A CHRONICLE OF THE PASSING SCENE

Clyde Phillips Can’t Lose

Clyde Phillips is the writer-executive producer of Fox TV’s “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose,” a sitcom that has been called visually aggressive and ahead of its time.

Phillips, who arrived in the San Fernando Valley from Boston at age 13, didn’t feel like a budding vanguard producer back then. He was just the lonely son of a butcher and a housewife who lived in an apartment near Van Nuys Junior High School and spent his spare time at Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks Park.

“I didn’t have any friends, so I came to the park and learned how to shoot baskets, play tennis at the backboards and play baseball in pickup games,” he said.

As he reminisced, he looked over a location shoot at Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks Park that involved almost 100 actors and behind-the-scenes people.

And he was The Man.

“It is so incredible to come back here in this situation,” he said, “remembering how things used to be.”

Between being a lonely kid and a hot writer-producer, Phillips, 37, graduated from Van Nuys High School and UCLA and got a master’s in English from Cal State Northridge. This lover of Wallace Stevens poetry became an English teacher while waiting for his destiny to kick in. He appeared on the ABC game show “Split Second” and then was asked to write for it.

“It really is a dream come true, to come back to the place where I was such a lonely little kid, under these circumstances,” he said, a smile lighting his face.

“There was one time in particular when it really hit home. There was a night shoot, and I drove down to the park from my home in Sherman Oaks. The park looked exactly the way I remember it looking when I was a kid.

“I parked in the lot that I used to walk through alone, got out of my car and walked around to where we were shooting. The whole area was lit, the scene was set and the actors were milling around.

“And I was in charge.”

Making Up Is Not Hard to Do

Leonard Engleman’s father, a movie studio makeup man, died when Leonard Jr. was in grammar school. By age 14, Engleman had taken possession of his father’s makeup kits and had decided to go into the business himself.

His first stop after high school was the Universal Studios mail room. It was staffed by five guys with master’s degrees, two producers’ sons and Engleman, the kid from Burbank.

He got a break when he was hired for the studio’s three-year apprenticeship program in makeup and was sent to work with Bud Westmore in 1964 to demonstrate makeup for what was then the new Universal Studios Tours. Westmore did the talking and Engleman did the makeup as part of the fledgling enterprise.

Cut to almost 25 years later. Cher is accepting an Academy Award for her performance in “Moonstruck” and thanking her makeup man, Leonard Engleman.

Engleman was pleased because what he had done for Cher and other actresses, including Meg Ryan and Michelle Pfeiffer, he now planned to do to everyone.

“For years I told people it didn’t matter what cosmetic company product they used because they are all basically the same,” Engleman said. He’s singing a different tune now that his Woodland Hills-based company is producing a line called TaUT.

“I found products that reduce pores and make the skin look younger at a trade convention and bought the company as fast as I could,” he said.

His line is sold through health and beauty-supply stores, such as Follow Your Heart in Canoga Park, the Whole Wheatery in Lancaster and Namie’s Beauty Supply in North Hollywood.

Engleman doesn’t spend a lot of money on advertising--the actresses who use his products are the best advertisements he could have.

Second-Story Man

Bob Spivak, a co-owner of the Daily Grill restaurants, says restaurants are no longer just places to eat--they are anchor businesses for mid-size malls.

“It’s really a quiet revolution that has been going on for several years, having a restaurant rather than a store anchor a successful mid-size shopping mall.”

Spivak said restaurants such as his, the California Pizza Kitchens, Chin Chin and the Broadway Grill are so good at drawing business to a new mall that developers seek them out and offer rent incentives.

“We serve about 600 meals a day, which is a lot of foot traffic,” said Spivak. Their newest Daily Grill is at Encino Place, 16101 Ventura Blvd. They plan restaurants in Studio City and Warner Center in addition to existing locations in Brentwood, Beverly Hills and Newport Beach.

Spivak came to the restaurant business through his father, Eddie Spivak, late proprietor of the Redwood Room and Redwood House, watering holes for generations of downtown journalists.

Another trend, Spivak said, is to have the anchor restaurant on the mall’s second level. “There was a time when anywhere but the first level was death for a restaurant and every other store that wanted to be close to it.”

Somewhere along the line, second level became first choice. Now, restaurateurs and retailers fight to locate upstairs.

Construction Zone

The adult construction crews are working all night long on Topanga Plaza’s $45-million face lift, but during the day kids in the neighborhood are hard at work with building toys in the new Kidstruction Zone.

The tot-sized construction area near Nordstrom was not only a stroke of marketing genius--putting a smile on the mess that is remodeling--but has been a big drawing card for parents and their children.

Maybe too big a drawing card.

Kathy Martin of Canoga Park brought daughter Melissa to the mall specifically to play in the construction zone.

“I heard a friend saying how much fun her son had here and thought I’d bring Melissa by,” she said.

Annette Bethers, director of mall marketing, politely said she hoped most parents would shop before they dropped by the Kidstruction Zone, but she was happy to welcome anyone.

Overheard

“We felt the Earth move.”

--Honeymooning couple to checkout clerk at the Warner Center Marriott the day of the 7.4 earthquake