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By Root 344 0

the tops of the trees to let the light in is called a press agent. I had acquired my first UK press agent with The Ipcress File. Theo Cowan was a big, very funny middle-aged man with no visible family life, and I and my friends all loved him dearly. I always felt as if he had a sad romantic secret, an unrequited love, but he was one of the funniest men I’ve ever known. If you asked him what he was doing, he would always say, ‘Contrast.’ And if you asked him how he was, he’d say, ‘The hard ones first, eh?’ To help me see my way through the American holly woods I found Jerry Pam. Not only was he one of the best press agents in Hollywood, he turned out to be an Englishman and to have gone to the same school as I did, Hackney Downs. Jerry has recently retired, but while we worked together he lit my way through the woods and out the other side and kept the sun shining on me for over forty years.

The last hazards you may have to face in the woods are the stinging insects and the vermin that bite. For these you need to acquire an exterminator – or as they are known in the movie business, a lawyer. My lawyer, Barry Tyreman, is one of the nicest, gentlest, kindest men you could meet – unless of course you come under the vermin or insect category, in which case very quickly and almost painlessly, you are dead.

So these are the people who got me to the holly woods, through them and then out of the other side. But of course, that’s just the start; it’s still dangerous out there. Once you are out of the woods, you find yourself in the urban jungle and although the insects may have gone, some of the vermin are still lurking and sometimes they are bigger and more dangerous for being camouflaged. For these you need not only the combined forces of all of the above, but something extra – a business manager. I am lucky enough to have two: Stephen Marks in England and Nicholas Brown in America.

Hollywood is a rich and glamorous place, but without all these people on my side I’d have had a tough time. If you’re poisoned it will be by champagne or caviar. If you are run over it will be by a Rolls Royce. If you are strangled it will be with a string of perfectly matched pearls. But you’ll still be dead.

In spite of the many traps it lays for the unwary and in spite of the fact that it hardly has any movie studios there any longer, Hollywood is still a place that fosters and cherishes its own myths – and three of the industry’s most significant places of pilgrimage are sited right in the centre of town. The first is a cinema called, for reasons now lost in the mists of the past, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, now one of the great tourist sites in Hollywood. It was opened on Hollywood Boulevard in 1927 by Sid Grauman (well, that explains the ‘Grauman’ element), who filled it with exotic Chinese art and topped it with a spectacular ninety-foot high jade-green roof (which I suppose would explain the ‘Chinese’ bit). The first shovel of dirt was dug by Norma Talmadge and the first rivet was inserted by Anna May Wong, both great stars of the time. In the forecourt, they installed a special exhibit where stars placed their hand and foot prints into the paving stones – a feature that has ensured the theatre its place in Hollywood history. Grauman’s has displayed the prints of just 200 stars since 1927 and the first stars so honoured were Mary Pickford and her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, who gave their hand and footprints on 30 April 1927. One of the most recent actors honoured is, I’m proud to say, me, on 11 July 2008.

The Hollywood Walk of Fame comes next. Stars each get a commemorative star-shaped plaque in the paving stones of Hollywood running west from Gower Street to La Brea Avenue, and south to north on both sides of Vine Street between Yucca Street and Sunset Boulevard, for three and a half miles. There are over 2000 stars in the pavement. The first recipient was Joanne Woodward on 9 February 1960 and one of the most recent is Roger Moore’s. I haven’t managed to go and receive mine yet, but I’m looking forward to it.

The last – but of course