Orange Neon : The Alluring Light Is Back in Style and It’s Hotter, Flashier Than Ever

The familiar silhouette, sizzling with a movie-star glow, was unmistakable: A sculpted flip of sunshine yellow-blond hair; electric blue eyes; luminous, pouting red lips; soft, pink curving shoulders; gently sweeping lines of the famous white halter dress.

Yes, it was Marilyn--all dolled up in neon.

The piece, mounted dramatically on black Lucite, hangs on the wall of the Laguna Canyon office of Alex Evans, known to his clients and friends simply as “Dr. Neon.” Evans’ striking sculpture of the quintessential movie sex symbol serves notice to all who enter that there’s a world of neon beyond those red NO VACANCY signs advising weary vacationers to keep driving or the green WALK street signals that let pedestrians, chickens and everyone else know it’s safe to get to the other side.

Neon lighting has been in use since the principle behind it was discovered in the late 19th Century, but it has perhaps never been more popular than it is today.

Look around and you’ll find it everywhere: Green neon palm trees decorate a Mexican restaurant in Costa Mesa; an orange neon foot hangs in the office window of a Seal Beach podiatrist; blue neon letters spell out Video over the videotapes in an Anaheim record store; a red neon heart perches over a Garden Grove barbecued-rib joint.

“It’s amazing--everybody working in neon is busy right now,” said Wendell Adams, owner of Neon Systems Inc. in Garden Grove, which specializes in interior and exterior neon lighting, not signs.

“Watch TV today and you won’t see a hip commercial without a piece of neon,” said Mary Carter, curator of the nonprofit Museum of Neon Art, or MONA, in Los Angeles, which restores and preserves vintage neon signs as well as exhibiting contemporary artworks that incorporate neon. “Neon has a special kind of glow . . . an enveloping glow . . . that I think people forgot.”

Orange County can’t match the eye-popping quantity of neon that electrifies the Las Vegas Strip, a.k.a. Neon Heaven or Neon Hell, depending upon your point of view. But the neon renaissance is clearly visible in a wide range of creative neon locally, from upscale restaurants and trendy nightclubs to local artists who use it for its aesthetic qualities.

On the commercial side, you can find a plethora of red neon Open signs, but there are also more inventive samples around from the glory days of neon in the 1940s and ‘50s, at longstanding businesses such as the Balboa Cinema in Newport Beach and the Brookhurst Shopping Center in Anaheim.

As with other remnants of the past, much neon, despite the resurgence, is giving way to the wrecking ball. One of the oldest, most widely seen and most elaborate neon signs in Orange County--the windmill tower for Arnold’s Farm House and the Buttery restaurants in Buena Park--is no longer functional. Both restaurants have been demolished for redevelopment, and the fate of the windmill, which still stands, unlit, is uncertain.

“Today, with the range of neon colors available for a designer to create lights and shadows, it is just amazing,” said Dale TerBush, head of design for Restaurant Enterprises Group, which owns El Torito, Cocos, Reubens, Baxters and Charlie Brown restaurants, most of which are employing neon for signs and lighting. TerBush also operates his own independent lighting and design firm. “What’s happening is that people now who have used it realize what an art form they have--if they know how to control it.”

But neon has neither always been quite so revered nor as popular as it has become in the shiny, high-tech ‘80s. After a neon boom that lasted from the 1920s through most of the ‘50s, neon lost most of its sparkle in the ‘60s. Why?

In the single word of sage career advice offered to Dustin Hoffman in “The Graduate”: plastics.

“Plastic signs were easy to make, and when plastic came around, you could throw two fluorescent tubes behind a sheet of molded plastic and have a sign. All neon was (and remains virtually) handwork,” said Mary Carter, curator of the 7-year-old MONA.

Another factor in the decline was, ironically, the sheer popularity of neon, which became so common it was often considered vulgar. The ubiquitous choice for signs over motels, trailer parks, liquor stores and bars, neon came to represent a strata of society that was less than fashionable.

“Twenty years ago on Harbor Boulevard it was just everywhere and overdone,” TerBush said, “so everyone got burned out on it. But neon is really an art. Look back to the ‘40s and ‘50s--some of the signs that were done were incredible. But later the market became proliferated with low-budget neon. It became garish. People shut off to it; cities shut off to it.”

During the ‘70s, however, the seeds were planted for a neon renaissance that has come to full bloom in the ‘80s. Aficionados and artists struggled to separate the craftsmanship and art of neon signs from the establishments they frequently lit up. They hoped to eradicate neon’s “sleaze factor” and, to a large extent, they succeeded.

