Stars go into seclusion for this makeover

Hollywood security guard Lillian Price marched determinedly along the Walk of Fame, anxious to investigate this missing person case personally.

She walked past William Bendix’s brass star, past William Powell’s, past George Sanders’. She stopped short in front of Ann Sothern’s polished terrazzo sidewalk square and stared through the barricade on the Vine Street sidewalk.

“They’re gone!” Price exclaimed. “The stars are gone -- they’re missing in action!”

Charlton Heston, Jane Wyman, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra and 55 other Hollywood celebrities were missing Wednesday from the Walk of Fame in the 1600 block of Vine Street.

Their stars have been removed from a half-block section of sidewalk as crews began construction of a $500-million luxury project near the intersection of Vine and Hollywood Boulevard.

“Not Cary Grant! You’re kidding me,” said Price, who guards the entrance of the Taft Building at the famed street corner. “Don’t tell me Clark Gable is missing. Every time I see ‘Gone with the Wind’ I love him. Now Clark Gable is gone with the wind.”

Actually, Gable and the others have gone into storage. The 61 stars bracketed by those of 1940s-era radio star Ezra Stone and 1950s-era recording artist and arranger Hugo Winterhalter are under lock and key near downtown Los Angeles.

They will be returned to Vine Street in 2009, when the W Hotel, upscale retail shops, apartments and condominiums have been built to partially surround Price’s landmark Taft office building.

Eight of the terrazzo star squares crumbled when workers cut them from the walkway and carefully lifted the 6-inch-thick concrete slabs out.

“We saved the brass. They’ll be rebuilt,” said Tim Maxwell, project manager for Webcor Builders, which is involved in the huge project being developed in conjunction with the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency.

“They cut outside the panels and reached under and lifted them into custom-built storage boxes,” Maxwell said Wednesday.

There is no danger that the missing stars will mysteriously find their way onto EBay.

They’re “in a secure warehouse,” said Nathan Spencer, a manager with Corradini Corp., an 83-year-old firm that specializes in terrazzo, mosaic and marble contracting work.

The Hollywood-and-Vine redevelopment project is viewed by many as the catalyst for the resurrection of what has been called the world’s most famous intersection.

In its heyday before World War II, the corner of Hollywood and Vine was ground zero for Hollywood’s glitz. It was steps from busy film studios and major network radio broadcast centers, and was home to a dozen major theaters that hosted star-studded movie premieres weekly.

The stars’ uprooting has angered some Hollywood residents.

“I would think they’d like to keep the integrity of the neighborhood while they are improving it,” said Gregory Paul Williams, a Beachwood Canyon resident and historian whose recently published book, “The Story of Hollywood: An Illustrated History,” depicts the community from its dusty origins through its glitzy rise to fame, eventual decline and its ongoing renewal.

“Closing down streets and sidewalks makes it impossible to use the area, to walk around it. Tourists come and it’s a complete and total mess,” Williams said. “Tell them to come back later when everything’s finished? Maybe they’re from Europe, and this is the only time they’ll be able to come here. It doesn’t put a good face on the city.”

Longtime Hollywood activist John Walsh said steps should have been taken to protect and leave the Walk of Fame stars in place during the three-year construction project.

“This was done for a private developer. This was not done for the public’s interest, like when the stars were removed back in the ‘90s for the Metro Red Line construction,” Walsh said. “Closing down sidewalks for years at a time like they do here would never happen in New York City.”

Johnny Grant, Hollywood’s honorary mayor and a leader of the nonprofit group that operates the Walk of Fame, said he plans to ask Los Angeles officials to devise a way to display the stored stars. The Vine Street sidewalk, along with those along Selma and Argyle avenues, was closed with the city’s permission.

“They should be on display somewhere near the building at Hollywood and Vine,” Grant said of the missing stars. “The historic part of the star is the brass emblem and the name. If they have those, there’s no problem in redoing the ones that were broken.”

Ken Summers, project director for Webcor Builders, said the Vine Street section of the Walk of Fame had to be redone.

“The old sidewalk wasn’t ADA compliant,” said Summers, referring to the Americans with Disabilities Act, which sets public access standards to assist those who use wheelchairs or other devices to aid mobility. It had an improper slope to it, he said. The new sidewalk -- with the replaced terrazzo panels -- will be flatter.

For now, it seems, this missing persons case seems closed.

bob.pool@latimes.com