Hollywood was filled with smoke, not sunshine. All of California seemed to be on fire. But that only makes things more interesting – a new tattoo parlor just off Hollywood Boulevard, the odd façades from long ago, and the Hillview Hollywood built in 1917 by Jesse Lasky, the co-founder of Paramount Pictures, and his brother-in-law Samuel Goldwyn, the co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. At the time this was Hollywood’s only apartment building willing to rent to aspiring actors...
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Hollywood was filled with smoke, not sunshine. All of California seemed to be on fire. But that only makes things more interesting – a new tattoo parlor just off Hollywood Boulevard, the odd façades from long ago, and the Hillview Hollywood built in 1917 by Jesse Lasky, the co-founder of Paramount Pictures, and his brother-in-law Samuel Goldwyn, the co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. At the time this was Hollywood’s only apartment building willing to rent to aspiring actors – they were a suspicious lot – but that only made this “the” place to be. The basement housed a rehearsal space until Rudolph Valentino turned it into a speakeasy. Clara Bow found her first home at the Hillview in 1923 – but the building was eventually abandoned. It was a tear-down, and then a group of investors restored and completely redid the place in 2005, and went bankrupt, and then others jumped in. It was back in 2015 – and now it's dead again – the Covid pandemic did it in – but Alfredo de Batuc’s 1990 mural “A Tribute to Dolores del Rio” next door has just been restored. She's not dead yet. But Hollywood is. ~ Tuesday, September 8, 2020
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