Locally, some of the trendiest restaurants, including the Sorrento Grill in Laguna Beach, El Torito Grill locations in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa and the new Caliente in Irvine, make extensive use of neon lighting.

MONA founder and director Lili Lakich, Southern California’s patron saint of neon, will go so far as to credit neon with a significant role in the transformation of Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles from run-down, crime-ridden boulevard into a thriving center for hip retail boutiques and eateries. (“One shop owner put some in a window and pretty soon everybody was using neon--it changed the face of Melrose,” Lakich says.)

“Nobody walks in L.A.--that’s the cliche,” MONA’s Carter said. “But it’s an observable phenomenon in L.A. that there are hardly any places where people do much walking--on Melrose, Ventura Boulevard in the Valley, Westwood, downtown on Broadway--where there is not neon at night. Neon has warmth, gaiety and safety.”

Susie Ketchum, a ceramist from Santa Ana who began incorporating neon in her artwork since taking a class in neon design and technique earlier this year at MONA, said: “I like the way the light saturates a room--it’s exotic and warm. . . . Neon can really animate a work.”

Ketchum has two large pieces using neon on display at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles: wardrobe-sized mirrors each framed by zig-zagging lengths of neon. One, “Skulls,” is bordered in black and white with dozens of small skulls that have dice, dollar signs or other symbols in place of eyes. The whole work is rimmed in red neon, and carries a price tag of $5,000. Its companion, “Dancing Skeletons,” features full skeletons and is framed with contiguous strips of red, yellow, green and blue neon, and sells for $6,000.

“It takes a certain type of person to appreciate neon--a lot of people think of neon and think of liquor stores and bars; they think it’s gaudy,” Ketchum said.

Laguna Beach sculptor Joanne Rosendo has been using neon for about 3 years, applying neon halos to many pieces as a stylistic signature. Fittingly, she also puts neon accents on a series of paintings titled after ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll hits because, she said, “I’m a child of the ‘50s and it’s an integral part of our experience--like rock ‘n’ roll.”

Artists have been exploring more creative uses of neon for decades, but it hasn’t long been accepted as much more than a flashy novelty. That’s because neon “was associated with a crass medium--advertising--and some people in the art world were afraid of anything to do with electricity,” Carter said.

In the late ‘60s, neon turned up more frequently in art galleries in the works of pop artists, helping lend it more prestige. Today, there is “no question” about neon’s legitimacy as a fine art medium, according to Laguna Art Museum curator Michael McManus. Newport Harbor Art Museum chief curator Paul Schimmel characterizes its place in the art world as just one of many materials artists are likely to use in installations or sculptures. “Very few artists are using neon for its own sake; nobody today would do a neon show, but they would have 15 years ago.”

A significant step toward the acceptance of neon in art circles was a 1972 exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, a retrospective of Pasadena artist Bruce Nauman, who uses neon extensively in his work.

“That was a primary piece of programming with a substantial catalogue,” McManus said, adding that the Laguna Art Museum is seriously considering hosting a touring exhibit of Lili Lakich’s work in 1990.

What makes neon lighting unique? According to “Neon Techniques and Handling,” a bender’s textbook written by Samuel C. Miller: Neon produces colors that are “easy on the eye, but nevertheless extremely compelling.” Also, the high efficiency of luminous tube lighting makes it inexpensive to operate. “A pure neon tube radiates five times as much red light for a given amount of power as do incandescent lamps.” And the flexibility of the tubing makes it adaptable to virtually an infinite variety of applications.

Neon has a long life-span--most in the business say signs will easily last 20 years or more with a minimum of upkeep (and as long as 60 to 70 years), and that they are considered quite safe as long as they are properly installed.

“So far, we haven’t had any place burn down,” DeRobbio said with a laugh.

Inspector Steve Ohlsen of the Orange County Fire Department said he knew of “only two or three fires in the last 3 or 4 years” that were sparked by faulty neon signs within the county Fire Department’s jurisdiction, which includes unincorporated territory and 13 cities that contract for fire service with the county. (In 1987, the Crazy Horse Steak House in Santa Ana sustained several thousand dollars’ worth of fire damage to its roof caused by a neon sign damaged during high winds. The sign was repaired and remains one of the most striking in Orange County.)

Most cities consider neon no special hazard and regulate its use along with any other form of lighting or signs that use electricity.

