You’ve seen celebrity hairstyles on TV and fashion magazines — but now that you’re in Hollywood, why not get your locks done by the favorite stylists of the stars?

Try the Byron Williams Hair Salon. This is the favorite salon of style icons likeLindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie, and Mischa Barton. (Here she is posing with him). “I trust Byron and he listens to what I want.”

The salon address:
Byron Williams Salon
9294 Civic Center Dr
Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Some of Hollywood’s hotels can be considered as historical as Hollywood itself — like the Knickerbocker.

It was built in 1925 as a luxury apartment building, and its Renaissance Revival bar was a favorite hang out of the stars. Rudolph Valentino loved to tango here. FIlm director D. W. Griffith spent many hours at the bar, especially after he was “dismissed” by Hollywood after years of pioneering the industry. He was was walking in the lobby when he had a stroke, and died under the huge crystal chandelier.

Another Knickerbocker patron was Frances Farmer, who enjoyed an intense, but brief, career. She appeared in 18 films, three Broadway plays, thirty major radio shows and seven stock company productions, but alcohol, drugs, and weight problems had her career in shambles before she was 28. In 1943 she was arrested while she was at the Knickerbocker, and had to be dragged (half naked) out of her room. Famous costume designer Irene Gibbons also committed suicide here, checking in under another name, then trying to slit her wrists. When that didn’t work she jumped from the window.

The Knickerbocker was also the “lovenest” of William Faulkner and Meta Carpenter, a script girl from the Fox studios, Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio. Other celebrity guests were Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Mae West, Lana Turner, Cecil B. DeMille, Frank Sinatra, Laurel and Hardy and many others.

The Knickerbocker was also the stage for the last Houdini seance. After an hour, a violent thunderstorm drenched participants and ended their attempts. They later discovered that the storm didn’t occur anywhere else in Hollywood — only above the hotel!

Today a coffee shop called “The All-Star Theatre Café & Speakeasy” stands where the bar used to be, and is frequented by celebrities like Sandra Bullock and Leonardo DiCaprio.

In line with one of my posts, I’ve found more Hollywood quotes, this time not the worst, but actually so true and, in Madonna’s case – amusing. Oh, and regarding Jennifer’s, only true before you have kids. After that, they win over the hubby in the smell stakes hands down. Fred Allen by the way was an American comedian. He died in the 50′s.

Fred Allen

?A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.?

Lucy Liu

?I try to believe like I believed when I was five… when your heart tells you everything you need to know.?

Jennifer Aniston

“The best smell in the world is that man that you love.?

Madonna

?Listen, everyone is entitled to my opinion.?

“I wouldn’t have turned out the way I was if I didn’t have all those old-fashioned values to rebel against.?

?Everyone probably thinks that I’m a raving nymphomaniac, that I have an insatiable sexual appetite, when the truth is I’d rather read a book.?

Elvis Presley

?Look guys, if you’re just going to stare at me, I’m going to bed!?

It usually takes many years for a movie to take the long transition from idea to finished product. The process is brutal and careers are usually put on high risk for each movie project. Not to mention the fact that millions are usually invested in a picture due to the high production expenses (hiring many professionals, actors, building sets, composing music, building sets and marketing the movie).

But because of the almost instantaneous reporting of box office results once a movie is shown in theaters, studios and production outfits will immediately know (usually within a few hours) if the movie that took so long in making and cost so much is a box office bomb or a huge blockbuster.

This is in huge contrast to about thirty years or so ago when movie executives would actually drive to theaters and look at the opening day lines to the theaters ? a much more hands on approach compared to today?s very strategic juggling of advance polling techniques, demographic minded scheduling and usage of historical models.

With the level of accuracy of the agencies that report box office takes for the movies getting more and more accurate, studio executives are relying on them on an ever increasing basis to gauge if they are actually going to make money or not.

The bad thing though with an industry that has become more obsesses with math and the bottomline is that quality and artistic expression has fallen by the wayside. Movies are nothing more than products now that is marketed no differently from a hamburger.

Hopefully the movie studios will also realize that money is not the be all and end all in a place that fuels the imagination like no other.