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Return to Depp home pageOUR TRIP TO JOHNNY'S HOLLYWOOD
BY MITCH - Edited by Vicki
We arrived in Beverly Hills driving a rental car, a sporty little Pontiac, from San Diego, around 5 p.m. Our hotel was the three-star Beverly Radisson Pavillion on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Quite close to the centre of our interest!
Later that evening we had supper in the hotel and then went for a walk around a few blocks, ending up in a nice big bar/restaurant named R&J's City where we sat at the bar, facing a huge wall displaying all kinds of bottles, and where they even had a German spirit (cherry water). We had a drink together and finally went back to the hotel, tired enough to call it a day.
The next day was a Sunday, and Vicki's birthday, so that day's activities were all hers to decide. We went down to Venice Beach, walked along the boardwalk, watched all the famous goings-on and scanned the souvenir shops for souvenirs and Johnny memorabilia. We found a postcard and a picture of Johnny in the shops and, of course, bought some Venice Beach t-shirts. It was hot but there was a constant breeze from the sea. After we'd finished our walk, we simply sat at the beach for a while and enjoyed the scenery. For me, it was also interesting to see a "Baywatch" team go about their duty. After that we drove back into Hollywood to get our bearings. We never lost our way, in spite of roadwork-connected detours, eventually drove down Sunset Boulevard and caught our first glimpse of the Viper Room! We unknowingly also passed Johnny's house. We would see more of both in the week to come.
When we got back to the hotel we realized that LA actually has a desert climate: when the sun is low in the sky it cools down very quickly. That night we went to Planet Hollywood for dinner and had lots of fun trying to spot Johnny in those clips they show of their various Planet Hollywood openings and other official occasions, including clips from all sorts of film trailers. We did catch a glimpse of him quite often in the video! Last year, Johnny was at that Planet Hollywood for a wrap party for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Our first visit to a place where we knew Johnny had actually been.
We then tried to contact our epal Karen. She got in touch with us herself after we had some problems with wrong numbers, so we met her at her appartment. She had birthday present vouchers for us to buy Johnny stuff with, as we were both celebrating our birthdays during our stay in LA - what a nice idea!
She took us to Melrose to stroll around a little (we did end up in some very strange stores, hehehe...). We found a couple magnets on which Johnny was pictured. We had lunch at Melrose Diner: a nice enough place with friendly, yet slow service. When we left the Melrose Diner, we were given free breakfast vouchers for the next day, so of course decided visit again. Then Karen took us up to Johnny's house, but as the house is situated on a steep hillside, she was worried about her (old) car not making it all the way up to the main gate. We turned around. After that "adventure" we had a short rest at Karen's appartment and continued to our hotel, taking her with us. I tried the pool on top of the hotel for the first time. Later, we sat on the sun deck, enjoying the view over the area to all directions and chatting pleasantly.
For supper we went to the Cheesecake Factory, also only a few blocks away. We didn't have to wait too long to get seated and then were confronted with such heaps of food that it was totally out of the question to cope with them successfully. It was a very nice and relaxing evening meal.
We are early risers but we didn't want to force Karen to get up so early (just to go to the Melrose Diner for the free breakfast). Karen surprised us by calling us early and we did end up there in Melrose, only to be told that it would take about 20 minutes. Vicki was anxious to start her memorabilia shopping but remained patient. About a quarter to nine the cook appeared (!) and we finally had our breakfast, a very nice breakfast, admittedly, around nine.
Now we set off for Johnny's house again (we took our rental car this time) and had a photo session in front of his gate with Karen taking the photos of Vicki and me together (we had brought two sets of Johnny t-shirts, just for fun) and we took our own photos, too, of course. A small truck approached the gate while we were there, and oh wonder, the gate opened to let the truck come inside. We were able to catch a glimpse of the inside grounds (all brushes and trees). But we still could not see the house, as it is so densely surrounded by trees and plants that you can only see very small bits of it. Of course, quite understandably, this is exactly what Johnny wants and achieved by having all these plants put there when he moved in. There was some construction work going on on the outside of the house - I could see scaffolding and some workers by peering through the fence.
