Flack Over Hollywood : Johnny Grant’s Show Biz Values Will Fuel Desert Storm Parade

The way Johnny Grant tells it, he hasn’t been in this much trouble since they ran the TV credits over Santa Claus. But heck, it was either that or have the Santa float run over the paramedics and the woman giving birth in the middle of the street.

That was the Hollywood Christmas Parade, 1982. The pageant was going fine, right on schedule, until suddenly the baby wanted in on the act. Santa got stalled, time was running short, and so the TV crew had no choice but to superimpose the credits over St. Nick.

“We were inundated with mail. They said that’s sacrilege to run credits over Santa Claus!” Grant recalled with a laugh.

Now, with “Hollywood’s Welcome Home Desert Storm Parade” coming up this Sunday, Johnny Grant is catching flak again. Rival TV executives have accused him of engineering a sweetheart deal, a Catholic priest is in Day 15 of a protest fast, and anti-war activists are so upset that--who knows?--they might be plotting to put an expectant mother in front of an M-1 Abrams tank.

But if all goes according to the best-laid plans of Johnny Grant, Los Angeles’ homecoming gala for the Persian Gulf War troops will be an air-ground assault on the senses, with roaring Stealth fighters, rumbling artillery, marching troops and quite possibly a sideshow of anti-war protest.

Love it or loathe it, the military extravaganza will largely reflect the show biz values and vision of Johnny Grant.

In some ways, the short, rotund, relentlessly cheerful “mayor” of Tinseltown has already outdone himself. After more than 50 years of show business, publicity mongering and hooraying for Hollywood, the 68-year-old showman has created a genuine news event.

From its inception, this Johnny Grant production has inspired debate: Is it a celebration of peace or a glorification of war? Should we be cheering victory while the Kurds still suffer? Is it a community event or a TV show geared for profit? And doesn’t a Taco Bell-sponsored float carrying Medal of Honor heroes seem a bit, well, undignified?

Grant pondered that last one and, a couple of days later, changed the script. Now Taco Bell’s float will honor the National Guard; the Medal of Honor float will not feature a commercial sponsor. “We try to be sensitive to these things,” he explained.

But all in all, Johnny Grant’s attitude might be summed up as “controversy, schmontroversy.” The show must go on. And there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

“I’ve said that Hollywood is a town built on hype,” Grant said. Then he laughed: “And I guess I’m the hypemaster! Hey, I just thought of that! The hypemaster! That’s pretty good!” He kept on laughing.

“All I really want to do is put the parade on the street and welcome the people home,” Grant said another time, his tone more serious. “I’m well aware that I’ll be black and blue when this thing is over. . . . I got a call from a guy the other day. He said, ‘God, you’re bruised, aren’t you?’ I said, not really. I’m jumping around pretty good.”

The “Mayor of Hollywood”--a title conferred by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce--said the criticism caught him off guard.

People who have known him many years say that isn’t surprising. They describe an energetic man who follows his gut instincts, often acting first and thinking later. That is perhaps why, for example, he initially told a representative of an anti-war group that their organization would be allowed to march in the parade, then did an about-face after veterans flooded his office with complaints.

He seems eager to please his audience--be it a single anti-war activist, a Taco Bell representative or a banquet hall crammed with Republicans. He has emceed fetes for every GOP president from Eisenhower to Bush, and in 1989 staged a homecoming event for the Reagans. Yet he shies away from political discussion and seems baffled that some people aren’t as excited as he is about the prospect of artillery in Hollywood.

To community activist Brian Moore, Grant and the parade represent those who care more about Hollywood glitz than the deep problems that beset the neighborhood. “He’s off in his own little world,” said Moore.

It’s true that what matters most to Grant is putting on a spectacular show. “Some people call him Cecil B. DeGrant,” said parade publicist Mary Barrow.

But those who dismiss him as a glad-handing Hollywood blowhard probably haven’t worked closely with him, some say. A former employee described him as a sometimes impatient boss who hides a ready temper beneath his smile. But Grant has a reputation for delivering on his projects.

“I underrated him. . . . There’s a lot of people who, like me, blew him off as a lot of hot air because we didn’t really know him,” said Larry Kaplan, former executive director of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. “Out of all the guys in that old-boy network associated with the chamber, Johnny Grant is the smartest and most effective.”

Consider the Walk of Fame. The world at large may be enchanted by its mystique, but Hollywood insiders know it’s more a monument to the Hollywood publicity machine than an artistic meritocracy. Although Grant presides over the committee that decides who gets stars on the Walk, “you don’t hear him walking around town saying this is akin to the Pulitzers or the Nobel Prize,” Kaplan said. “That’s what’s refreshing about him. He doesn’t portray himself more seriously than he is.”

Grant, who started in radio as a teen-ager in his native Goldsboro, N.C., got his own star on the Walk of Fame in 1980 outside Mann’s Chinese Theater between those of Zsa Zsa Gabor and bandleader Glenn Miller. Grant said he did such a good job of promoting his own star ceremony that the chamber then asked him to take over chairmanship of the Walk of Fame committee.

The sidewalk in front of the famous theater is considered a prestigious location--much better than the Frederick’s of Hollywood stretch. But Grant said he requested the site only to be next to Miller, his commanding officer during World War II. Grant had been an announcer and advance man for Miller’s Air Force band before a plane carrying Miller disappeared en route to Paris in December, 1944.

