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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 – Old and New

Hollywood is always a mix of the old and new –

Of course this is the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel – 7000 Hollywood Boulevard – named for Theodore Roosevelt and financed by Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Louis B. Mayer. It opened on May 15, 1927 – the first Academy Awards were presented in 1929 in the Blossom ballroom. Montgomery Clift lived here for three months while filming From Here to Eternity (1953) – in Room 928. But they say his ghost roams the eighth floor, walking around late at night, playing his bugle. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard paid five dollars a night for their penthouse you see up there, their love nest. There are lots of stories. It's an odd old place.

And on the street out back, it seems Phillip Marlow (Humphrey Bogart) parked his car from The Big Sleep (1946) – it's a 1945 Chevy sedan, and it may have been sitting there since then

Those were the days (the Hollywood First National Bank at Hollywood and Highland) –

As for the new, this was Wednesday, December 16, 2009, the day when the revolutionary new James Cameron film Avatar had its World Premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theater, across the boulevard from the haunted hotel. They shut down the boulevard and set up the lights and all that sort of thing, for the arrival of the celebrities and stars at sundown. It happens all the time, one premiere after another, and the new is the same old thing.

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All text and photos unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 - Alan M. Pavlik 

[December 2009] [Mysterious Alley] [Simple Colors] [You Are] [Working Hollywood] [The Berlin Wall] [Hello Girls] [Museum Light] [Christmas Dislocation] [A Dark Garden] [Rainy Day Deco] [Blue Christmas] [Will Farrell] [Demanding Attention] [Hollywood 1926-1928] [Graffiti Trio] [North of Pink's] [The Neighborhood] [Heavy Rain] [The La Brea Wall] [Workers] [In the Alley] [Lighting Hollywood] [Old and New] [Chinese Christmas] [Certain Danger] [Above It All] [Observatory Sky] [For Christmas] [A Rich Christmas] [Uncertainty] [Clouds Over Sunset] [Almost Here] [Winter Shadows] [Nutmeg Christmas] [California Poppy] [Year End Images] [Late Afternoon] [That's a Wrap]