We continued the day by doing memorabilia shopping on Hollywood Boulevard where there are lots and lots of stores for that purpose. This was Vicki's dream and she had addresses of the most valuable stores for real collectors. This was a very interesting pastime for me, one I'd never done before (not being an ardent collector myself), and eventually I got the knack of it too and wasn't able to pass by any store that had photos or postcards displayed. So even I found a few nice photos to take home with me. Vicki found many photos as well as other Johnny stuff and was thrilled with her shopping trip. A dream come true for her, shopping for Johnny memorabilia with another Johnny fan.
Then one of the Johnny-highlights of this trip was due: Karen, who knows a nice guy at the American Film Institute (AFI), had arranged for us to be shown the short film "Dummies", a student film with Johnny, made not long after Johnny had decided to become an actor. This little piece of art has never been published, so this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get to see it. Our appointment was at 12 p.m. We were led through parts of a library to a big room with shelves all around its walls. Ivor, the nice guy who set up the viewing, said hello to us, put the movie into a VCR and left us to ourselves to watch it.
It was quite interesting, too. The basic idea of the script being that three young people of whom the girl is asleep are driving along a street at night. Johnny's character is sitting in the back with the girl and is tempted to take advantage of her being unconscious, but then there suddenly is a statue of a young boy in the street right in front of their car. They hit it, stop further down the street and don't dare to go back, afraid of what probably has happened to the person they just ran over. They don't know, however, that it was just a dummy, a life-sized statute. From there the plot evolves around them trying to keep this secret, but the other boy - main character - can't and they start lying to each other, to the girl etc., until the main character goes to the police and, finally, finds out about the dummy. It was nice to see a very young Johnny, already totally convincing and perfectly natural in his part of the boy who doesn't want to get involved with the police and rather keep things a secret, in spite of believing that a boy had been killed by his friend who was driving the car. The film is only about ten minutes long.
It was lunchtime by the time we left the AFI and Karen took us to a place called "Highland Grounds", a place Johnny used to frequent to watch Chuck E. Weiss and his band perfom. It was fun to sort of trace Johnny's life by doing this kind of thing - that's just what we'd come for! After lunch we drove to Sunset Boulevard again to take photos of the Viper Room, and here too, the door (actually the exit, opening onto Sunset Boulevard) was open for guys who were unloading band equipment. So we could peek in for a moment. We took each other's photos in front of the entrance, which is down a sidestreet (Larabee). The whole place is rather small, painted black, as you may know from magazines, and the name is in green color, both on the Sunset Boulevard front and on the side street. We then traveled down Sunset to view Johnny's house from the street. We found a parking place and took pictures of the tip top of his house which is all that is visible from Sunset Boulevard.
When the photo sessions were finished, we did some more memorabilia shopping (oh, the heat! and all the time Karen bravely came with us, although she herself is not really a JD fan any more) and then ended up in a movie theater on Hollywood Boulevard to escape from the heat; we saw "There's Something About Mary".
We were all exhausted from the very busy Johnny-packed day and returned to the hotel after dropping off Karen at her place, had a nightcap there and settled down for a relaxing little TV time before bed. Vicki contacted Scott, another epal and an ardent collector like herself, whom we were to meet later in the week. He has met Johnny a few times since he lives near West Hollywood as has Karen. Vicki had a long phone conversation with him listening attentively to some of his adventures pertaining to Johnny!
The next day Vicki and I went again into Hollywood where we did some more memorabilia shopping. Scott has friends at a memorabilia shop called Hollywood Book and Poster. This is an excellent movie shop and Vicki had to return for more pictures. While standing at the counter of the store with a friend of Scott, he rang up and asked about Vicki who had told him we were at the store the day before. How funny and conincidental!
