one for my bucket list (and as far from the top ten of Dennis' things to see and do in this lifetime as could be). I was dying (pun intended) to experience the delightfully twisted underbelly of Hollywood with Dearly Departed Tours! Scott Michaels founded Dearly Departed back in 1989, specializing in dead celebrity memorabilia before launching the tour business in 2005. Since then he has been pleasing stars and their fans alike with his irresistible combination of wit, humor and insight into the morbid world of celebrity death!
Why you say would any sane person want to take this tour? Well just ask Anthony Bourdain or any one of the Girl's Next Door (Kendra, Holly or Bridget) or how about Dave Navarro or Leeza Gibbons. Or why not just ask Dennis and I because we had an amazing time with a great tour guide and here were some of the highlights of this tour:
- How about the restroom in Will Rogers Park in Beverly Hills Park George Micheal was reported to have been arrested for a "lewd" act in 1998? We were given the police report and were walked though the various discrepancies with the officer's story.
- Or Barney's Beanery on Santa Monica Blvd, where Janis Joplin last stopped before her death at on October 3, 1970 at the former "Landmark Motor Hotel", now named the Highland Gardens Hotel.
- The Las Palmas Hotel where Pretty Woman was filmed
- The Ravenswood Apartments that were once home to some of Old Hollywood's most glamours celebrities Mae West and Ava Gardener.
And who hasn't listened to the Joni Mitchell's song Big Yellow Taxi and wondered what inspired the lyrics "Paved Paradise, put up a parking lot"? Well you are looking at it...
I could go on and on about seeing where George Burns or
Lucille Ball lived; visiting Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner's house in Beverly
Hills; going to El Coyote Mexican Restaurant where Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring,
Abigail Folger and Wojciech Frykowski ate their last meal the night they were
later murdered by the Manson Family; or more recently showing you Simon Cowell
or Angelina and Billy Bob Thorton's houses; but I am sure that the rest of you
are not as eager to search L.A. to find "your people" as I expressed
to Dennis with all of my useless trivia! For those of you that are, Dearly
Departed also offers a Helter Skelter Tour where you learn and tour the sites
related to the Manson Family Murders (as Dennis and I are going to do on our
next tour to L.A.). All humour aside it really was an interesting and unique
tour that you should all go on if in the L.A. area.
As if seeing where the celebrities lived and died wasn't
enough excitement for Dennis, I also dragged him to the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale to
visit the burial sites of Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor as well as many
other celebrities of Hollywood past. The surprising thing about this cemetery
is it's beauty and the vast amount of space it takes up in such a densely
populated area. It turned out to be a nice reprieve from the hustle and bustle
of L.A.
The Mausoleum was fashioned after Campo Santo in Genoa, Italy
and contains many of the most highly sought after interment places within
Forest Lawn, Glendale.
Within the portion of the Great Mausoleum accessible to the
public is the Court of Honor where individuals are inducted as "Immortals"
by Forest Lawn's Council of Regents. The rest of the structure is protected by
guards and is not accessible by the public. Within the Memorial Court of Honor
is a stained glass masterpiece of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. You are
permitted to enter the Mausoleum to view this work which is well worth it and
it allows you your only view inside the structure that holds many great people,
including Elizabeth Taylor - whose tomb stands at the entrance to the Last
Supper piece and was covered in small diamonds while we were there.
Below right, private tomb of Michael Jackson in the privacy of
Holly Terrace in the Great Mausoleum. Only family members can enter the tomb.
After returning to the land of the living we were inspired to visit the Paramount Studios lot for their version of the VIP Tour. Although the least enjoyable of the tours - due to lack of organization and restricted access because of the celebration party for 100 years of Paramount going on (no we were not lucky enough to see any of the celebrities on site) - we did manage to find a few good hot spots to quench Dennis' thirst for more celebrity fodder!
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| "I'm Forrest Gump...People Call me Forrest Gump" |
The final stop on the"All Things Hollywood"
portion of our vacation, took us to the Paley Centre for Media in Beverley
Hills where Warner Brothers teamed up to bring props, costumes, original
animation art, patent filings and much more from over sixty series ranging from
Alice to The West Wing in an installment entitled "Warner Brothers Out of
the Box". For those of you who have followed other iconic series such as
Friends, Wonder Woman, the Dukes of Hazard and The Big Bang Theory, you may
recognize some of the following:
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| BAZINGA |
On June 3rd we departed for the more serene part of our vacation. We headed up to Paso Robles in the hopes of superior wine tasting and adventure. Much to our dismay, Paso Robles did not live up to our expectations as experienced on our many travels to Sonoma. One highlight of the trip though was our tour of the Hearst Castle.
Hearst Castle is a National and California Historical Landmark mansion located on the Central Coast of California, United States. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan between 1919 and 1947 for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who died in 1951. In 1957, the Hearst Corporation donated the property to the state of California. Since that time it has been maintained as a state historic park where the estate, and its considerable collection of art and antiques, is open for public tours. Despite its location far from any urban center, the site attracts about one million visitors per year, because damn, who wouldn't dream to have a spread like this:
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