Heaven, I'm in heaven and my heart beats so I that can hardly speak.....

HOLLYWOOD!!!!! I had thought that with the American desire to always have new and shiny, to obliterate their past as they do not feel it is history worth keeping (hence thinking that Europe is so 'full of history') that there would be nothing left of Hollywood, real silver screen, golden age, Clarke Gable, Mary Pickford and Errol Flynn Hollywood, but there is! Simply the most wonderful, heart lifting, spirit soaring museum and it is just off Hollywood! And you can feel the glamour and the excitement all around!

The day starts as I wish every day for the rest of my life would start, sunshine, ocean, skating, cycling, iced coffee, sand, pancakes.  I just can not get enough of the architecture, the different styles of house, one moment tiny Spanish pueblo in ochre with roses around the edges, the next floor to ceiling windows with chrome and cacti.  I amble around the streets before meeting the gorgeous ones on the beach and my legs feel good.  If I could cycle everywhere for the rest of my life I would be happy.

But then we want to be IN Hollywood.... We program into our ever compliant and helpful SatNav all the places we want to see and she delivers us safely.  Kat Von D's High Voltage tattoo place first, not as cool or as hip it has to be said as the one in New York... People are not as friendly, although the area is  awesome and I wish, as I have wished endlessly whilst we have been away, that we had more time to explore.  And then we are in Hollywood.  Of course, you go 2 streets back from Mann's Chinese Theatre and you can park for free, in a beautiful palm tree lined apartment lined avenue, so we park and eagerly race into the stunning Art Deco building that was the Max Factor head quarters and is now the Hollywood Museum. 

And I am head over heels in love.  A million things to see....Here a pair of the Ruby Slippers from Oz, I can see each handstiched sequin (darker than the red they dyed the silk of the shoes with, bright red would have read as orange in Technicolor) and each bugle bead.

Max Factor's makeup boxes sit in glass cabinets, each of the pansticks worn quite specifically on one side. 

 Each of the rooms carefully decorated to enhance the colouring of the stars of the time (pale green just for red heads as it sets off the red complexion to perfection, pale pink for blondes....)

Sam & Daisy vanish as I am totally absorbed into Hollywood glamour.  I am lost in a world of powder and wig making, thinking of my great grandmother and the stars she made up and how she must have worked with similar tools and in similar chairs, over faces like the ones I can see in the pictures.  It makes me cry. And smile.  I am totally lost.

The is a spectacular Marilyn exhibition on the 1st floor, her beaded dresses from entertaining the troops, and casual outfits she wore and obviously loved from the slight sweat stains that can still be seen. Her dresses are beautiful, it is fantastic to see them and to study her proportions, to see her curves and the size of her feet, there is one dress that was made for her that she is photographed in, but she never wore as it was too small and you can see the rips in it.  But for me, the letters, the bills, her eye drops, her fridge, her make up and pots of cream from beside her bed when she died make me catch my breath.  There is a wonderful photographic exhibition to accompany the flotsam from her life by the photographer that really understood her and allowed her character to shine, George Barris, many of which were taken on Santa Monica beach and I could stand all day looking at her beauty.

The curation of this exhibition is truly remarkable and it is amazing we have caught it as it is due to come down within a matter of weeks.  The collection of her dresses alone I would have paid to go and see, the dress from the Prince and The Showgirl, with the film showing in the background, along side her Capri pants and casual cardigan that she wore when released from hospital, I can hardly catch my breathe!

Even the restrooms are extraordinary as they have been kept as they where in the 20's, as used by the employee's of Max Factor.  Painted the most perfect Art Deco green with chrome fittings, I stayed longer than is decent for any restroom just taking photographs....

The Marilyn exhibition blends into the permanent exhibitions which are equally as awe-inspiring, Theada Bara's jewellery from the 20's Cleopatra unlit and tarnished, Clara Bow's flapper dress hidden at the back of a cabinet with Chaplin's clapper board, scores of original movie posters from the 20's onwards, newspapers from Jean Harlow's death, movie cameras used in the early talkies, and make up, and pictures of make up artists and wig mistresses! Omg, my heart soars to see this! And credits to all those amazing women and men that worked in this industry, you never see them credited....

I have to send Sam & Daisy off to move the car as I simply can not leave the photographs of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in their pool or the test shots of Marilyn, or the dye samples of Lucille Balls hair.

I am speechless by the end of my time there.  I try to tell the glamorous woman that runs the museum about my Great Grandmother and how she would have worked here in Hollywood but by a twist of fate, but I am too choked up.   Instead, I simply ask that she take my picture.