Glitter Sells In Tinsel Town

09/27/1996

It's been a brush with fame at every turn for Eric Ellis since he arrived to open The Financial Review's Los Angeles bureau. 

AFTER two centuries of being mercilessly thrashed by Poms for our supposedly coarse brand of English, it comes as something of a surprise to learn that some Californians think Australians are "intellectual" - because of how we speak.

"Ya know, I could listen to you all day," said the manager of Hollywood real estate agents, sorry realtor, John Aaroe.

"You Aussies sound, you know, like, intellectual. Just talk to me. Say something!" John, well-preserved and tanned, in his mid-40s, was probably earning $US2 million plus ($2.5 million) a year selling "lifestyle" to well-heeled Angelenos.

In a city where money matters socially, he lived in Brentwood, the fashionable neighbourhood next to Beverly Hills where Nicole Brown Simpson was murdered (at 875 South Bundy Drive) and houses run to $US5 million.

But he was obsessed by me, languishing down there in the lower end of his rental department, where he never usually goes. Just because I had an Australian accent.

"Oh, you're going to live in LA. That's great. Maybe I could buy you lunch and you could talk to me."

I'd have been more interested in hearing him speak, up there at the pinnacle of LA real estate, and if as part of his sales patter, he name-dropped unashamedly like the other six realtors I encountered while trying to find a place to live.

In Sydney, a harbour view is the main selling point for agents. In LA, its proximity to movie stars, dead or alive. The water pressure? A parking space? Crime rate? Not important. It's glitter that sells.

And it's not just real estate. It's the same with buying a car, coffee (the latest obsession) or a gym membership. "What sort of crowd do you get here?" I asked the large African-American assistant sales manager at the Bally Gym on Santa Monica Boulevard in hip West Hollywood.

"Oh you'll love it here," he said.

"Why?" I asked, quite reasonably to an answer I wasn't expecting. "Well, we got all kinds of people come here to work out. Some of the cast of Melrose Place come by, LA Law and there's some from ER - do you have that in Australia? -they come by here, too. And have you ever heard of Richard Rountree?"

The name rang a bell. Wasn't he a TV star from the 1970s? A cop show? Then it hit me - the series theme song by Isaac Hayes with the famous "wah-wah" sound effect that seemed like it was on every "Ripper" greatest hits compilation. Rountree must be at least 60 now.

"Isn't he 'the black private dick who's the sex machine with all the chicks?' I asked, somehow remembering the theme's opening line, written before political correctness swept LA. The assistant manager was right onto it. "Shaft. Can you dig it?" he fired back, completing the chorus. Now, it was about here when the theme from another old American show kicked into the conscious.

The manager handed me his business card. It said "Shaft Forrest, asst. sales manager." Enter the theme from the Twilight Zone.

It was similar down at the pastelly "Sports Club, L.A." on Sepulveda Boulevard. Membership director Ric McConnell, a former Paine Webber trader who realised his broking career had come to an end when fellow traders at the American Stock Exchange began flicking elastic bands at each other, pattered that Paula Abdul worked out there and so did Michael Jordan and Cindy and "do you know Dyan Cannon?"

"The actress?"

"Yep, she's Cary Grant's ex-wife, she works out here too." There was no escape at Malibu either, where an ad in The Los Angeles Times spoke of a beachfront condominium with pool within my modest budget.

I was met at the Malibu Outrigger complex by landlady Lois Adams, whose husband Chuck (of course) had teed up the viewing.

Blonde-haired Lois was in her mid-40s, wore a bikini top and shorts and had the complexion of someone who would have appeared in the "what-not-to-do" part of a campaign against sun exposure.

"I'm an actress and I lurv Australia," she told me. "My son was playing in the Open down over there in Melbourne. He went out in the first round but we had a great time."

She went into hard sell on the flat, one of two she and Chuck owned in the building.

The complex was on the beach, true, and, yes, it had a pool but the tiny flat overlooked the car park and any tranquillity of falling asleep to the crashing Pacific Ocean was drowned out by the adjacent Pacific Coast Highway, one of the busiest roads in the US.

Undeterred, Lois spieled on.

"This is the hot beach now. Jack Klugman's in the building, Demi and Bruce are just down there and Katzenberg's got a place just along there and Geffen too. You know, they're all movin' outta Beverly Hills and coming down here for the lifestyle. Spielberg's gonna build his new studio just down there."

Pausing for breath, she asked if I liked Malibu. It was fine, I lied, about the unremarkable beach area and told her I was getting a feel for the neighbourhoods before making a decision on where to settle.

"You can't beat Malibu," she said.

"You know what I always tell people? Go for the best neighbourhood, pay the extra money and just don't eat so much when you move in."

Flamboyant bachelor Brian Freedman had a different, and ultimately successful, approach. "I usually do sales but I'm doing a rental now and I always put 100 per cent into what I'm doing so I'm here to help you find what you want. I don't fall for all this movie stuff but, hey, this is LA."

We spent an afternoon looking around West Hollywood. "That building over there was where F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in the penthouse and do you like architecture, because if you do this house was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright."

He showed me a place on a hill above West Hollywood, a small two-bedroom with a bit of a smoggy view across the city. "I think you'll like it here," he assured me, and I did. After signing the lease, I went back up to see what the neighbourhood offered.

I met Geoff, who lived two doors down, while he was walking his two dogs, a collie and a samoyed. We exchanged pleasantries and brief life stories. He raved about the neighbourhood.

"It's great here, the people are really friendly and, you know, Greta Garbo used to have a house around the corner ..." *