my aunt and uncle who's now deceased and my cousins live in LA, right up on the hill above the original Comedy Store above Sunset. I grew up in a small town of 40,000 people - i was a total TV kid, my mother had no discipline and allowed me to watch TV constantly, i had no bedtime and would stay up and watch Johnny Carson every night. Being 41 years old, when I was a kid there were only 3 TV networks - so I knew every actor on every TV show out there.
So my first trip to LA came when I was 8 years old, Christmas vacation i think in 1973, stayed two weeks. As soon as we hit LA right from the airport I started seeing TV and movie stars, my 8 year old mind was blown, every time i'd see a star i'd start screaming 'Hey that's the guy from Rockford Files!' My uncle and aunt were amazed at how I knew all the real names of the actors. As we pulled up the street to their house I saw this young guy with a huge red afro getting out of a car and i'm out the window screaming 'Hey Bernie! How ya doing?!?!' It was the kid from Room 222 and he was waving and shouting back. To an 8 year old from a hick town this was amazing stuff. My uncle and aunt didn't know I was into this so once they did they began telling me about all the people on their street - 3 doors down was the Spanish guy from The Flying Nun who they were very friendly with so we went out to lunch with him one day. Another older guy who was on a show called The Little People also lived on their street, across the street was the guy who wrote a shitload of well known TV and movie themes including the one from S.W.A.T., and another guy who was the record producer for the Fifth Dimension, at the time Burt Reynolds lived a couple streets over - never saw him. But on that trip because I knew so many actors faces I saw easily about 50 stars I could identify just doing normal things like driving, in stores, restaurants.
I couldn't care less today about celebs - my sisters are still star struck when they see them.
If you are a big entertainment guy, watch alot of TV, movies, music TV you will see alot of celebs in LA.
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