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It Belongs in a Museum… In Hollywood.

by Andrew McDonald 8 years ago

Hollywood truce over a museum worth travelling to the other side of the world for.

With the Golden Globes in our rear-vision mirror, let the official burst of excitement engulf us for our dear friend Oscar, despite his recent prejudicial shortcomings, is practically around the corner. Whilst basking in award season joy something occurred to me that had completely slipped my mind for the last three years. I distinctly remember at a previous Oscars, the triumphant announcement that Hollywood would finally be getting a proper, if perhaps long overdue film museum. The ultimate movie haven, located right in the thick of tinsel town that we faithful film disciples, the cinema loving world at large and I guess the casual observer had long been waiting for. My recollection of the announcement speech was set to the unquestionably serious tone reminiscent of when Saddam Hussein was caught, a TV host revealing the million dollar question, a sermon delivered in a stadium or a conference announcing that all four original members of KISS will be reuniting once more. Not that I had any intentions of immediately booking a flight from Melbourne to L.A. but my heart fluttered with the notion that as suggested, this sanctuary of the cinema would mark a place where one might actually get the sense of being part of film-makings inner circle – that elusive bliss of finally making direct contact with your celluloid dreams was about to come true and it would be a dream well worth making the pilgrimage for.

 

I’ve had the good fortune of gracing Hollywoodland’s hallowed streets on a few occasions but sadly, and despite how hard I have romanticised prior to each arrival, I’ve not once felt that spark that indicates ‘this where all the magic is conceived, welcome to the dream factory’. It wasn’t until I visited the busy intersections of New York City that I finally received an electrical surge that suggested I had stumbled onto a film set. But what did I know, TV had taught me Hollywood is the pulse of the biz, and in my tender mind – the centre of the earth, and I assumed if I just happened to waltz down it’s glamorous boulevard that I too could be discovered (for what I have no idea) and make the necessary arrangements to flee Australia for a brand new chapter shacked up within the marvellous confines of my very own Beverly Hills chateau. I deeply, honestly, truly and sadly believed this would happen the first time round, but hey I was fifteen and full of wonderful delusions.

 

Although the trips were few and far between, each time I returned I swore it would be different, that I had simply got it wrong the last time. I vowed to conquer La La Land once and for good and with a conceited confidence, empowered by a slightly more extensive knowledge of film than before, I would surely get a proper sense of that old Hollywood and allow its divine nostalgia to seep into my pores and carouse through my veins. The ghosts of movie past would intuitively mentor my career and ensure my stay for I would be at home, and ready to carry out a golden age of my own. In reality it was always same thing: Slightly disorientated I cautiously searched for some apparition, cinematic sign or glimmer of hope that didn’t present itself and left confused and unsatisfied. The closest I got to Beverly Hills outside of a guided bus-tour (that echoed the illegal practices of a stalker) was when some bravado-oozing lunatic aggressively insisted I abandon my friends, ditch the bar where we’d got talking and visit his mansion. The idea was that we, and only we, could drink more there and crank Pantera all night long (don’t ask me how Pantera came up but I must have seemed persuaded). It actually did sound great and if it wasn’t my first night in L.A. let alone my first night of the trip I may have taken him up on the offer but he persisted to the point where I was sure I’d wake up minus a kidney. Once forced to sternly decline, his infuriated, seething and psychotic response convinced me that I had assumed all too correctly. I would have certainly woken up in a bath tub full of ice and blood.

 

In fact L.A. folk as a whole kind-a scared me, I’m sure I was suffering culture shock each time which prevented me from gelling with the locals but the cops were imposing to the point where I was sure they were just yelling at me, I never seemed to tip enough and still don’t know the norm, someone was always trying to impose their views, sell me things or make me take stress tests on an E-reader outside of a strange building – the only one of which looked like it actually belonged in a movie. I guess I expected to overhear lengthy film conversations by screen legends in a dinner, tales about the night Judy Garland threw her hair dryer at a Vincent Minelli or at very least a mirror. Or perhaps eaves drop on a sure-fire prediction of the next big picture so that I could hold onto the tip-off and gloat with obnoxious pride a year later when it broke box office records. But the most film talk I came across was a guy yelling on his phone insisting that he was so busy and the phrase ‘flippin’ scripts’ was repeated no less than five times in the space of a minute, and thus I concluded that this young gentleman, although potentially a prominent figure in Hollywood who wanted us all to know about it, was also a bona-fide dick.

