Westwood, CA. October, 1981

My first trip to Los Angeles, so naturally I wanted to see all the mythic places, fabled in legend and in song. Among them: the Hollywood Sign, Marilyn Monroe’s grave, Muscle Beach, Frederick’s of Hollywood, the stars along Hollywood Boulevard, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Fortunately my friend Artie, a transplant from NYC to LA, was happy to indulge me. And my proclivity toward jumping pictures, this example of which was shot at Westwood Mortuary. I stayed at the Chateau Marmont (before it got all glammed up after John Belushi’s overdose) as Gore Vidal had lionized it in Myra Breckenridge. Artie and his partner Danny took me to a genuine Hollywood party (where I was introduced to “Loretta Young’s decorator” and an out-of-it young lady who said she played “the nurse in American Werewolf in London.”) Danny, at the time, was working for Paramount, his main responsibility, he told me, making sure Cindy Williams “stayed sober and behaved” at events. They generously made sure their starry-eyed East Coast friend had the complete Hollywood experience, even taking me to a Mexican restaurant “where Jane Fonda eats.” And before I left town, I’d seen Jimmy Stewart on a streetcorner and Elizabeth Taylor in a car stopped at a red light. Hooray!