HOLIDAY GREETINGS!
Happy New Year 2012!
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LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – A Laurel Canyon home once inhabited by Jim Morrison was damaged in one of the 19 overnight arson attacks that plagued Hollywood and West Hollywood early Friday morning, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The fire — at 8021 Rothdell Trail in Hollywood — broke out at 1:20 a.m. in a nearby car, then spread to the house.
Morrison lived in the 1922 Hollywood home with his girlfriend Pamela Courson. It’s where he wrote the Doors album “Waiting for the Sun” and portions of “The Soft Parade.”
The Laurel Canyon street on which it’s located also was the inspiration for the Doors song “Love Street,” which played during the closing credits of a season two episode of “Entourage.”
According to the Times, 56 firefighters responded to the blaze, which took 35 minutes to contain. One of the firefighters was injured in a fall from a ladder on the ground. He is in stable condition at a local hospital.
Most of the 19 fires were apparently started in cars or carports. Earlier this week, police arrested two individuals in connection with three other arson incidents Thursday morning on Sunset Boulevard. Police and fire officials have not released a suspect description pertaining to the fires that happened overnight.
A city of Los Angeles Fire Department official did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
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With at least one -– and possibly multiple -– serial arsonists on the loose after a rash of fires in West Hollywood and Hollywood, some residents were wondering where to park their cars Friday night.
At least 17 fires were set early Friday morning. Most targeted cars directly. Others were set in carports or underground parking structures.
At a carport in the 7700 block of Romaine Street where a fire broke out early Friday, Lillian and Rick Nothem said they hadn’t decided whether to park in their nearby apartment complex’s nearly identical carport.
“It’s freaking me out,” Lillian Nothem said. “What’s triggering this?”
In the 1800 block of North Vine Street, a BMW parked in the back carport of an apartment complex was destroyed and much of it had melted. A Volkswagen next to it was also damaged.
Musician Zach Smith lives in the complex and said his neighbor owns the BMW and knocked fiercely on his and other tenants’ doors early Friday to wake them up.
Smith said he walked out to see flames coming from the BMW’s hood and engine. Neighbors tried to move the Volkswagen before the fire spread to it but were unsuccessful, he said.
“Straight fire,” Smith said. “The whole hood in straight flames.”
Lucas Dick, a comedian who lives nearby, said he is not particularly worried about an arsonist striking his car because “the trick is you’ve got to buy a cheap car.”
He opined that if his old Toyota Avalon that he purchased for $900 “was set on fire, it would probably be an improvement.”
The person or people responsible for Friday morning’s string of fires in Hollywood and West Hollywood may have chosen cars because they’re easy targets, one fire expert said.
“They’re a quick source of fuel,” said Robert Rowe, a fire investigator in Long Beach with nearly 30 years of experience. “You break a window, you throw some type of object inside and it burns quite vigorously with the plastic, the upholstery and the gasoline.”
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A wax figure of Angelina Jolie, right, at Madame Tussauds is posed next to a photograph of Jolie as she is seen at the Hollywood Wax Museum. The display is part of a marketing effort by Madame Tussauds. (Barbara Davidson, Los Angeles Times / December 16, 2011)
Dissing Angelina Jolie normally isn’t the best way to get ahead in this town.
But tough times call for tough tactics in the war of the Hollywood wax museums.
Madame Tussauds, which considers itself the ne plus ultra of wax artistry — with the $25 ticket price to match — is trying to best its cheaper competitor, the Hollywood Wax Museum, with a new marketing blitz stressing the defects in its rival’s paraffin starlets, singers and comics.
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Commemorating their movie hit “Gentlemen Prefer Blonds” in the favored Hollywood way, Marilyn Monroe, left, and Jane Russell plant their hands in a slab of freshly-poured cement in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. (Los Angeles Times)
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre is hallowed Hollywood tourist ground, the famed site where silver-screen stars such as Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra literally cemented their legends by making hand- and footprints in concrete. On a recent November morning, those movie icons were joined by three gigantic rodents: Alvin and the Chipmunks.
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Andrew Embiricos and Princess Yasmin
The death of Rita Hayworth’s grandson was not suicide, his distraught family and friends have claimed.
Andrew Ali Aga Khan Embiricos, 25, was found lying on his bed in his Manhattan apartment on Sunday evening after apparently suffocating himself with a plastic bag. The circumstances are under investigation.
Mr Embiricos had battled a long and difficult drug addiction and had previously attempted suicide.
According to the young man’s best friend, Jake Dingler, it was not suicide but he refused to comment further on how the grandson of the silver-screen legend might have died at his Chelsea home.
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(Courtesy: Nate D. Sanders)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Orson Welles’ Oscar for writing “Citizen Kane” — regarded as one of the best films ever made — is going up for auction again later this month in a hot market for Hollywood memorabilia.
Los Angeles auction house Nate D. Sanders said on Monday it was selling the best screenplay Academy Award statuette won by Welles in 1942.
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