They Keep Star of Old Hollywood Burning Bright : Preservation: As part of its 10th anniversary, heritage group is holding a fund-raiser to help save the remnants of the early film industry.

The name just wasn’t catchy enough. “The Committee of Blue Haired Ladies in Tennis Shoes,” even if the members did describe themselves that way, just didn’t make it.

So today they are known as Hollywood Heritage, and this month the group celebrates its 10th anniversary. What started as five housewives concerned with preserving Hollywood has grown to 400 movie trivia buffs and architecture preservationists. They give tours, sell movie memorabilia, show silent movies and monitor building projects along Hollywood Boulevard, for which they obtained a historic district designation in the National Register.

“We want to make sure that the tangible part of Hollywood’s grand era still remains,” said founding member Christy McAvoy.

“This was the 5th Avenue of the West in the 1930s and ‘40s,” added Frances Offenhauser, another founding member of Hollywood Heritage. McAvoy is a historic preservationist, founder of the regional Los Angeles Conservancy and state president of the California Preservation Organization. Offenhauser is vice president and architect of a construction firm.

As part of its anniversary celebration, the group is sponsoring a fund-raiser selling posters signed by Olivia De Havilland, Brooke Shields, Anthony Quinn, Janet Leigh, Buddy Ebsen and other Paramount stars. The funds will be used for projects that include installing plaques on Hollywood Boulevard’s most significant buildings and identifying historic structures on studio back lots.

The group hopes to change the image of a street that has long lost its glamour to souvenir shops, as well as crime and prostitution.

“We were mortified with what was happening,” Offenhauser said.

The first project the group took on 10 years ago, along with the regional Los Angeles Conservancy, was saving the famous hat from the Brown Derby restaurant. Thanks to the efforts of the two groups, it now sits atop a restaurant in a mini-mall behind a Jack-in-the-Box at Wilshire Boulevard and Normandie Avenue.

One project that put them at odds with the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce was the group’s takeover of the wooden barn where Cecil B. DeMille made Hollywood’s first feature-length film, “The Squaw Man.” It had been deteriorating in a parking lot across from Capitol Records when it was wrestled from the control of the chamber. About 200 Hollywood Heritage volunteers scraped together $300,000 in donations and had the barn moved to a park across from the Hollywood Bowl where it is now the Hollywood Studio Museum, run by Heritage volunteers.

“The success of the barn made everyone take note of Hollywood Heritage, because people have been trying for years to put a museum in Hollywood, and suddenly a little community group went out and did it,” said Richard Adkins, a board member who spends many hours a week, in addition to his job as a graphic artist, working on the museum’s exhibits.

“We want to preserve a lasting reminder of the beginnings of an original American art form--film,” Adkins said.

The group often finds itself on the opposite side of the fence from the chamber, which because of its business interests, is considered pro-development.

“We have inevitable clashes,” said chamber President Larry Kaplan. “I once warned them that they have to be careful not to sacrifice the future of Hollywood on the altar of its past. Sometimes they go too far, but I must say they have made us realize how important preservation is for us, too.”

Marian Gibbons, one of Hollywood Heritage’s founders, said her group has helped rather than hampered the area’s development. “We don’t want to stop progress, we just want to have some input into doing it right.”

And the group has done just that. Historians and architects in the group reviewed the one-million-square-foot mall that is being planned to be built near the Chinese Theatre, and some of their suggestions have been incorporated. The group also persuaded Disney designers to remodel the Paramount Theatre to its original size.

And when the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel was being restored, Gibbons dug up the original plans, saving $60,000 in architectural fees.

“We do everything for free, because we really care about this tremendous tourist attraction called Hollywood,” Gibbons said.

Not all the group’s efforts have met with sucess, however, said Hollywood Heritage President Judie de Turenne. The group’s biggest heartbreak was the demolition of the Garden Court Apartments, an elaborately designed Art Deco building that stood between the Chinese Theatre and the Screen Actors Guild. They attempted to launch a national campaign to save the once opulent hotel, but developers said it had deteriorated beyond repair. A movie complex is planned for the site.

Another disappointment came when the group raised money to bid for the oldest house on the boulevard, the Janes House, but lost it to a businessman who turned it into a mall and visitor center.

Hollywood Heritage’s own internal changes began six months ago when longtime museum Director Tim Burke resigned. No replacement has been named. The museum hours have been cut back sharply. Critics say the group is spending more time seeking corporate sponsors than attracting new members or upgrading the museum.

The group’s main money-making asset is the Wattles Mansion, an 83-year-old Hollywood home it has leased from the city for $1 a year for the past five years. The group rents the house out for weddings, private parties and movies. Scenes for “Rain Man” were filmed there. Caretaker Steve Sylvester said that, when the group took control of the mansion, its ceilings were caving in and the rose gardens were in a shambles.

“Volunteers came in and patched things up during whatever spare time we had, and that saved the building,” Sylvester said.

To continue such projects, the group is seeking sponsors as far as the East Coast, said publicist Marty Gordon, who moved from Boston two years ago and joined Hollywood Heritage. “We are trying to preserve the boulevard of broken dreams, and because it really has no boundaries, we can attract a worldwide base of interest,” Gordon said.

Szymanski is a West Hollywood-based free-lance writer.