From Hockney to Horror in Hollywood

We think California’s missing a trick by not making its licence plate slogan read “The Dream State”. Californ-eye-ay is a fantasy land, and Hollywood its spiritual capital. We drove in on Highway 1, stopping en route at Hearst Castle, for a first taste of classic Hollywood glam – here was the inspiration for Citizen Kane, and the location of many a Hollywood gathering. We fantasised about throwing a party there, picturing Joan Crawford larking with Clark Gable.

Its graphic squiggles bring to mind the opening titles of something starring Bette Midler with giant shoulder pads, a particularly colourful wardrobe and a marketable pop soundtrack

We continued the silver-screne theme, checking in to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The beautifully restored 1920s lobby has the biggest Chesterfield sofas we’ve ever seen, and ahead of us stood the ornate steps on which Bill “Bojangles” Robinson first taught Shirley Temple to tapdance. And outside, between the cabana rooms and the hotel’s original tower building, is the iconic David Hockney pool. On one sunny morning in the mid 1980s, over about four hours, Hockney created his pool-floor mural using a can of blue paint and a broom for a paintbrush. It’s as much a product of the era in which it was created as it is of Hockney’s imagination – its graphic squiggles bring to mind the opening titles of something starring Bette Midler with giant shoulder pads, a particularly colourful wardrobe and a marketable pop soundtrack. It’s amazing to think that in 1988, county officials tried to have it scrubbed clean, citing a curious health and safety law that prohibited the adornment of swimming pools. When a local art dealer pointed out that the work was worth in excess of $1m, and represented a significant new Hollywood, they all of a sudden changed their minds.

On a weekday afternoon, Hockney’s pool served as the tranquil haven we’d hoped for – an oasis on the hectic and at times overwhelming Hollywood Boulevard. At the weekend? Less so. This is no place to enjoy your louche, rock ’n’ roll Hollywood Hills hangover on a Sunday. Perhaps we weren’t quite embracing the vibe, but we found the 10.15am muzak entirely unnecessary. Still, the pool is beautiful, and well-heated to avoid those monkey-impressions when climbing in.

We front-crawled slowly, length after length, catching snippets of conversations about photoshoots and celebrity events, all which seemed to have gone wrong in some spectacular way. The pool area bar staff were attentive, and there’s a decent if predictable menu of turkey clubs and Caesar salad. We never did get round to sampling the $16 cocktails, and can only wonder if they were as good as the $5 happy hour margaritas at the wonderful El Carmen bar and restaurant on West 3rd Street, a real slice of classic, lurid Los Angeles! El Carmen is a den of all things Mexican, with ads for Lucha Libre wrestling matches and beautiful B-movie posters pasted up wherever there aren’t mirrors, and a wider variety of tequilas than we’ve ever encountered down in Mexico.

El Carmen

Embracing more of Our Kind of Hollywood, we visited the Hollywood Museum in the former Max Factor building, first opened in 1935. When he developed his “Color Harmony” techniques back in 1918, Max Factor’s powders enabled him to customise and provide consistent make-up for each individual actor or actress.  The main floor features those makeup rooms, one apiece for redheads, blondes and brunettes, that transformed the “look” of Hollywood forever. From some impressively rubbish tableaux in the “Dungeon of Doom”, to Marilyn’s pill box and Elvis’s bathrobe, and with displays dedicated to Joan, Marilyn, Liz and I Love Lucy, we couldn’t have created a more perfect museum,  no matter how much ephemera and kitsch we had at our disposal. We were in seventh heaven.

Next, we found ourselves on the Dearly Departed Tour, founded by Scott Michaels, who has subverted the run of the mill “celebrity bus tour” and turned it to the dark side. We arrived at an inconspicuous shop front which turned out to be filled with some extraordinary ephemera, the most surprising and least Hollywood of which is a piece of wall from Fred and Rose’s Cromwell Street residence, across the Atlantic, in Gloucester. We knew immediately that this was going to be right up our avenue. We were led on our tour by chattiest-man-on-earth Brian Donnelly. He’s what you want from a tour guide: maximum information. Cases like Manson, Janis, Whitney and Michael, and lesser-known celebrities with even more spectacular departures were relayed to us with gusto, as we gawped at crime scene photographs and audio clips (including 911 calls).

Most sinister, and perhaps most spectacular, was the beautifully restored building which the Scientologists have adopted as their headquarters. Mad as a box of frogs they may be, but we have to hand it to them – they’ve saved a landmark, historic building, while dozens of others have been bulldozed to make way for yet another faceless mansion for a flash-in-the-pan celeb like Simon Cowell. We’re looking forward to the day his place features on a celebrity death tour, and to the expressions of deep disinterest we’ll adopt when it’s pointed out to us. C

Amy Grimehouse are Alex Menace and Mia Pollak. Amy Grimehouse is an immersive cinema/arts club night in London that celebrates trashy, camp, cult and transgressive film, art and books. It’s rather marvellous