Fame Came to Beverly Hills: Why Old Hollywood Moved In

Stanley Anderson did more than simply welcome guests to the hotel. He lured one of the period's biggest stars to become a resident, helping Douglas Fairbanks find a hunting lodge near the hotel. Once Fairbanks leased the property (which doubled as a rustic aerie for assignations with Mary Pickford), the actor then invited friends such as Will Rogers -- who would become the new city's honorary mayor -- and Charlie Chaplin to his hideaway.

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From 'Escape From L.A.' to 'Star Trek,' California is sci-fi

In sci-fi movies and the books that serve as their inspiration, the future of the Golden State goes something like this: Ten to 150 years from the present, California has succumbed to natural disaster/economic and governmental collapse/a pandemic, which leaves Southern California a corporate-fascist-military state with gross financial and racial inequality and urban squalor—while Northern California rips up its pavement, learns permaculture, gets spiritual, and models better living through technology and communitarian diversity.

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The Surprisingly Real Los Angeles of Modern Family

The city is not presented as a dystopian hellscape, a gang-riddled slum, or a hedonistic lotus land just begging for its earth-shaking, flame-engulfed comeuppance from a disgusted God. It’s just a place where normal Americans lead normal lives, albeit one with better weather.

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