The Man Who Was Mayor of Hollywood

Johnny Grant, Tinseltown's biggest advocate, dies at age 84

By Joal Ryan Jan 10, 2008 7:17 PMTags

Hollywood isn't really a city. But Johnny Grant really was its mayor.

The TV and film personality who found the role of a lifetime as the ribbon-cutting chief of Tinseltown has died. He was 84.

Grant was found dead Wednesday night in his longtime penthouse hotel suite, which overlooked Hollywood Boulevard. Of course.

A community of Los Angeles, and not an incorporated city, Hollywood is governed by L.A.'s mayor and city council. But in 1980 the ostensive movie capital bestowed the honorary title of mayor upon Grant, a former radio host and Army Air Corps vet who came west after World War II—and never left.

Movie audiences might have caught a glimpse of Grant in 1954's White Christmas, where he played the TV host who help Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye honor their old general. TV audiences might have squinted to see Grant on their 10-inch screens as host of the 1940s game show Stop the Clock. And U.S. troops stationed in Vietnam, Korea and elsewhere might have enjoyed Grant at the USO shows he tirelessly organized. 

But Grant's greatest claim to fame was his apparent greatest love: preserving, restoring and selling Hollywood.

He presided over Walk of Fame inductions. He produced the Hollywood Christmas Parade and willed it to keep rolling, even in the face of star and TV viewer defections. And he seemed to host, or be present, at just about every ceremony held in the vicinity of Hollywood and Vine.

Grant became a part of Hollywood, literally, in 1980 when he received his own star on the Walk of Fame. (His is between Zsa Zsa Gabor's and bandleader Glenn Miller's.) And in 1997, Grant laid his hands in the wet cement in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. According to his official biography, he misspelled his own name on the square—he left out an "N"—necessitating a visit the next day from a consonant-bearing Vanna White.

Following a script Grant himself adhered to so many times, for so many fallen stars, flowers were to be laid Thursday in his honor atop his Walk of Fame star.

Grant, who was said to have died of natural causes, apparently already had his memorial plans worked out. According to the Los Angeles Times, he wanted his ashes scattered at the Hollywood Sign.

Of course.