Hooray for Hollywood!

Brown Derby

WHY I LOVE HOLLYWOOD! (repost)

    When I was working at the post office in Beverly Hills I had to take a package over to an office in the Ladd Building.  Into the elevator I stepped and there was a most familiar gentlemen...good looking and well dressed.  Of course, you guessed it was actor ALAN LADD...and in his own building.  Nice guy...nice smile.  

    One of my chores while at the Beverly Hills post office was to do the Wilshire run...picking up mail in the boxes for about a twenty block stretch.  One mailbox was located right in front of the famous Brown Derby and as I pulled my mail truck to a stop and got out I saw three very familiar gentlemen hanging around the box and I had to ask them (politely) to move so I could collect the mail.  

   They were three of the biggest legends of film who for years had scared the pants off me in great horror classics: PETER LORRE, VINCENT PRICE and GEORGE RAFT.  They were kind...smiled at me and moved.    Quite a moment. 

   And then there was JACK LEMMON shopping all alone at the Farmers Market and telling the youngsters to move on...they were bugging him!.  When Jack gets troubled he has a kind of neck jerk which you won't see in his films for sure.

   And how about real estate tycoon RANDOLPH SCOTT.  Say what?  

I do mean the actor in a million western films, of course.  I waved at him one day across the street (with a small entourage).  Word in Beverly Hills was he and Bob Hope were competing to see who could buy the most land and were real land-owner millionaires.

   Also...talk about legends...you’re not gonna believe this one.

 I got off my post office shift late one night and went to a small all night diner on Wilshire...just up the block from the Brown Derby.  There was one stool empty so I sat down and ordered coffee and something to eat.

   When my coffee came I had to ask the well dressed lady next to me to pass the sugar.  She turned and smiled...and reached for the sugar and handed it to me.  I thanked her politely and went about my meal.  Only after I had left the diner did I realize I had asked MARLENE DIETRICH to pass me the sugar.  

   You never know who you’ll run into in Beverly Hills.

All true stories!

        stanmajor@aol.com