 

Then there’s the institutions. Film studios were striking barricades open to a lucky and elite few, even the Universal Studios tour that I experienced as a kid felt like one big continuous side-show of rides designed to distract me from poking around the monumental hangar-esque sound stages that were clearly not open to the likes of my bewildered arse, and yet somehow I believed they would be. My TV perceptions of Hollywood had been shattered time and time again. Hollywood Boulevard recalled the slight danger and seediness of Sydney’s Kings Cross closer to home, which is fine for the cross – we go for the seed, but not for the epicentre of my dreams.

 

The first time I stood on Hollywood Boulevard was on a high-school trip. I don’t for a second take for granted how lucky I was to be allowed to travel overseas with my friends, see America’s west coast and even live with a real life American family for a week in Seattle. But it was the brief stop in Hollywood that truly caught my imagination. I pictured one big film set, a wonderland full of celebrities where everywhere you looked directors would be shouting ‘action’ and ‘cut’ through megaphones and I could just sit on the sidelines and breathe it all in. After being raised on a steady diet of movies this would be the place where the stars would align and I’d be discovered for the acting chops I never knew I possessed, or the inherent directing skills that were sitting idle until finally and rightfully requested ‘we need a charismatic fifteen year old kid. You there, come on over son! Write up the rich and famous contract for, what did you say your name was?’ (You know the same contract Orson Welles gave Kermit The Frog and Company in The Muppets Movie?)

 

With no prior information or insight as to where our mini-bus was parked, our instructions were merely to have a look around and meet back in twenty minutes. It was already dark and I wondered around aimlessly in what I figured was just an average Los Angeles hub, I could perhaps pick up a souvenir like a plastic Oscar statue that read Best Son In a Feature Film, or a Motley Crue t-shirt that I hadn’t come across at the Victoria Market at home. I saw no pressing need to continue this fruitless jaunt and arrived promptly to the bus. At about the time the others arrived and we began to board, I happened to look down to see a star on the ground with an actor’s name held within in gold lettering. It was my own fault for keeping my head up I guess, but –

 

‘Shit! Fuck! Shit! Fuck! Shit!’

 

‘You mean we’re here? The place with the stars on the pavement  that I’ve waited my whole fucking movie-loving life to see and once I board this fucking bus you mean to tell me we’re not even coming back? Fuck!’

 

The next time I was more ambitious, my girlfriend at the time and I did the tour and saw how the other half lived or at least how high their front fences were. We then moseyed around the Sunset Strip, sat hopeful at The Roxy in case Kelly Osborne was out that night as it was rumoured she had her very own table always reserved. I don’t know what we expected might happen but we didn’t rub elbows with an Osbourne, whereby we weren’t invited back to the Osborne manor to feature in an upcoming episode of the popular reality TV series, we didn’t get to snort cocaine with the siblings, and we never got to hear the old man’s war stories about the Diary Of A Madman tour.

 

The time after that I practically gave up on trying to induce movie stirrings and pretty much explored bars rather than the fronts of studios or dead celebrity’s mausoleums. But I did instigate a journey around the corner from our hotel to the Hollywood Museum. Now, I hate to sound like a cynical outsider targeting the very place that manufactured the exact movies that helped defined my love of the medium but I pinned my final hopes to this unsuspecting museum. As it happened, I took one look at the façade and turned back around. It reeked of Madame Tussauds deteriorating distant cousin or recalled that moment when you’re curiously standing before a sideshow at the fair – you want to go in and see the bearded lady but you know you will leave disappointed. That’s how I envisaged the museums interiors as I judged this book by its cover, and that’s exactly what I did, I split the difference and walked away. I should also add that I was travelling with three friends and we were no strangers to ribbing one another, particularly for time-wasting bad choices, and I knew at once, that even if I did encounter a few costume gems, by and large I would be downhearted and susceptible to a ten minute harangue by my mates, but still to this day I have no regrets for letting this one go.

