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.