His Star Status Is Now Concrete

It’s the logical next step for Magic Johnson, a man who was embraced by Los Angeles, then smiled and hugged it right back.

He enriched the city’s sporting history. He is a star even among this culture of celebrities. He has built up communities. Now it only makes sense that his name is embedded in L.A.’s endless stretches of asphalt.

Magic Johnson got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday. It’s outside the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, across the street and half a block west from the Chinese Theater. His name is right next to Engelbert Humperdink’s, in the vicinity of Douglas Fairbanks, Samuel L. Jackson, Chuck Norris, Louis Gossett Jr. . . . and Woody Woodpecker.

Magic’s star has a movie camera icon, in honor of his theater chain that started at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza. But that almost seemed a convenient excuse.

It’s the Walk of Fame, not a hall of fame, and there’s no category for sports. Other athletes who have made the transition into show biz and earned stars were Johnny Weissmuller (“Tarzan”) and Chuck Connors (“The Rifleman”).

More than anything else, this star was for simply being Magic.

Johnny Grant, the honorary mayor of Hollywood, has shaken every famous hand there is to shake. He said, “Los Angeles has never had a more popular and respected citizen than Magic Johnson.”

The town still loves him, more than 21 years after the relationship began. The Staples Center crowd rises to life whenever Johnson is shown on the giant video screen.

Did you hear the cheers when Johnson was introduced at the Laker championship celebration Monday?

“It was incredible,” Johnson said. “I had to cut ‘em off. They kept clapping and going. I was like, ‘Hold on. This is not my day, this is the young fellas’ day.’

“It was a great feeling to see all that gold out there, and the Laker hats and the Laker T-shirts. All types of people, all different races. You had young, you had middle-aged, you had teenagers, you had old. I had never seen that many people before.”

With Johnson, it always has been about bringing everyone together. In a world of giant racial walls he managed to squeeze through a narrow opening that allowed him crossover appeal without the stigma of selling out.

While pitching products to everyone, he also brought national chains such as Starbucks and TGI Friday’s into African American neighborhoods, serving the dual purpose of creating job opportunities.

Another diverse crowd stood in the closed-off street Thursday, chanting “Magic, Magic.” They waved his old No. 32 jersey.

Johnson’s parents, wife and children were on hand. So was former coach Pat Riley and old Laker teammates Mike McGee and Larry Spriggs. And about 1,000 fans. Fernando Alvarez was one of them, wearing a Johnson jersey and holding up a framed, 12-year-old poster of Magic.

“He brought Showtime to L.A.,” Alvarez said. “He’s a big role model for everybody. He’s a smart man, good heart. Showtime. Showtime!”

And to think, Showtime, the banners, the whole deal, it’s all because of a coin toss. The Chicago Bulls called heads, the coin landed tails and the Lakers won the first pick in the 1979 NBA draft.

“This has been the perfect place for me,” Johnson said.

For Johnson, who grew up and went to college in Lansing, Mich., his first visit to Los Angeles was a mind-altering experience.

He left the airport in a limousine. That was new. On the ride to meet with owner Jack Kent Cooke at the Forum, he looked out the window, then screamed at the driver.

“I said, ‘What’s that--that tree?’ ” Johnson said. “She said, ‘That’s a palm tree.’ I said, ‘Stop.’ I got out and I looked at it.

“I said, ‘Oh my goodness, we don’t have that in Michigan.’ ”

They kept driving, he saw an orange tree in somebody’s yard, he asked the limo driver to stop again. He got out and plucked an orange.

He has won championships, lost innocence and gained perspective since then.

One thing he never did was stop. Not even after he discovered he was HIV-positive. It’s coming up on 10 years now since he told the rest of the world, and he looks so healthy and stays so active that it’s easy to forget.

“I don’t think nobody but me thought I would be around in 10 years,” he said. “God has blessed me, the medicine has done what it was supposed to do, and I’ve done what I’m supposed to do.”

He continued to live life, finding success and sometimes failure.

He came out of retirement to play again and coach. He tried to host a TV show. He hopped into the business world, forming an empire that now includes 27 Starbucks (12 in L.A.), four L.A. shopping centers, a record label and a film and TV division. He, Janet Jackson and music mogul Jheryl Busby bought interests in Founders Bank three years ago.

Now he’s in the political arena.

“They’ve got a new name for me now,” Johnson said. “I’m the ‘power broker.’ ”

He campaigned for Mayor-elect James Hahn and new City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, with TV commercials and appearances that included seven churches in one day.

Johnson is even considering running for mayor himself one day “if I feel that the city is not headed in the right direction.”

He dreams. And sometimes he thinks those thoughts out loud, which can cause little waves of disbelief. During his Laker days he once mused that he would like to play for the New York Knicks, and Lakerland rumbled. He talked this spring about wanting to coach an NBA team--the rival Portland Trail Blazers, perhaps--and that made more heads shake.

Perhaps the mayoral talk will go down as just another thought, but there’s no second-guessing when he says, “I want what’s best for the city of Los Angeles and all the people who live here.”

He’s one of those people. A taller one, a more famous one, but one of them. And now, quite literally, a part of the landscape.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at ja.adande@latimes.com.