With the Academy Awards in Hollywood this weekend, millions will be looking up at the stars.
But if you look to the ground on the sidewalks of Tinseltown, you see stars too. On a night that celebrates the hot new performers and movies, the Hollywood Walk of Fame is a history lesson in show business.
Since its beginning in 1960, the Walk of Fame has proved a perennial draw
to tourists eager to see the stars. An
estimated 10 million visitors come each year to the 18-block stretch.
The original plans called for 1,529 of the biggest stars of film, stage,
radio, television and music to eventually be immortalized in the concrete
using brass set in salmon-colored terrazzo stars surrounded by black
backgrounds.
As of March 2010, there were more than 2,300 stars on the walk, representing 2,100 individuals or organizations.
The Walk of Fame was conceived in the 1950s by business leaders in Hollywood
as a way to beautify the area’s historic core.
The groundbreaking ceremony on
Feb. 8, 1960, featured actresses
Linda Darnell and Gigi
Perreau, as well as veteran actors
Francis X. Bushman and
Charles Coburn,
using shovels to scoop up the dirt.
In addition, about 500 stars on the walk are currently blank,
essentially acting as placeholders for future honorees.
Although the area near the famed intersection of Hollywood and Vine had
been a central point for the fledgling movie industry before World War II, the
area’s glamour had long since faded by the time producer
Stanley Kramer’s star
became the first actually set into the sidewalk on March 28, 1960.
Seven types of stars can be found on the Walk of Fame.
The most common, by far, has been awarded for work in the field of motion pictures.
Performers are also recognized for work in the fields of television, radio, live
performance and recording.
Fifteen "special stars" have
been awarded to events or companies,
including the 1969 Apollo moon landing and news organizations such as the Los Angeles Times and Variety.
There is even a star for well-known lingerie model Victoria’s Secret Angels, which was granted in 2007 to the
well-known lingerie wearing models.
Gene Autry
is the only person to be awarded stars in the five fields recognized on the
Walk of Fame: film, TV, radio, live performance and music. During his lifetime, Autry emerged as both a
top moneymaking entertainer and a powerful businessman. As his 1998 obituary said,
"He was enormously successful at almost anything he tried — radio, records,
songwriting, television, real estate and business, as well as movies and museums."
The late Bob Hope
and romantic crooner
Tony Martin,
who turned 96 on Dec. 25, 2009, are next with
four stars each. Thirty-three people, including
Frank Sinatra,
Danny Kaye and
Jack Benny, have been awarded stars in three fields.
Only two women have three stars, Dinah Shore and Gale Storm, a radio and television star best known for the program "My Little Margie."
In addition, there are four special markers at Hollywood
Boulevard and Vine Street to commemorate the Apollo landing in 1969.
The Times’ Hollywood Star Walk virtual tour
follows the actual order of the more than 2,400 terrazzo stars on the
Walk of Fame, which stretches along Hollywood Boulevard and Vine
Street. This order was created based on work by Times researchers to
catalog the locations and generate points on a map for each. Each
star was photographed.
The virtual tour is powered by an in-depth database — created
using more than a century of the archives of the Los Angeles Times. On
the database pages, the locations of the terrazzo stars appear on a map
as close as possible to their precise location. In addition, those maps
may include other places meaningful in the star’s life.
— Megan Garvey and Anthony Pesce
Photo: The Feb. 8, 1960, groundbreaking ceremony with,
from left, L.A. County Supervisor Ernest Debs, E.M. Stuart, Gigi Perreau,
Linda Darnell, Harry M. Sugarman, Francis X. Bushman and Charles Coburn. Credit: Times file
A new Times database puts readers on the sidewalks of Hollywood, using more than a century of archives to track the lives of the stars, including current Oscar nominees Jeff Bridges, James Cameron, Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman, Sandra Bullock and Meryl Streep.