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<\/a>The acting bug bit me early in life. I remember as a child telling my parents stories with great enthusiasm that were totally fabricated. I remember just for fun pretending I was someone else and telling strangers that I was lost or abandoned by my parents, just to see their reaction. Basically I was a really good liar. I remember getting into my mom\u2019s make up, but hey that\u2019s another story. So from an early age I felt that I was a natural-born actor. After all my older brother, Jack Sparrow<\/strong> was destined to become a famous big-screen pirate and sister Suz, well, everyone said she was a drama queen, so it was in my blood. As a child I remember my parents discouraging me from acting; they wanted more for me. They wanted me to have the things in life that they could never have, they wanted me to be the first in our family to graduate with a degree from Truck Masters. I knew early on that I was going to end up in Hollywood;\u00a0<\/strong>as a senior in high ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Capt-Jack-150x150.jpeg\")
<\/a>school, I remember sitting in my microbiology class or was it my molecular biology class? Whatever. I remember raising my hand to be excused to go to the bathroom . . . and I never returned. \u00a0I went down to the railroad yard and hopped on the Burlington Northern<\/strong> heading south to Hollywood and never looked back. It wasn\u2019t easy for a kid in tinsel town in those early years, but after a lot of rejection and a few years of living under the freeway, I finally got my big break. The rest, as they say, is history.<\/p>\nOK, perhaps I\u2019ve taken a little too much license with the \u2018Bird\u2019s Eye View\u2019<\/strong> <\/em>philosophy of not letting the truth stand in the way of a good story, but I do have a HOLLYWOOD story, or more precisely, a HOLLYWOOD sign<\/em> story. Last week I did the hike to this iconic landmark, but first a little history.<\/p>\n First put up in 1923<\/p><\/div>\n The sign rests on Mount Lee, in the Hollywood Hills area of the Santa Monica Mountains; the original sign spelled out \u2018HOLLYWOODLAND\u2019<\/strong> and was erected in 1923<\/strong>, with the letters being hauled up the mountain by mule,\u00a0as an advertisement for a new housing development. It was only going to be up for a year and a half, but with the Golden Age of Cinema<\/em><\/strong> and the movie industry booming in Hollywood, the sign, with the \u2018LAND\u2019 removed, remained in place. \u00a0In 1978<\/strong>, with the sign in need of much repair, the Chamber of Commerce got a number of Los Angeles celebrities to each pay for the restoration of a single letter. Donors included such luminaries as Hugh Hefner, Gene Autry, Andy Williams<\/strong> and singer Alice Cooper<\/strong>, who donated in the memory of his good friend Groucho Marx<\/strong>. The sign was restored with the letters increasing in size to 45 feet tall and all together 350 feet long \u2013 about the length of a football field.<\/p>\n As you are probably aware there have been a number of \u2018alterations\u2019 to the signs over the years, some authorize It was time for me to see the HOLLYWOOD sign up close, so I booked a guided hike.<\/p>\n My <\/em>HOLLYWOOD Story<\/em>\u00a0(the hike), <\/em>continued on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Bob Sparrow The acting bug bit me early in life. I remember as a child telling my parents stories with great enthusiasm that were totally fabricated. I remember just for fun pretending I was someone else and telling strangers … read more![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Hollywoodland-300x168.jpeg\")
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<\/a>d, most not. The sign has read, ‘GO UCLA’, ‘GO NAVY’, ‘CAL TECH’, ‘OIL WAR’, ‘FOX’ and several more, but the most recent was \u2018HOLLYWEED\u2019<\/strong> which occurred in January of this year and was the second time the sign was changed to read like this, both commemorating passage of marijuana laws here in California.<\/p>\n