The Hollywood parade is the second military homecoming Grant has staged. At the end of World War II, he was host of an event for a group of Texas soldiers that became known as “The Lost Battalion” after their capture by German forces. Auctioning such items as a Dorothy Lamour sarong, he raised $1.3 million in bond sales in less than an hour.

Grant continued to blend show biz and military. He became a Hollywood fixture as a disc jockey, a TV game show host and occasional actor. He also did 46 USO tours, with stops in Korea and Vietnam, as well as two visits with Desert Storm troops. Bob Hope once described himself as “a rich man’s Johnny Grant.”

Grant also liked to drink. Alcoholism, he said, “took me off the radar screen” for a couple of years in the late 1960s. But even sobering up became reason for a show. He helped stage a Washington benefit that featured recovering alcoholics who encouraged others to seek help.

In a two-hour tribute to Grant’s 50th anniversary in show business, broadcast by KTLA last year, Gene Autry, the old cowboy star who used to own KTLA, portrayed Grant as too nice for his own good.

Autry elaborated in an interview:”Johnny is a bighearted guy. He used to do so many shows for so many people, they’d take advantage of him. . . . I know many times people come to him and borrow money and he’d never get paid back. . . . He loves people and he loves to work.”

Friends such as Angie Dickinson say it’s sad that Grant never found time for a family.

But Grant insists that he has no regrets--and questions about his lifelong bachelorhood trigger a hearty guffaw. “If the question is do I like girls, the answer is ab-so-lutely!I love ‘em!”

One cynical view holds that Grant’s greatest skill is as a self-promoter. Grant himself says he was asked to take over the chairmanship of the Walk of Fame Committee because he staged so much hoopla at his own star ceremony. He likes to hand out cards listing “Important Phone Numbers,” the offices of such world leaders as George Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pope John Paul II and, naturally, the Mayor of Hollywood.

Critics within the broadcast industry have portrayed Grant as an opportunist who has parlayed his connections with the Hollywood Chamber, City Hall and the Department of Defense into a profit-making venture for KTLA and its parent company, Tribune Broadcasting. KTLA initially contributed $250,000 for exclusive rights to the parade, but after being stung by criticism, it opened up the broadcast to all stations.

Grant and KTLA general manager Steve Bell say the criticism was unfair, asserting that KTLA is likely to lose money on the parade.

Having already produced 12 Christmas parades, Hollywood’s 100th anniversary gala and many other events, Grant was a natural for the homecoming event, Bell said.

In his younger days, Grant said, he might have been frightened by the controversy within the broadcast industry and protests by anti-war activists.

“But now I don’t give a damn. I really don’t care who gets mad. I really believe in this thing. I really believe it has a place in our culture to welcome home our troops, and we’re going to do it.”

The controversy has caught the eye of the international press. Grant is happy about that too. When an Australian newsman recently asked whether a gala seemed appropriate in light of the tragedy of Kurdish refugees, Grant said he wouldn’t let that dampen his spirits.

“I don’t think you can let the world situation govern your everyday life,” Grant said. “I go home at night, when I sit and watch it (on TV), it bothers me. It bothers me that something isn’t being done for those people and for all those kids I see dying.

“But I can’t let that affect my life every day. I would be in an institute someplace.”

Then, suddenly, Grant could see another show in the making.

“If the day after this parade is over, if somebody wants to do a big benefit to help the people over there, the Kurds, I’d be the first one to volunteer.”

Welcome Home Parade

Hollywood’s Welcome Home Desert Storm Parade will start at 4 p.m. Sunday and is expected to last about two hours. It will begin at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue and end at Bronson Avenue. A number of nearby roads will be closed for parts of Sunday. INFORMATION AND TIPS:

FEATURES: Up to 4,000 troops back from the Persian Gulf, 2,000 veterans, military hardware from the Gulf. Flyovers by Stealth bombers and vintage planes. Hollywood celebrities. No admission charge.

PARKING: Public parking lots along Sunset and Hollywood boulevards and Vine Street. Parking costs vary. Parade goers should arrive by about 1 p.m.; many area streets will be closed for part of the day.

REFRESHMENTS: Food and nonalcoholic beverages will be sold along the parade route. Consumption of alcohol along the route is prohibited.

TOILET FACILITIES: Several hundred portable toilets located at most intersections along the parade route.

SEATING: Folding chairs or cushions advised.

* FOR MORE INFORMATION:

(213) 460-5852

HOLLYWOOD FWY CLOSURES:

* Sunset Boulevard off-ramps

Closed from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.

both directions.

* Hollywood Boulevard off-ramps

Closed: 12:30 to 10 p.m.

* Normandie Avenue on-ramp (northbound)

Closed: 12:30 to 7 p.m.

STREET CLOSURES

* Bronson Avenue

Closed: 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. between Sunset Boulevard and Santa Monica. Also Van Ness Avenue between Sunset and Santa Monica.

* Sunset Boulevard

Closed: 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. between Serrano and Western avenues and 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. between Gower Street and Western Avenue.

* Entire parade route

Closed: 3 to 7:30 p.m. at all intersecting streets between Highland and Western avenues on Sunset and Hollywood boulevards.

* Assembly and disbanding area

Closed: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., several square blocks near the start and finish of the parade route from Hollywood Boulevard to the north, Western Avenue to the east, Santa Monica Boulevard to the south and Gower Street to the west.

SOURCE: Borrow/Hoffman Public Relations

Compiled by Times researcher Michael Meyers