His Loyalty Will Never Secede From Hollywood

Johnny Grant is a jolly old elf with the kind of explosive enthusiasm that makes palms sway and windows rattle.

He’s the quintessential Hollywoodian, the dean of boosters, the honorary mayor of a town that has gone through more phases than Liz Taylor’s love life.

No face is more familiar, no smile more enduring than Grant’s in a community he adopted as his own more than half a century ago.

It was a Mickey Rooney movie, “Boys Town,” that inspired him to come to Hollywood from the North Carolina farming city of Goldsboro, a star-struck boy who even looked a little like his early idol.

“I said to myself, if that little twerp can do it,” Grant says with a flourish, “then so can I!”

He laughs with the same vitality that characterizes his hip-hooray spirit during lunch at Musso & Frank, one of the few institutions more durable than the 79-year-old herald of Hollywood. Grant calls the place City Hall.

He first saw the town of his dreams in 1943 as a soldier passing through. He remembered that actor Chester Morris, who’d been to Goldsboro on a USO tour, had said to him, “If you’re ever in Hollywood call me,” so he did.

It was Grant’s first association with a celebrity. Now the list of stars whose personal telephone numbers he possesses is at about 1,500. The list of those he knows is probably in the thousands.

He has his own star on the Walk of Fame, both a building and a street named after him and more awards and medals than a Russian general. Director Ron Howard calls him “the heart and soul of Hollywood,” and I don’t know anyone who doubts that.

I come from a long line of dour, predatory trolls, and to meet an elf with such boundless enthusiasm is a shock to the system. He is my emotional opposite in terms of finding good in the world that surrounds us. He is yang to my yin, a bundle of positive energy to my low hum of doubt. The man whistles while he works.

Grant loves Hollywood the way a boy loves his puppy, openly and unconditionally. And he’ll keep on loving it even if breaks away from L.A. “I was born to be here,” he says, peering out at the world through round, silver-rimmed glasses. And he means it.

Not that he’s all sizzle and no steak. He’s been busier than a five-legged cat over the years, raising funds to refurbish the Hollywood sign, revitalizing the Walk of Fame and the Santa Claus Lane Parade, working for a Hollywood postage stamp and successfully lobbying for a subway through town, among other projects.

He’s been a stunt car driver, a disc jockey, a television producer, a game show host, an actor, a sportscaster, an emcee at about 5,000 events and the presiding chairman over 553 star placements on the Walk of Fame. Grant has become more synonymous with Hollywood than either Marilyn Monroe or Mickey Mouse.

A recent achievement has been his support for the new Hollywood & Highland shopping center, a complex of restaurants, shops, movie house and theaters that is supposed to herald Hollywood’s new beginning. There’ve been other new beginnings, but they’ve dissolved in disappointment. Grant still, however, foresees a Hollywood Boulevard turned into a walking street with mimes and strolling musicians, peopled by families rather than freaks. He urges patience. “We’ve developed a fast-food mentality,” he once wrote. “We expect our entire menu to be delivered in 30 minutes.”

“The whole city is show biz and I’m a showman,” Grant exclaims, his laughter floating over the corned beef sandwiches and dry martinis of the patrons around us. “People just don’t understand the place. I believe in Hollywood. I’ll never give up on it.”

When he first came to town, one could see celebrities on the streets or at restaurants. Now they’re in Malibu or Denver or New York or on a farm somewhere in Connecticut. Not only are there fewer celebrities around, Grant says, “We don’t even have the best souvenir shops anymore.”

Developers and urban renewal experts hedge their bets when it comes to predicting the area’s comeback from sleaze to the kind of place that Grant envisions. It’s getting there, but it’ll take years for the community to return to anything equaling its heyday. A secession from L.A. could also obscure its future.

But there’s not a lot of room for pessimism in the heart of the jolly old elf from Goldsboro. He sees magic in the future, the way movies produce magic, with a Hollywood ending in an environment grander than any computerized version. But he’s not going to sit around waiting for it.

There are star placements to host, parades to lead and ceremonies ad infinitum to plan and produce. All of this while preparing for a trip to Afghanistan for his 56th overseas tour to entertain our troops. Grant is more unique than any honor can describe, more kinetic, more positive, more excited, more visionary, more ... well

Such energy I’ve never seen. As he crossed the parking lot to his shiny new Infiniti Q45, I swear to you he bounced. What a guy.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Thursdays. He can be reached at al.martinez@latimes. com.