Trailer-Park Barbie’s Pink Sports Car Causes Disturbance in Paramount

No tow truck was needed: After a Paramount resident complained of cars parked on front lawns, an officer searched the block. The only car that was found, says the city’s newsletter, was a pink sports car.

A Barbie sports car.

While the husband ministers to the flock . . . Miriam Ferguson of Glendora found an ad that was inadvertently given an outdoorsy theme (see accompanying).

From a $2 mansion to a million-dollar lodge: The Rosslyn Hotel, a skid row property in L.A., was back in the spotlight recently with the title role in the movie, “The Million Dollar Hotel,” starring Mel Gibson.

The plot involved some down-at-the-heels types, and the title referred to the 5th Street hotel’s “Million Dollar” sign, which still stands.

In fact, when it opened early last century, the hotel was an elegant lodge, though it possessed a split personality (see accompanying postcard). The main hotel was on one side of the street and its annex (now known as the Frontier Hotel) was on the other. The buildings were connected by a marble tunnel, now closed.

Mark Palmer, whose family owned the Rosslyn after World War II, learned to ride a bicycle in the tunnel. “To go from the hotel to the annex, you went downhill as the tunnel sloped and then you had to ride uphill,” recalled Palmer, an L.A. architect, with a laugh. “It was a problem for my little legs.”

The hotel has been in an uphill struggle of its own for years. “The Million Dollar Hotel” was a box-office flop.

Singular theory: You never know what’s going to pop into a kid’s head. A guide at Cal State Long Beach pointed to her “Docent” badge and asked a visiting class from Fremont Elementary School what the word meant. One of Nancy Clanton’s second-graders raised his hand and said: “It means you’re not married.”

Executive traffic jams: The Washington Post’s “Reliable Source” column related a report that a recent morning rush-hour visit to a Washington, D.C., beauty salon by vice presidential spouse Lynne Cheney “halted downtown commuters when her Secret Service detail parked its sport vehicle across two lanes of traffic.”

The Secret Service said later that it had “only shut down traffic for less than a minute for safety reasons.”

But the incident brought to mind President Clinton reportedly delaying traffic at LAX while Beverly Hills hairstylist Cristophe gave him a $200 trim on the tarmac.

I could never figure out why that incident was omitted from the Harrison Ford movie, “Air Force One.”

Rolling along: Evidence that the real estate market may be flattening, even in the Palos Verdes area, was presented by Alan Crosby of Inglewood (see accompanying).

miscelLAny: Attention, Nixon Library--on EBay, the estate of Bebe Rebozo, President Nixon’s First Friend, is offering “a 1968 Lucite campaign bracelet very rare and seldom seen. This belonged to his wife Jane.”

Be warned, though. Bidding starts at $75. Yup, 75 bucks. Number of bids in first 48 hours: None.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.