Valley to Get Its Own Star Walk

There’s a good reason Studio City is called Studio City. And now the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission wants to acknowledge a history that includes the likes of W.C. Fields, John Wayne, Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock.

On Thursday, the commission gave the go-ahead to a Hollywood-style walk of fame on Ventura Boulevard that would acknowledge the continuing contribution of Studio City to the entertainment industry.

The seven commissioners unanimously endorsed a plan to install 300 granite tiles in the sidewalks along the boulevard to honor the people who made movies and television shows that run continuously on the nostalgia channel in our minds. Among the shows to be immortalized in concrete -- the B westerns cranked out by Republic Pictures, Welles’ “Macbeth” and a pop-culture honor roll of TV shows that include “Leave It to Beaver,” “Rawhide,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “Hill Street Blues,” “Seinfeld” and “Will and Grace.”

“I think it will draw people to the area, much like the stars on the Walk of Fame in the Hollywood area,” commission President Charles Stern said. “It’s one of those things that will spread by word of mouth. People will say to their neighbors or friends at work, ‘Hey, you should see these neat things on Ventura Boulevard.’ ”

The project was brought before the commission by Studio City architect Ray Franco, president of the Studio City Improvement Assn., a coalition of some 250 area businesses.

Franco, 55, was jubilant Thursday after the commission green-lighted the project.

He said the idea was first suggested about three months ago, at a meeting of the association’s board. “We honestly don’t know who first brought it up,” he said.

But a plan was quickly formed. Historian Carla Whalen, an administrator at CBS Studio Center before retiring, compiled a list of about 2,000 local productions, starting in 1928 after Mack Sennett built a studio on Ventura Boulevard. The lot later became Republic Pictures. Now the CBS Studio Center, it has been home to dozens of production companies, including Mary Tyler Moore’s MTM.

For the Studio City walk of fame, the group decided against star-shaped plaques and opted for 18-by-18-inch nonskid granite tiles -- big enough to include the names of multiple contributors, which Franco sees as more appropriate for recognizing collaborative achievement.

The tiles will be installed on both sides of the boulevard between Rhodes Avenue and Carpenter Avenue, across from the CBS Studio Center.

The association will pick up the $175,000 tab. The tiles are now being produced and Franco said installation would probably begin around Aug. 1.

Franco is fiercely proud of Studio City’s contributions to popular culture.

“The media we’re talking about -- the movies and television -- have had more impact in the last 75 years than any other media,” he said.

That influence continues to this day, said Franco, who watches from his second-floor office windows as entertainment professionals walk past on the boulevard and would-be stars rush to pick up their latest head shots.

He believes the past inspires and nourishes the newcomers: “New creativity comes here but it’s pollinized by the history of this place,” he said. “We needed to make this permanent.”

Franco said he knew about American entertainment long before he knew anything about George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. He was born in Spain and his family moved to Paris when he was a child.

There, he recalled, “I had a statue of Roy Rogers on a little plastic horse.” The Francos moved to the United States in 1960, and he said, “We landed right here in Studio City.”

The association plans to christen the project with a party in the fall.