From the Blvd: Depp, Paltrow, and Dolby

Welcome to Stories from the Boulevard. I’m currently working across the street from the Chinese Theatre and stumble upon Hollywood events and personalities rather frequently. Here is my accidental record of what’s happening on Hollywood Boulevard…

Chinese Theatre

I know now when there is going to be a popular celebrity at an evening premiere… because people are already camped out along the Boulevard when I walk by at 7am. In this case, people sat all night waiting for the premiere of Mortdecai and the arrival of Johnny Depp, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Ewan McGregor (amongst others)…

By noon the barriers were up and more people had their spot picked out…

And, by the time of the premiere, the walk was completely impassable. It was also incredibly loud as people yelled and helicopters constantly circled the block. I can’t imagine what that would be like… to cause such a fervour over something as simple as walking into a theatre to watch a movie.

And of course, immediately after the event the sensationalist blog posts and “news” stories started to appear with ridiculous titles like Gwyneth Paltrow Shows Plenty of Sideboob and Can we get a smile from Johnny Depp?.

I would rather read about celebrities doing something interesting like sitting all night with the people across the street from the Theatre… then, at the last minute, getting up and walking across the street to the red carpet… and it’s at that point that people realize that the person who was silently sitting next to them as they ate, talked, and drank coffee was really a movie star and not an impersonator.

Star of the Week

In contrast to the Mortdecai madness, the next day Ray Dolby was added to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. What’s rather ironic to me is that during the ceremony (at lunchtime) no one stopped to take photos, there were no paparazzi or photographers anywhere on the street, and no one even paused to see what was happening in the middle of the busiest part of the strip.

This is ironic because Dolby was being added in front of the theatre named after him (where the Academy Awards are held) and is a name that is likely in every household in America (if not the world). These methods changed the way in which we experience audio. And, what’s extra ironic is all these famous people piggyback on top of his technology.

At the ceremony there were no Depps or Paltros or McGregors, instead Francis Ford Coppola was there, as well as Sid Ganis, and Dolby’s widow, Dagmar. Ray Dolby passed away in 2013.