 

 

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Now let me tell you about one of the greatest days of my life. Not on the scale of my child being born or my wedding day but a pretty sweet day nevertheless. I travelled with my wife Laura, who at the time had just become my fiancé, across Europe for a much anticipated vacation. Our first stop was London and day one we proposed to visit their tremendous historic and royal sights beginning with a bird’s eye view of the town on the London-Eye. We figured an aerial vantage point would assist in understanding the lay of the land, but of course we didn’t recognise much other than Big Ben because, well you know…. We hadn’t really been anywhere yet. As we stepped off the great wheel, right at the base and before my widening eyes and frothing mouth lay a building called The London Film Museum.

 

The what? I must have missed that in my Time Out guide, they have a film museum?  It was still early, and Laura and I agreed that we could spend as much time with whatever was inside as we liked. The lady at the counter informed us that the museum wouldn’t be open for another fifteen minutes and that we should get a coffee then come back. As anxious as I was, I obeyed her commands, craned my neck and ingested coffee like a feeding duck. By opening time we were the only visitors – this meant we had a free run of the museum which is just as well because when we entered, my unintentional amplified gasps filled the entire room. It was too much to take, the first room alone knocked the wind out of my sails and it took everything to not cry tears of joy. I was standing amidst innumerable films props, all of which I recognised immediately. My eyes were drawn at once to the Rank Films gong that had introduced countless classic films that I adored. I walked around in a delirious daze, transfixed by one majestic and iconic film artefact after another. I worshipped at the altar of the opening scene of Star Wars (remembering that yes, it was filmed at Elstree Studios in London!) while Laura happily came face to face with Harry Potters trophy and flying broom thing. From the original 1933 King Kong model to the film reels of Gone With The Wind I had arrived in heaven!

 

 

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After hours of shuffling about in a trance we eventually found sunlight and wretched reality, but I vowed that should anything not go to plan from here on in, the London Film Museum had already become the holiday. Back home in Melbourne, I rarely miss a film related exhibition, the fire had been reignited. I’ve been up close and personal with Kubrick’s props, toys and scripts, I’ve seen Star wars costumes at a science exhibit which up close really are just gumboots with a lick of paint. Hands down the most exciting of all was in June 2013 when Melbourne was blessed with The Hollywood Costume Exhibition. I came face to face with some legendary pieces of fabric. Dorothy’s dress! Rupert Pupkin’s Suit! The Terminator’s leather jacket! Queen Blanchet’s Queen get-up! What I didn’t realise at the time was that this exhibition was to generate interest for the The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures which had just been approved.

 

So if this was a precursor to what could be expected of the mother-ship in Hollywood, then it was time to rejoice and take comfort that the ultimate in film indulgence awaits. A museum that will surely trump all other film museums and leave petty exhibitions in its wake for we are now inside the quintessential heart of the film world! Surely if London has some sweet props and costumes then Hollywood would comparatively have a play-pen that could only be described as the Holy Grail, or Grails upon Grails upon Grails – a fortress of relics from the Hollywood cannon that would far exceed all of ones expectations and wildest dreams.

 

As aforementioned I’m the outsider, I don’t know what’s going on in the tinsel town think-tank but progress on the museum seems to ebb and flow. For starters when the announcement was initially made I stupidly figured it would be up and running by the time the next academy award ceremony rolled round and that they would all boast and toast to the year of the museum. I don’t remember any footnote of having to wait four years, now I understand that it’s due to open in 2017, which is like a million years away. I’ve read about how much money has been donated and the outreach of enormous support which suggests that anyone affiliated with the industry with funds to contribute wants to see this museum green lit and take flight as much as the eager film fanatic. The notables are names that you know too like Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen. Then I read about issues with permits, parking and historical failed attempts at restoring the proposed site (May Co. building on the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax) which cast a shadow on whether it can realistically go ahead and be erected as per the proposed designs.  Then I read about some of the incredible and practical donations from the likes of Dolby (yeah the digital one) and also how the academy has started buying distinguishable items like the space shuttle from 2001 A Space Odyssey.

