Tales of Tinseltown

Behind the Hollywood sign, turning 100 this year, is a wealth of history

Los Angeles is full of stars. But there’s no icon of the American cinema bigger, literally and figuratively, than the boldfaced name atop the Santa Monica Mountains. Getting an up-close view of the Hollywood sign — 45 feet tall, 350 feet wide, all caps — is as thrilling as catching a glimpse of Julia Roberts eating in a restaurant or Pedro Pascal filling his grocery cart.

At least that’s how I feel as I stand on a hiking trail in the massive, over 4,200-acre Griffith Park, in the shadow of the grand old sign, doing what everyone does in the presence of celebrity: posing for photos.

I blow kisses, jump in the air and mime holding the sign in the palm of my hand as Katie Oliver, a tour guide with Bikes and Hikes LA Tours, snaps shots on my phone. She’s led me through a maze of trails and residential streets to this spot underneath the sign. Visitors can’t walk up and touch the letters these days — any attempt to scale the hill to the sign will trigger a stern warning from the disembodied voice of a security officer — but even getting to a good vantage point within the park feels like a brush with Hollywood royalty.

Oliver, like many hospitality professionals in Los Angeles, is an actor and filmmaker by trade. She not only knows how to navigate up to this lookout, but also puts on a compelling show full of elaborate tales about the sign, which was first erected in 1923 as real estate advertising.

Set to mark its 100th birthday this year, the Hollywood sign is a central figure in plenty of stories involving the rich and famous, including the sordid saga of the park’s namesake, mining mogul Griffith J. Griffith, who fell from grace in L.A. society after shooting his wife in the face (Mrs. Griffith, thankfully, survived).

Pretty much all of Los Angeles offers fodder for history buffs, with cultural artifacts lurking behind every corner. Yes, you can (and should) go to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on Wilshire Boulevard’s Museum Row, and stop by the Hollywood Museum in the historic Max Factor building, but you can also find movie magic in streetscapes all over the city.

Take, for instance, the magnificent downtown Bradbury Building. Inside, you’ll recognize a setting from the original “Blade Runner.” Or the swish jazz-age Italian restaurant Cicada: You might remember it from “Pretty Woman.” And that’s just from the relatively recent Hollywood timeline. Los Angeles drips with history, cinematic and otherwise, if you pay attention.

“I don’t discourage people from doing the touristy things, but if they really want to see authentic Hollywood,

I recommend starting at El Pueblo, the city’s historic birthplace,” says Mimi Slawoff, travel writer and author of “Oldest Los Angeles,” sharing local context with me after my trip. “I usually tell people to start there to get oriented.”

That El Pueblo historical monument is part of Olvera Street, an area in the heart of Downtown. Packed with vendors selling Latino-themed trinkets and food, the site, which includes the oldest stillstanding house in Los Angeles, is tourist central, but as with many of the city’s most popular landmarks, even a light scratch below the surface will reveal deeper stories. Take, for example, one of El Pueblo’s hidden gems, “América Tropical,” a 1932 mural by Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros. Once whitewashed by city officials to conceal its political commentary on U.S. imperialism in Latin America, it was rediscovered decades later. The faded artwork is now only visible from the top balcony of an interpretive centre in an adjacent building.

This is where well-educated tour guides are invaluable. I discover the mural with help from Ulysses Salcido, a guide with Culinary Backstreets, a tour company specializing in culinary tours with a cultural angle. While my Hollywood sign guide had some showbiz flair, Salcido is an anthropologist and documentary filmmaker.

Beyond Olvera Street, his tour takes me to Chinatown, Little Tokyo and the downtown streets in between. It’s an area that many Angelenos consider sleepy, but fascinating stories of immigrant life in California emerge as I visit places like the Japanese sweet shop Fugetsu-Do, which has been selling mochi since 1903. The evolution of these neighbourhoods is also illustrated in newer places like Steep LA, a modern Chinese tea house that pays tribute to Chinatown’s historic communities, while offering a fresh take on cultural traditions.

While any comprehensive trip to L.A. should include some time exploring Downtown, most Canadian travellers will want at least a taste of showbiz glitz. The Hollywood sign isn’t the only icon turning 100 this year: Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros. Studios are also celebrating the one-century mark. Hollywood studio tours tend to skew towards the superficial and corny, but the Warner Bros. Studio Tour (in Burbank) is considered the most worthwhile by many locals.

The Warner presentation is a bit canned, but as I tool around the backlot on a golf cart filled with a dozen movie and TV fans, I do pick up some tidbits about the studio’s history. (Did you know the cover for Prince’s “Purple Rain” album was shot in front of the same fake New York fire escape used in the famous upside-down kiss in “SpiderMan”?) I am indulged in playing out my “Gilmore Girls” fantasies in the gazebo from the fictional town of Stars Hollow, which sits just steps away from a storefront that was used in “Casablanca.”

Much like Downtown, the rest of Hollywood is a historical feast, with sights including the Capitol Records building, the ornate Pantages

Theatre, and restaurants like the Musso & Frank Grill, many of them familiar, thanks to the movies.

“People always tell me they hate L.A.,” Slawoff says. “But if you hate L.A., you haven’t really experienced it. There is so much to this city.”