Patch Blog: Memories on The Lot

I hate to see being razed. I worked there in 1991 on a TV pilot called Man of the People with James Garner, as well as a couple other shows. You can almost reach out and feel the energy left there by such movie greats as Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, and Elizabeth Taylor, not to mention Frank Sinatra and Howard Hughes. I don't know where ghosts go when you tear their homes down, but in this case, I hope they hang around. 

Too bad old movie studios can't be placed in a time capsule for future movie history junkies, like me, instead of being relegated to the demolition dust bin of progress. But we must bear the hearbreaks, as well as the joys of progress, even when it entails seeing the monuments of movie lore disappear before our eyes and replaced by structures of glass and steel squares, totally lacking in the magic inherent to the old stucco and wood studio sound stage walls that are so heavily slanted, and marked by the ravages of age, and top-heavy with tales that will forever rest untold.

I hope they will leave at least some physical remnants of the great movies that were made there, from Robin Hood and The Thief of Baghdad in the 1920s to Guys & Dolls and scenes from West Side Story in the 1950s and '60s, and the legendary TV shows like The Love Boat, Dynasty and The Fugitive of later decades. 

Lucie Arnaz once told me that when her parents house in Beverly Hills was being torn down, she went there and asked a worker for the knob from the front door. She felt that one little physical connection would keep her in touch with the past, no matter how far away it got. Good point. If anyone knows how I can get a door knob from The Lot, please let me know. There are no memories as precious as those you can hold in your hand.