Laura Sturza Walking into Lennie Marvin Enterprises...
Laura Sturza
Walking into Lennie Marvin Enterprises Motion Picture Props means
facing floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with 1950s Hamilton Blenders,
boxes of 1940s Rice Krispies and craps tables from the 1920s to
today.
Partitions separate the 47,000-square-foot building into small
rooms that look like film and TV sets -- so it’s easy to imagine
Woody Harrelson offering up a drink from behind the sports bar.
“There’s not a production in town that we don’t touch,” sales
director Dan Schultz said. Marvin, 80, was a jazz pianist living in
Chicago when he found a way to turn his lifelong fascination with
collecting wind-up trains and toys into the start of a business -- by
dressing windows with his collectibles for Marshall Fields department
store.
“I got the idea when I moved to California,” Marvin said of
beginning to supply motion- picture companies with his eclectic mix
of memorabilia. “I knew people in the industry.”
The shop opened in North Hollywood 37 years ago, moving to
Burbank a few years later. The company is expanding into an adjacent
6,000-square- foot warehouse to accommodate its growth and inventory
of more than 40,000 unique items.
“Central Park looks different today than it did 20 years ago, so
we have to make sure we have Central Park today and 20 years ago,”
Schultz said.
The shop also features its own manufacturing area.
“You lose a little piece and you can’t go to the store and buy it
anymore,” Schultz said.