Now, where can you see distinctive neon without traveling to the famous flashing Coca-Cola sign that towers above Manhattan, or to the Strip in Las Vegas?

In general, for vintage neon check old movie theaters, surviving bowling lanes and, of course, older motels and liquor stores. Old town sections of Orange, Anaheim, Garden Grove and Fullerton are rife with ‘40s and ‘50s neon.

For the more creative new applications, try shopping malls (MainPlace/Santa Ana has dozens of neon signs), and restaurants, especially those featuring nouvelle or California cuisine that aim for the yuppie crowd, which loves neon.

More specific recommendations can be found in the accompanying chart.

GLOWING EXAMPLES OF NEON

The Orange Drive-In Theatre

STATE COLLEGE BOULEVARD

AT THE SANTA ANA FREEWAY

Typical of 1950s drive-ins, the huge letters at this theater glow, fittingly enough, in orange neon.

The Crazy Horse Steak House

1580 BROOKHOLLOW DRIVE, SANTA ANA

Colorful yellow and blue logo with a bucking bronco as well as the name spelled out in Orange. Easily visible from the southbound side of the Costa Mesa Freeway at Dyer Road.

Fiesta Marketplace

4TH ST., SANTA ANA

This new mall, part of the efforts to rebuild and modernize downtown Santa Ana, is using neon in striking exterior lighting and signs for various businesses.

MainPlace/Santa Ana

2800 N. MAIN ST., SANTA ANA

Neon is in abundance in the county’s newest major shopping mall, from signs over more than a dozen businesses to “skyhooks” that use free-floating neon designs suspended from the ceiling. Also, the Brass Plum youth fashion department at the Nordstrom store (on the third floor) boasts one of Lili Lakich’s signature neon sculptures--an abstract representation of a woman’s face accented in various colors of neon.

Glide’er Inn

1400 PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY,

SEAL BEACH

This 58-year-old restaurant makes its name and menu specialties known with orange neon signs that trumpet Steaks and Seafood within blue and pink borders. The inn also boasts a green-and-blue neon fish and, of course, orange neon advertising Cocktails.

Sam’s Sea Food

16278 PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY,

HUNTINGTON BEACH

The giant blue neon swordfish swimming through the air high over this local landmark built in the early ‘20s can be seen at least a mile away.

Arby’s Roast Beef

7942 EDINGER AVE., HUNTINGTON BEACH

While some of this fast-food chain’s outlets use generic plastic signs, this location has a glowing neon sign that advises: “Arby’s Roast Beef Sandwich Is Delicious.” As Dr. Neon says: “A great neon sign will pull people in, even if they are serving plastic burgers.”

Off My Back

1741 SUPERIOR AVE., COSTA MESA

New clothing store for the MTV generation catches the eye of passers-by with a high-tech triangular logo framing the store name and soft blue script lettering spelling out Clothing Outlet--Wholesale to the Public.

Steamers Seafood Etc.

444 N. HARBOR BLVD., FULLERTON

This hip new restaurant uses lots and lots of neon, pointing out all its specialties in English and French-- Torrefaction de Cafe in blue, Oyster Bar (with a little neon oyster) in white, Vins & Spiritueux in green, etc.--as well as little neon clouds in pink and red on the ceiling.

The Hop

18774 BROOKHURST ST., FOUNTAIN VALLEY

AND 23822 MERCURY ROAD, EL TORO

What would the ‘50s have been without neon? Black and white. That’s why (separate) operators of these two nostalgia-theme diner-nightclubs turned to colorful neon to bring back shades of Happy Days. Both also have clever neon sculptures of mascot Billy Bob Bunny: white bunny body, cool blue shades, righteous red jacket. They use an animator to make Bunny’s foot appear to tap to the sounds of good ol’ rock ‘n’ roll.

Caliente

1910 W. MAIN ST., IRVINE

Designer Dale TerBush winds hundreds of feet of neon-filled tubing around the perimeter of the restaurant, accents the colorful cantina with yellow, green and blue neon and even came up with a full-spectrum neon rainbow for the nonsmoking dining room.

Bubbles Balboa Club

111 PALM ST., NEWPORT BEACH

To create a ‘40s ambiance, designers naturally turned to neon. While you’re on the Balboa Peninsula, check out several other creative neon signs in the area, including the Balboa Cinema, Balboa Market and the bay-side Parker’s Seafood Grill in the Balboa Fun Zone.