Then we went to look for Barney's Beanery on Santa Monica Boulevard, another place we knew Johnny frequented in the past where he played pool. We found it easily (there are huge signs up on the building) and had lunch there, taking in the look of this interesting place with several pool tables. Their menu was the biggest I've ever seen, also in size! Like a newspaper, with page after page of various foods listed - amazing! I love ribs, so I had a half rack of BBQ ribs, and thouroughly enjoyed them.
After leaving Barney's Beanery, we went for a little car ride into the Hollywood Hills. We went back down on the famous Mulholland Drive and ended up near our hotel having taken a wrong turning off Mulholland Drive somewhere instead of going all the way down into Hollywood. But that didn't matter, we were both ready to jump into the pool and cool down, which was very welcome.
Later that day I met up with Karen at her appartment to share her Highlander hobby with her as I have become a Highlander fan, too, recently. Anyway, to my big surprise Karen had two real and personalized autographs of two Highlander characters for me which she had acquired from these guys themselves at a convention only a few days before we'd met. My first (and probably ever) real autographs! During the time I was gone, Vicki had decided to relax and treat herself to room service for dinner. Later when I returned, she couldn't stop talking about how she enjoyed the food and the service.
The next day the three of us spent the morning in Santa Monica, exploring the famous Santa Monica Promenade (tourist shopping and lots of restaurants). We almost felt cold, as, for once, there was no sun that morning, and it is always a little cooler at Santa Monica because it is so close to the sea. After enjoying lunch at the "Yankee Doodle", we went back towards Hollywood, and on the way I finally managed to purchase a copy of Arizona Dream at Virgin Megastore - so far I'd only owned the German version.
Then we went for another fun thing to do: at one of the memorabilia shops you could have your photo taken and have it superimposed with a photo of Johnny (unfortunately not a candid, only a still from Don Juan) via a computer. So Vicki and I did that, separately, each taking a different pose with "him". Of course, I felt a little silly doing this, but we were in a real fun mood and the finished product looked real good. After a little siesta at the hotel, we picked up Karen again for supper on Sunset Boulevard - for that night we were going to go to the Viper Room! We found a place to park the car (don't think that is easy along these famous roads - but somehow we always seemed to be lucky with parking) and strolled along the Sunset Strip, keeping our eyes open for celebrities. We had a very nice Italian supper at the Cafe Med.
On our way back and to the Viper Room, Vicki spotted Matthew Perry sitting at an outside table of a restaurant, but she couldn't tell us as we were walking ahead of her, concentrating on not running into other people. By the time we had gone back, he'd left. I never saw anyone famous although I had my eyes wide open all the time we were anywhere in the streets. By then it was time for the Viper Room (about 9.30 p.m.), and we were only too eager to finally see that famous place ourselves. Upon entering after promising we had no cameras, we walked up some stairs to get to the main bar area. There is a little stage and a only six booths to sit in which are normally reserved for (VIP) guests. One of them is reserved for Johnny's long-time agent Tracey Jacobs, there's a little metal plate there, with her name on. Anyway, we stood there for a while against the two-way mirror, had a drink and watched the band on the stage. The place wasn't very crowded as we had chosen a night we knew they wouldn't have any heavy or experimental rock band performing - poor little old ladies. ;-) The singer of the band "Milk", who were at that time performing on the stage, is a TV star, Jamie Walters, who used to be engaged to Drew Barrymore some time ago. However, I didn't know him at all, but Vicki did. So there were a few young people doing the usual cheering thing while he was on the stage, but the band finished playing quite early after playing only one hour. After that there was nice music from the sound system. The crowd liked that music, too, and some danced a little to the swing music which was fun to watch.
