Hollywood Will Co-Star With L.A. on New Postmark

Now, according to the U.S. Postal Service, almost everyone in L.A. is a star--or at least has the address of one.

At the behest of supporters of Hollywood, which they say is the most popular part of the city, postal officials on Thursday changed the Los Angeles postmark on letters and packages to Los Angeles/Hollywood.

Instead of the customary squiggly postal cancellation lines, five stars with the words “Home of the Stars” will now be used to cancel the postage.

The new postmark will appear on any mail sent from a post office using the Los Angeles designation or from a ZIP Code beginning with the numbers 900--ranging from communities such as East Los Angeles and Watts to the mid-Wilshire district and Brentwood.

Left off the credits are communities in the San Fernando Valley and neighborhoods such as San Pedro and Venice.

The change was the brainchild of Hollywood’s honorary mayor, 77-year-old Johnny Grant, who said he has been constantly dismayed by the reaction of tourists who make it a point to send postcards home from Tinseltown.

“So many tourists, who come to visit, write to say they’re disappointed when they find out that postcards mailed from Hollywood don’t say ‘Hollywood,’ ” Grant said. “Instead, they say ‘Los Angeles’ or ‘Marina de Rey’ or ‘Santa Clarita.’ ”

The latter towns are sites of mail processing centers and carry those communities’ postmarks.

Grant said he was inspired to pursue the new postmark by the death earlier this year of longtime Hollywood booster and former broadcaster Bill Welsh. “He would have loved this,” Grant said.

Grant sought the help of Tirso del Junco, a longtime Republican activist and a member of the U.S. Postal Service’s Board of Governors. Del Junco, in turn, arranged a meeting with Alfred Iniguez, the postal district manager for Los Angeles, who liked the idea.

Iniguez had the “wisdom and the foresight to say yes and go ahead with it,” postal spokesman Larry Dozier said.

“Hollywood is known all over the world. It is synonymous with Los Angeles. And everyone here is a star. The city deserves it.”

So, in true Hollywood fashion, Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe look-alikes turned out Thursday with the near-famous, including the postal types, at a ceremony at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel to formally unveil the new postmark.

The occasion was also used to mark the installation of Kerry Wolney of Ventura as Los Angeles’ new postmaster, replacing Kirby A. Fasiane. Wolney is responsible for the management of 68 postal stations and branches in Los Angeles.

But the attention was clearly on Hollywood.

Grant and others laughed off suggestions that partisans for other Los Angeles communities might object to the new designation.

“Just tell them no other part of the city draws as many visitors or sells as many stamps as Hollywood,” Grant said.

And some elsewhere agreed with him.

Financial consultant Louis Barajas, whose office in Commerce uses Los Angeles 90040 on its return address, liked the change.

“It’s better for me,” he said when reached Thursday afternoon. “It gives my address more pizazz, because we send mail all over the world.”