Bob Strauss
The Hollywood Walk of Fame has become an unusually effective tourist magnet over the last 50 years. Now, to celebrate that landmark anniversary, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and local businesses are inviting Angelenos to come visit, too.
The Walk the Walk public festival will unfold Sunday along the one-and-a-half mile, terrazzo-paved stretch of Hollywood Boulevard and adjacent streets.
“As part of the 50th anniversary celebration, we wanted to encourage the public to visit, to walk the walk and enjoy Hollywood,” said Chamber President and CEO Leron Gubler.
Even in Hollywood’s darkest depressed times over the last half-century, the Walk of Fame remained an international symbol of the entertainment industry’s enduring allure. No visit to L.A. was complete without a stroll down the sidewalk, reading the names of, as The Kinks’ song put it, “Some that you recognize, some that you never even heard of.” Ground was first broken on Feb. 8, 1960. Producer-director Stanley Kramer was the first person to have a star set on March 29, and the Walk was officially dedicated on Nov. 23. Each star, of course, means something to its honoree’s fans.
“I put in Michael Jackson’s star, right in front of the Chinese Theatre; that was one of the highlights for me,” David Paternostro, 54, said of the Walk’s most visited 3-foot by 3-foot square. His family business, currently located in Sun Valley and called Top End Constructors, has been making the black and pink squares for three generations.
“We get so many questions from tourists every time we’re putting one in,” Paternostro said. “Some think it’s a tombstone, that the person is buried under there. Then, if we’re tearing out a blank or making repairs to a person’s star, they think that someone’s been voted off the Walk of Fame.
That can’t happen, in case you were wondering.