After a while, I decided to buy my Viper Room t-shirt. The waitress who helped me was very nice and a short time later she came to where we were standing and took us to the back booth to sit down! We were totally shocked/surprised to be treated to a booth. Later we learned that just that booth is the one Johnny sits in when he is in the public bar himself!!! There's not much more that can top this knowledge, apart from actually meeting the man himself (but we knew he was in France filming)! That enabled us to stay much longer than we had intended to stay. Vicki purchased a t-shirt and baseball hat instead of having anymore drinks since she was driving (there was a two-drink minimum while sitting in a booth). Later there was a little show from 12 to 1 a.m. It was a "burlesque" show with two or three various performers (mostly female dancers/acrobats and one male comedian) and a showmaster making the announcements. After they'd finished, we were finally tired enough to go home to the hotel.
Of course, the next day there wasn't any getting up at seven as we had been doing! We stayed in bed until about 8.30, went for breakfast and then took the car up freeway 110 to Universal City, which was our schedule for that day. I had been to Universal City quite a few years ago, so I knew it was worth going, even though it's a tourist thing. It was VERY hot up there! We enjoyed the Studio Tour which you do sitting in a tram that takes you around and past all sorts of famous settings, and also through a few adventurous places like a bridge that seems to be breaking down while the tram is crossing it, a flash flood, an earthquake (in a subway - the world seems to crash down on you!) and through a volcano. After that we strolled through Universal City taking in the Backdraft experience and a wild west show. Vicki managed to find a Johnny postcard in one of the shops. That Vicki was always searching for Johnny stuff. We'd seen enough and Vicki dropped me off at Karen's so that I could spend a little more time with her and watch some more Highlander excerpts.
Then Karen and I joined her at the hotel again, and we treated ourselves to supper on the rooftop! Just like roomservice! Unfortunately neither Karen nor I had listened to Vicki who had advised us to have hamburgers, and we were both disappointed with what we had ordered except Vicki who had the hamburger again. We concluded this day by going to our favorite bar for a nightcap.
The next day (last day) we got in touch with Scott again and finally met him for lunch at Barney's Beanery, where he and Vicki exchanged collectors' news and he told us wonderful stories about his chance encounters with Johnny. We met Scott at the Viper Room for our last look at the place and got a couple pictures with him in front of the nightclub.
In the afternoon we went to the movies for a last time. Since this was my birthday, I chose Mask of Zorro, both of us having loved these movies when we were young. We didn't regret that choice! Not one boring minute from beginning to end, and both Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas doing great in their respective parts. Big fun!
Karen, who wasn't interested in the movie, joined us again for supper. This was our last day in LA, and my birthday, so I chose Planet Hollywood again (I just love being surrounded by movie stuff and video clips!). On hearing from Vicki about my birthday, the waiter took a polaroid photo of the three of us - great picture. I felt sorry that I hadn't mentioned it being Vicki's birthday a week before when we were there, but I was always shyer than her in public, the whole time, and had simply not thought of it. We also had very nice food, each of us having chosen just right from their menu. Then Karen surprised us again by giving us both presents from the Viper Room! This was because we'd never managed to "cash in" on our Johnny Depp birthday vouchers from her. She gave Vicki a particularily appropriate gift of a stocking cap with the Viper Room logo. Vicki has always hated those caps on Johnny and had discussed that fact with Karen many times in email.
We walked Karen back to her car, and it was a sad moment. It is always, when you have to say good-bye to someone, especially when you know that this person has given you her time and was so very generous. Yet, there is always the hope to meet again, some time in the future.
Well, not much remains to say: we got up 5.30 a.m. the next day to have enough time to get to our plane. The plane took off half an hour late but landed on time. They showed the movie "City of Angels". We were fed and got enough to drink. It was a pleasant flight but it would soon be time to say good-bye, after spending two great weeks of vacation together.
Atlanta was the next stop and the place where we would say goodbye. I think we were both very brave. :-) I owe Vicki more than I could ever return, both in Johnny items and in the hospitality and the company I enjoyed. Enough said.
Vicki flew on to her home and some time later my flight to Amsterdam (the most convenient airport from my part of Germany) left, an hour late, just like hers, as we found out when we got in touch again after our return. I'm in no doubt that the two of us will meet again, either on my side or on her side of the Atlantic.
MITCH
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