This Calls For A Celebration!!!

Exactly 100 years ago today Nestor Studios, the first motion picture studio in Hollywood CA, opened up it's doors for business!

Blondeau Tavern soon to be Nestor Studios

It opened at the former Blondeau Tavern (above).  Nestor didn't remain autonomous for long though.  Carl Laemmle, of  Independent Motion Pictures (IMP), absorbed the company along with several others in 1912.  Afterwhich, Nestor head David Horsley and former Nestor Director Al Christie made pictures under the new Laemmle banner of Universal Pictures.

Same site in 1913

After Uncle Carl Laemmle (who had a very large Faemmle) moved Universal to what is still it's location today - Universal City,  Christie split off from the Universal moniker and the lot was now "Christie Comedies".  Christie's company expanded the lot and flourished for the next two decades.

 

Christie lot 1926

As we all know, however, progress happens....

Demolition of Christie Studios, 1937

And, every once in a while, progress is not such a horrible thing.....

CBS Columbia Square

Columbia Square opening April 30, 1938

Columbia Square Lobby

View from the stage of the 1000 seat studio A

The Glenn Miller Orchestra, Studio A

Lucille Ball and Richard Denning  "My Favorite Husband"

Agnes Moorehead's legendary performance of "Sorry Wrong Number"

Columbia Square is something of a ghost town now* since local CBS affiliate KCBS and KNX radio left a few years back.  The property is in the hands of new owners who, of course, plan new and dense and tall construction -- once this wacky economy clears up.  They have promised though to preserve Columbia Square.  Meanwhile some of the space is being rented out to production companies, mostly of the reality TV variety.  But it seems as though only 30-40% of the over 100,000 square feet are being used.

So today, on this most special day, I snuck in!  I boldly walked into the lobby, prepared to go into a riff about my historical walking tour and the significance of the building and the necessity of my walking through it.  I was also prepared to get summarily thrown out on my can.  But, don't you know there was no one sitting at the sweater-draped chair behind the receptionist desk!  I was home free.  I knew once I was inside that if I was spotted, I would be assumed to be an employee of one of the tenants.  So in I slipped.  It was a bit disappointing.  Much of the grandeur and streamline of the place was done over (seemingly in the '70s).  But I walked up to the roof top and went to the deck that surrounds the penthouse office (vacant) to snap these pictures just for you of Hollywood on it's 100th birthday:

The roof looking North East. 

The roof looking along the Penthouse wall to North West.  You can barely make out the Hollywood Sign on top of the hill.

Many of the photos above come from the fabulous facebook page CBS Columbia Square Alumni.

*Ghost town indeed.  Scores of former employees from the building insist that, not only does the spirit of CBS founder and president William Paley inhabit the building, but so does that of former KNX morning DJ/television star Bob Crane (Hogan's Heroes).

America's - and my - Singing Sweetheart.

Listen, I figure you don't get a chance to say something like this all too often, and I'm not about to miss my chance, so here goes:  Last Friday I met a gal who appeared on the very first Ed Sullivan show.

Yeah, I thought that might get your attention - it sure got mine.

On my tour company facebook page I feature a daily "Snapshot of Old Hollywood", and on the eve of Daylight Savings Time I used this one:

The caption informed me that the tiny figure precariously perched on the ladder atop the Eastern building in downtown L.A. was an MGM starlet named Monica Lewis.  I wasn't familiar with the name and figured she had come to Hollywood somewhere in the late forties or early fifties done a few bit parts and then gone home to Oklahoma or Montana.  Well let me tell you how wrong a fella can be!

On Friday Monica had a book signing of her new picture book/bio at a jewel of an independent book store, "Book Soup", on the Sunset Strip.

Now, I'm not going to go on at length here because there's an awful lot of 'Wow' factor in these pages that I don't want to spoil, and I really want you to get your hands on this book!

Did I mention she was stacked!

But to whet your appetite (in addition to the aforementioned appearance on the inaugural Sullivan show):

Her first love is music and when you read about her family; it couldn't have been any other way.

She and her first husband founded a jazz record label for which she recorded called Signature.

She has also produced records on Decca, MGM, Jubilee, Capitol and Verve.

My very favorite picture of Monica.  Dimples!

She was the voice of Chiquita Banana for 14 years.

The Society of Illustrators named her "Miss Leg-O-Genic"

She was an indefatigable supporter and performer for troupes in both WWII and the Korean War. 

MGM, in their infinite wisdom, and the shakeup of replacing Louis Mayer with Dore Schary, didn't know what to do with her and insisted on re-making her in the image of Lana Turner.

A blatant Lana-like Monica.

She had a long and beautiful second marriage to Universal Exec and Producer Jennings Lang, that permitted her to do small parts over the years in his pictures.  Her appearances were seen as his good luck charm.

After all those years, still hanging off of buildings!  Monica and Charlton Heston from "Earthquake!"

We got to speak for a couple of minutes before the signing and she confided that she found the event to be so much fun.  She added that, at her age (she will soon be 90) she would take fun wherever she could find it!  She told me that she doesn't walk so hot anymore and that her voice is gone.  Later while waiting on line to have my book signed, the guy in front of me brought an old piece of sheet music with her on the cover and asked her if she would sign it.  She took looked at it and smiled the smile of a thousand memories and sang the first line of it.  What came out was a sound so rich and velvety that I broke out in chills.  "No voice anymore?", I thought to myself, "yeah, sure!"  She was beautiful, she was adorable, I was charmed.

I'm about half way through the book and what a swell book it is.  Warm, funny, conversational, a bit saucy from time to time and not a dull moment.  It's one to treasure,  just like its' author.

Till you can read it pop over to her website, click on the 'songs' tab, and treat yourself to that voice.  It was no mistake that she was called "America's Singing Sweetheart"

Beautiful Monica today.  Photo by Alan Mercer.