The Bronson Gate at Paramount

The coast at the end of our bus ride

The last couple of days have had us down the Malibu coast at the Getty Villa seeing some old stars from Geek and Roman antiquity and then at Paramount Pictures seeing some stars from more recent times. Getting to the Villa was a long local bus trip down Sunset Bl to the ocean  followed by a twenty-minute walk along the Pacific Coast Hwy to the Villa. It was a really excellent site though. The villa was originally  built by Getty to display all his collections of art. It was subsequently restored and expanded and now ‘just’ holds the antiquity material, the rest of the paintings and furniture is up at the Getty Centre in the hills behind LA. The villa is modelled on an original villa  at Herculaneum that was buried when Vesuvius erupted.

At the Getty Villa

The modern stars at Paramount was also an interesting visit where we saw the working studios as well as a bit of film history retold on the lot. NCIS was being shot while we were there and Leanne was pleased to see Mark Harmon running around in the flesh. Afterwords we strolled around the Hollywood Forever graveyard where many of the old stars lie gazing up at the Hollywood sign up in the hills.

Head off now to Houston.

Johnny Ramone at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery