Here’s a fun way to not just visit Hollywood, but participate in a virtual economy. The website
Hollywood Stock Exchange lets you “invest” in different shows, celebrities, producers, directors or movies. You build a portfolio, earning “Hollywood Dollars” and meeting other players on the discusion board.

It’s fun, and gives you a view of the Hollywood industry never seen before.

Gower Street may not be the most popular or well known areas of Hollywood, but it’s played a big role in its history. This humble road was home to the very first motion picture studio was built here, the Christie Studios, founded by Al Christie in 1911. It later became the location of major players like Paramount Pictures, Sunset-Gower Studios (occuping the former lot of Columbia Pictures). The Oz Film Manufacturing Company also used to stand here, before it was bought out by Paramount.

Gower St’s Columbia Drugstore was also the favorite hangout of young movie stars who loved the soda fountain. They would also buy their hometown magazines and newspapers from the vendor outside the store.

So who’s Gower? He was not a producer, or an actor. Actually, he was a farmer who brought in the area’s first farming equipment — back when Hollywood was mostly pastureland. In the 1930s Hollywood actors called the place “Gower Gulch”. It was the height of the Western films and many extras would walk around in their cowboy costumes. A mall named “Gower Gulch” now stands here.

Most directors are happy to stay behind the scenes, but a couple of them will slip into the scene for a couple of seconds — just for kicks.

Alfred Hitchcock, in particular, made 37 self-referential cameos, including his little “talk” in “The Wrong Man”. Others had a little more fun with their roles. Richard Attenborough played an escaped lunatic in “A Bridge Too Far” Elia Kazan played a Mortuary Assistant in “Panic in the Streets”and Rob Reiner was a helicopter pilot in “Misery”. Horror master M. Night Shyamalan was Dr. Hill in “The Sixth Sense”, a Stadium drug dealer in Unbreakable (2000), and the security guard at the desk in “The Village”. You’ll also glimpse Oliver Stone in “Platoon” — he’s the officer using the phone in the US bunker right before it was blown up.

There’s no business like show business — especially when you earn billions.

George Lucas heads the list of Hollywood’s richest producers, listed in Forbes’ count of “World’s BIllionairs” with an estimated net worth of 3 billion dollars! His Skywalker Ranch is worth US$50 million alone.

Steven Spielberg isn’t doing too badly, with a net worth of $2.7 billion. He has his own jet worth$30 million, and splurges on his favorite hobby: collecting movie memorabilia. He spent more than half a million each for the OScar trophies of Bette Davis and Clark Gable. He’s not selfish, either, donating $1.5million to the Tsunami Relief Fund.

Opah Winfrey, who owns Harpo Productions, is the first African-American woman to make it to Forbes’ billionaires list. She’s worth about $ 1.3 billion.

Hollywood producers are willing to invest millions on films if it can bring in the audience — you got to spend money to make some money, right?

That’s probably how the accountant of SpiderMan 3 justified a budget of $258 million, giving it one of the highest price tags of any movie before or after its release. But it’s not really the most expensive movie if you factor in inflation.

Cleopatra cost about $ 44 million, a princely sum considering it was filmed in 1963 (that would be worth about $295 million today). It is the most epensive movie made in HOllywood.

However, the Soviet movie “War and Peace” based on the Tolstoy classic cost $ 100 million in 1968, and took over 7 years to finish. It’s won the Guiness record for the largest battle scene (about 120,000 soldiers). If you compute for inflation, that would be worth abot $ 500 million today.

Hollywood doesn’t have its own government, but because of its special status as the movie capital of the world, it does have an honorary mayor. And that is Johnny Grant, who’s held the job for decades. .

Grant is a radio personality and TV producer, who gained fame for the way he covered the murder trial of Irby Holmes. He was the first to give periodic live reports of the trial, after he managed to persuade the judge to let him stay by the doorway. Until then, no live microphone was ever permitted in a courtroom.

The defendant was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. But the part-time preacher begged the judge to deliver one last sermon. No go—but he was allowed to write it, and Grant later read that on air. Grant also hosted the first national telethon, and appeared in a few films. He won the Emmy Award twice.

Grant was chosen as Mayor, however, for his strong community involvement: he was a National Guard volunteer (receiving the Order of California twice), and has chaired the Fire Commission, Social Service Commission, and Police Commission.

Some restaurants can boast of celebrity chefs, but some of Hollywood’s eateries have something else — celebrity owners.

Quite a few of the bars and diners are owned by stars, and have become favorite celebrity hangouts. There’s the funky vibe of Dan Aykroyd’s House of Blues (found along the Sunset Strip). Or the classy Schazi, run by Schwarzenegger (no, the waiters don’t say, “Ah’ll be back!” after they take your order).

Steven Spielberg’s Dive! restaurant shows his quirky personality, being shaped like a yellow submarine. Peter Fonda chose to make his Thunder Roadhouse look like a biker joint (love those Harleys).

You can also try J. Lo’s restaurant, Madre’s, or Kevin Costner’s uber-exclusive Clubhouse. The 70’s Show cast also opened their own diner, thankfully free of any tacky upholstery — it serves traditional Italian, so there’s no lava lamp in sight.

Before the studios and the stars, Hollywood was pastureland — dotted by citrus groves, barns, and large herds of cows (and the occassional camel). That all changed in the 1920’s. The film industry had boomed, and the large barns were easily converted into studios. Real estate companies tried to take advantage of the sudden growth, and one erected a very large (and at that time considered very tacky) ad: the word “Hollywood” displayed on the hills.

The movie industry survived the Great Depression and two world wars, but the sign barely did. In 1976 some very bored truants manipulated it to read “Hollyweed”. Two years later, another group edited it to “Holywood” (because of a visit by Pope John Paul). In the 80s, during the Iran contra scandal, it was once again vandalized into “Ollywood”.

The sign was falling apart, sparking a community-wide “Save the Sign” campaign. About $250,000 was raised — and now, it stands proud.

A star studded and absolutely glamorous affair, the 64th annual Golden Globe Awards had everyone who is anyone in Hollywood seated at the tables. It was the first major award show to be held for the year and honored some fine shows indeed.

The guests arrived wearing mainly black and white, plus a few metallic ones. Some of the best dressed celebrities for the night include Jennifer Love Hewitt, Penelope Cruz, Renee Zellweger, Eva Langoria and Reese Witherspoon. Hilary Swank had a really eye catching jeweled flower hair accessory that did wonders to make up for her simple black dress.

Hugh Laurie’s wish for a Dolce & Gabana acceptance speech brought some laughs as did Clint Eastwood’s repeating part of Jennifer Hudson’s acceptance speech. As expected Jennifer Hudson took home the best supporting actress award for her part in Dreamgirls. Best Supporting Actor went to Eddie Murphy, also for Dreamgirls. This was a first for both of them. Meryl Streep took home the Best Actress award for her role as the boss from hell in The Devil Wears Prada. Best Motion Picture went to Babel.

Looks like Hollywood is indeed off to a good start in 2007.

[tags] Golden Globe Awards,Red carpet,best dressed, Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Hudson, Meryl Streep, Babel, Hugh Laurie [/tags]

Word is out. Vu Duc Long, director of the Ministry of Justice’s International Adoption Department has confirmed that Angelina Jolie has filed the papers to adopt a little boy. This time she has set her sights on a Vietnamese child living in an orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City. She saw the child during a visit she made last year with Brad Pitt.

Officials say that the adoption will be handled just like any other request. No special treatment will be given to the actress simply because of her fame. The process normally takes four months though they acknowledge that it may be shortened by the fact that Jolie has already found the child that she wishes to adopt.

This will bring the total of Jolie’s kids to four, two of whom are adopted. One is from Cambodia and the other from Ethiopia. One wonders how many more she plans to add before she will decide that her family is big enough.