JOIN USHow do we know where we’re going? Follow the moon! Remember, the moon is always over Hollywood... The car was speeding out of the beachfront city of Santa Monica and Charles M Schulz’s words were buzzing in my ears. I knew where I was going. To Van Nuys Airport for a chopper ride over Hollywood. I dared to defy Schulz. I was not following the moon. Early morning gods do not sew moons on blue skies. Forget the moon. I was looking for stars. Those drop-dead gorgeous stars who walk in and out of 70 mm silver screens.
Close to Hollywood, these are the only stars who pop in my head. Perhaps Robert de Niro. Tom Cruise. John Travolta. Johnny Depp. Perhaps a heartthrob wafting in the air.
With those dreamboats in my eyes, I walked into Van Nuys Airport, where freshly scrubbed helicopters were lined up. A safety guide lay on the table. “If the pilot lands the helicopter on a hill, do not exit to the rear of the helicopter, because helicopter blades are expensive.” Chopper on a hill? I hadn’t yet filled in the sign-off-your-life disclaimer form.
Before another creepy thought could swirl in my head, Claudia H, owner of Group 3 Aviation, drilled hope. “Ignore the safety guide. You got a Hollywood stuntman for a pilot.” There stood a man with massive crow’s feet. A glimmer in his eyes said he could somersault in the clouds. “He is a stunt director/co-ordinator and was a stunt stand-in for Robert de Niro in The Italian Job, The Intern... Has 500 films to his credit. Even Spider-Man.”
Stunt man extraordinaire
Rick Avery stood in a corner, his crow’s feet wrinkling hurriedly in glee. Well, if he could perform stunts as Spider-Man, I needn’t bother about the chopper landing on a hill. That’s the pro of having a World Stunt Award winner and a daredevil 5th Degree Black Belt champion for a pilot.
Minutes later, the chopper’s wings twirled, I buckled in the back seat, and Avery took us for a top-down view of the Hollywood glitz. The chopper hovered over Muscle Beach, where Arnold Schwarzenegger had pumped iron into his biceps; it was on the Venice Beach that Pamela Anderson strutted in a bikini for Baywatch. From 2,000 ft, Johnny Depp’s chateau with a grey roof looked like it came straight out of a fairytale. There were no bunnies but the Playboy Mansion looked swank; Heidi Klum’s home... Avery knew them all. The turquoise blue of the ocean melded with the silken white sand and the charcoal grey of Sunset Boulevard. During the 60-minute ride, it is the iconic Hollywood sign on Mount Lee that stole my heart. From the sky it is tad difficult to believe that each letter of the sign (originally ‘Hollywoodland’), erected in 1923 by Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler, is 30 ft wide and 43 ft tall. As Avery flew past Depp’s house, I squinted harder. Perhaps he’d be there. He wasn’t. I landed without any stardust.
Amusing rides
The hunk was a disappointment. But I found the Hulk in Hollywood Universal Studios. No ordinary Hulk this — 30 ft tall, 20 ft wide, 15 ft deep. Weight: 6,000 pounds. I had to wear 3D goggles for King Kong as he got into a brawl with a 35-foot-tall T-Rex. All this in 360-degree view during the Universal Studio Hollywood VIP Tour on a special trolley. So real is the 3D show that I squirmed and my survival instincts went on an overdrive when King Kong and T-Rex growled, rumbled, roared, fought and leapt out of two 187x40 ft curved screens (equivalent of 16 movie theatre screens).
After that nerve-killing ride, the trolley ran through movies’ busiest sets, prop warehouse, the pond where Jaws was shot (hold on to your heart, a shark lurks deep beneath the waters!); the creepy Bates Motel where Alfred Hitchcock shot Psycho; the Wisteria Lane where Desperate Housewives gossip; and the eerie plane crash from War of the Worlds.
In California, there’s a whiff of glam in the air. That whiff is thickest in Beverly Hills, a 14 sq km neighbourhood that houses Rodeo Drive, the world’s wealthiest shopping district. On neat streets flanked by palm trees, glam dolls walk in and out in their stilettos and men in expensive suits drive classy cars with breeze in their hair. So wealthy is the neighbourhood and so many are the celebs that if you loaf around too long, the cops might check your ID.
Thankfully, I had Claire Delacruz Soe of Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau walking with me. As a yellow/black Buggati and pink/gold Rolls Royce zipped past me, I could not peep into history and believe that Beverly Hills was once a ranch where lima beans were grown.
“There’s a surprise,” Soe chirped in the middle of a street. “What?” I wondered. “It’s a surprise,” Soe insisted. Will the dimpled communications manager pull a rabbit out of her tote? She tiptoed to 9635 Santa Monica Boulevard. “There,” she pointed to a pink hole in the wall. A pink ATM, I smirked. “No, you cannot pull out dollars. It is a 24/7 cupcake-vending machine,” Soe tattled. The world’s first cupcake ATM that spews freshly baked cakes for sugar addicts and — don’t drop a jaw yet — has special flavours for pampered dogs. The ATM once crashed because of high demand. What if they had a Hollywood hunk-vending machine in Beverly Hills? Won’t it crash with too many Johnny Depp demands? Perhaps...
Getting there:
* Santa Monica is 30 minutes by road from the Los Angeles Airport.
What to see:
* Take on a chopper ride over Los Angeles, Hollywood, and the VIP Tour of Universal Studios. Must-see includes Santa Monica Aquarium, Museum of Art, Santa Monica Pier, Palisades Park, Bergamot Station. Spare a few hours for a walk around Beverly Hills.
Food & stay:
* Breakfast at Dogtown Coffee Shop, Coras Coffee Shop.
* Dinner at The Lobster, Sonoma Wine Garden (in Santa Monica Place Mall). Fish tacos at Tacos Puntas Cabras. Mexican cuisine at Border Grill.
* Santa Monica Viceroy, a boutique hotel, is good for accommodation.