Celebrity Spotting

This has been a source of  major disappointment.  After a whole year of living in LA we haven't seen a single celebrity.  To be fair locationally we are at a disadvantage, Pasadena is on the opposite side of LA to Hollywood and Beverly Hills, but it's a pretty cosmopolitan place and every Saturday night you can walk down the main street and see Ferrari's and Porches valet parked outside the swankiest restaurants. These must surely belong to some celebrity or another, but who? Of course the other great disadvantage is that I don't watch enough films, sport or TV, or read enough gossip magazines, to actually recognise a celebrity if one was standing right in front of me.  Every time we go to Santa Monica I see beautiful people jogging along the beach with designer baby in designer pushchair, designer Chihuahua riding shotgun on designer bicycle - surely these people must be the "rich and famous"? But again, who exactly?

When we first arrived in California we took the customary "Homes of the Stars" tour of Beverly Hills.  Sure I've seen the seven foot high fence Orlando Bloom has just erected around his property, I've seen the sturdy locked gates at the beginning of Jack Nicholson's very long drive, I've seen the house where Sharon and Ozzy used to live and the mansion Richard Gere owns but hasn't lived in for the past 3 years. I've also seen the house Tom Cruise once shared with Nicole Kidman, and tucked away in the distance behind that we could just spot the Beckham's chimneys....but well I would have liked to have seen at least one  well known personality out on their drive washing their car! But there again, if I was a celebrity, would I choose to live somewhere a bus load of tourists pulled up outside every 20 minutes or so? No way!

As we drove along Sunset Strip our guide pointed our the cafes and restaurants supposedly frequented by the beautiful people, but we were "just a little too late" for breakfast, and "just a little too early" for lunch, so of course we saw no-one.

You can, however, regularly see film crews and production teams hard at work around the city.  The Arboretum where I do my voluntary gardening is frequently used for location shots.  The parking lot overflows with large heavyweight production trucks; you can watch hoards of technical guys off loading lots of complicated equipment and other media paraphernalia; miles of cabling, huge lighting structures and lots of scaffolding.  The mobile catering team is always hand to feed the masses; setting up large BBQ's, occasionally you can catch sight of the wardrobe mistress wheeling out costume rails, and there are always lots of beefy looking security men milling around with headsets and walkie talkies.  But I've never actually seen any filming - that's just a very minor part of a very longwinded procedure - it really is a case of lights, camera and very little action!  And you can get very excited thinking you're going to catch Johnny Depp stepping out of the portaloo, but actually, at the end of the day it's more likely to be a Hollywood wannabe making a TV commercial.

So what other opportunities are there for star spotting? What about the Oscars and all those charitable functions and film premieres that bring Tinseltown out in force? Unfortunately the surrounding roads are almost always blocked off.  Those people you see standing along the edge of the red carpet are specially invited guests.  There's no hope for us mere mortals to catch a glimpse of anyone famous through the entourage of TV crews and security guards.

Perhaps I will just have to work harder at this star spotting lark.  There are websites which will tell you where to hang out if you really want to make an effort to see celebrities - personally I think this might just be a clever marketing ploy.  Apparently a lot of celebs do their grocery shopping at Bristol Farms - very upmarket food stores.  There's actually one near us in South Pasadena - a reliable source tells me they spotted Liz Taylor there 20 years ago.  I don't think I'll bother changing my grocery habits just for that.

So whilst Los Angeles still holds onto its reputation of being the entertainment capital of the world,  the days are long gone when entire movies were filmed here. The writing team, editing team, production team, might well still be based in Hollywood, but the actors and actresses certainly don't need to be.  These days the only stars you will see in Hollywood are the ones embedded in the paving slabs along the "walk of fame".  And whilst a walk down Hollywood Boulevard is a must from a touristy point of view, it does have a tacky, past-its-best sort of feel which is actually rather sad.   Now Beverly Hills, that really is plush, and Rodeo Drive is positively deluxe, and yes you do have to be mega rich to shop there - but should that  alone automatically entitle you to celebrity status? There are plenty of so called modern media "celebrities" I've no desire to meet whatsoever.

You wanna see real stars? Wait until its dark and look up at the night sky - there's hundreds of them twinkling away up there. I think for now that will just have to do for me!