 

 

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Hang on, wait! They brought it? As in they have to buy these things from people? The Space Odyssey shuttle belonged to an art teacher which raised a new set of alarms in my head. One of my all-time favourite and now possibly defunct reality TV shows Hollywood Treasure, made me aware of where the relics are what people do with them. It’s a show where a Hollywood based appraiser, Joe Maddalena tracks down and auctions off pop culture memorabilia from actual films. The search for such relics are never ending since most Hollywood’s golden memorabilia isn’t kept safely in say a museum, as you might expect, but in the garages of individuals who had worked on the production of our favourite films. What’s scary is that most of his ‘leads’ were retiree’s no longer affiliated with show business and most of the goods had been neglected and gathering dust. What’s scarier again is that once Maddalena coaxed the owners into selling the items dangling that gold carrot on a string, the items usually sold to rich enthusiasts or just the rich to ensure, I assume, a vastly impressive man cave?

 

For instance Spielberg owns Rosebud, the sled from Citizen Kane (which baffles me since I saw it burn), and he paid something like fifty or sixty thousand dollars for it in the eighties so imagine what it’s worth now with inflation. Don’t ask me how I even know that Spielberg owns it, but it’s something I just can’t forget since a pointless pang of jealousy set in when I first heard. Not that I could have outbid him, then, now or ever, but still it’s Rosebud!  So using Spielberg as an example since he so kindly donated money, does he therefore also hand over Rosebud so that we can all have a squiz? I may be completely wrong and Rosebud may very well by doing the rounds on some Exhibition Kane tour right this very second, but I’m blissfully inclined to the idea that it’s displayed in Spielberg’s pool room, home theatre, garage or storage facility (the irony) right where he likes it. Hell, if I was a movie mogul and my walls were littered with iconic film paraphernalia, it would be hard for me to part with something as cool (I mean important) as Rosebud. ‘Hey, here’s the red hoodie from E.T. knock yourselves out! What, you want my Rosebud? And you’re doing what with it with it? In public? Get the hell out of my house! Security!’

 

My introduction to eBay was a chance discovery where I stumbled upon a shooting script for Citizen Kane. The story that accompanied the item went that the seller was cleaning out his recently deceased relatives home and found the script, complete with a note from Orson Welles himself, (the owner wasn’t in the film -I checked) but had a production role and the guy who had the burden of cleaning out all this rubbish had no interest in films what so ever. This was made evident by the low price for which he was willing to part with the signed script. We’re talking around $50, so I placed a bid and started making mental preparations for where and how I would display my new prize. I would encase it in a glass box and put various Citizen Kane books, and postcards that I had lying around beside it, plus that autographed still of Ruth Warwick who played Kane’s wife in the film that I kept safely guarded at home. This was shaping up to be a hot little shrine of which I couldn’t wait to start worshipping. It was practically mine until the eleventh hour when another bid came in, then another and another again until we were well over the thousand dollar mark. I sweated as the saga unfolded wrestling with how high I was willing to bid, and then sinking as I measured the amount in guitars – it was at the equivalent to buying three decent guitars that I finally let go.  EBay had gone from my new best friend to evil incarnate in the space of minutes.  I’ve rarely used the site since, much to the ridicule of friends. But if I’m to be completely honest with myself, had I won the bid would it have turned me into a Spielberg?

 

I shouldn’t slander poor Spielberg after all it was Indiana Jones that said ‘it belongs in a museum’ and I’m sure he shares the same sentiments as old junior, but for arguments sake isn’t that the general perception that rich people with cool toys may not want to part with them? I’d like to think that the museum wouldn’t have to continue to buy items but rather have them loaned by the people who have them, although I’m sure Joe Maddalena is more than willing to assist, because otherwise wouldn’t that empty out the donation fund in one foul swoop? One can only hope that this isn’t a ‘it’s my ball and I’m going home’ type scenario and that the beholders of treasured Hollywood relics would make a sacrifice for the good of all mankind and relinquish the prizes.

 

I hear there’s a new bar in Melbourne called George’s Bar, an ode to the beloved, neurotic Seinfeld character Mr. Costanza. I have some Seinfeld beer coasters that were given away with DVDs left over from my retail days. As a sign of good faith I’ll dig them up and hand them to the bar for the drinking pleasure of their Sein-loving patrons, to set a firm example in hopes that movie memorabilia owners will do the same. It’s not really the same thing at all is it?

 

But aside from bids I’ll be across this museum, eagerly awaiting its arrival, should everything come together by the proposed launch date. Providing all goes according to plan then I guess I’d better start saving for a ticket to Hollywood, who knows I might even get discovered!

 

 

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Posted by: Andrew McDonald

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