Customer Reviews

The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book (3rd edition)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read the book AFTER returning from LA--put me through the best and worst of 2 worlds. One of estasy (I remember that place, it was cool) to one of envy (I wish I had seen that). Please pick this book up before you leave, and plan your trip according to the sites listed. After taking one of the traditional tour vans around the city, it seems the driver must have used this book as a guide as I remember some of the houses matching up with what the author talked about. On the flip side, I would have preferred more pictures and more detailed information on hollywood grave sites, but maybe that's fodder for its own book!

There must be 50 Hollywood homes books on the market. If you visit Beverly Hills, a tour-bus or map salesman will gladly take your money. But W. Gordon's remarkably accurate and truthful guide will spell out where the buses point out homes where movie stars never lived. Gordon provides detailed directions and maps to the sites you want to see. And loads of "goodies" and information. He shows you how to get to Arnold's palatial block of homes in Brentwood, and warns that driving there is a $ 500 fine and possible jail time! Wow! He also gives directions to Rudolph Valentino's original 1920's mansion(and much, much more). Forget the B.S. Here it is. When I e-mailed him for an up-date, he gladly provided it for free(see the book). Why waste time driving around freeways?

William Gordon certainly has done his homework. Whats great about his book, is that it gives the average person access to these hot spots in Los Angeles, by giving directions to the Aaron Spelling house and David Geffen's house. For those coming to Los Angeles, I would recommend buying this book, rather than buying one of those "Maps to the Stars Homes". Those have not been updated in years, Gordon Updates his book twice a year. I have met William Gordon and had lunch with him, what a great guy. He is even open to suggestion, if you know of something he has left out of the book, drop him a line. You could tour everything in that book in a day!

This is a not so typical tour guide which provides its reader with a lot of bang for his/her buck. It provides information which is fairly accurate regarding the living (who tend to move quite a bit). The listings provided for death scenes are very accurate (assuming you only die once). Ditto for burial sites (assuming that remains stay put in one place.....unfortunately, that isn't always true as I seem to always be finding out). What is really impressive about the many editions of this book that have been published to date is that the author constantly updates the information in the book, so that it is as accurate as it can be given the odd and fluctuating state of celebrity mindsets (and fortunes).
So if you are willing to assume that some of the information may become outdated, you will probably enjoy this book quite a bit.

When I took an exploratory job trip for two weeks in L.A., I had a copy of the previous edition of "The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book" and found a lot of cool stuff using this book. (I drove by O.J. Simpson's home -- which he has since sold -- as well as the former homes of Joan Crawford and Shirley Temple in Brentwood).

Since I drove down from San Francisco I stopped in Malibu and drove through some of the exclusive star neighborhoods mentioned in here (that was the first time I'd ever seen a street sign marked "Private") and I saw someone who looked suspiciously like Pierce Brosnan riding his bike and he waved! Surreal!

The maps were black and white, but still good enough to get me where I wanted to go; used in conjunction with a regular street map, you won't go wrong. As far as I know, there's no other guide book to L.A./Hollywood like this. So if you don't want to feel like a tourist and see all the regular stuff PLUS stuff no one will tell you about GET THIS BOOK!

Used an earlier edition of this book when I took a self-guided tour in 1997, and bought this newer edition for my trip to L.A. in 2007. Indispensible! Better than a "map of the stars' homes" any day. Thoroughly recommended if you are planning to drive yourself around the various parts of L.A. looking for your particular favorite haunts. Thanks to this book, in 1997 I got to see (and exchange waves with) Jack Lemmon as he drove out of his driveway (no, I wasn't lying in wait. I'd pulled over to double check my location).

Though I had far less time to use it on my 2007 trip, I would have felt naked and unprepared just travelling without it. Another great feature about this book is that the author encourages submissions/corrections/additions to add to future editions, so if you discover the rare incorrect or out-of-date piece of info, he wants you to submit it to him so the next edition will be just that much more accurate.

Used the info in the book to track down the Playboy Mansion in 1997. Had a neat experience at the mansion gates that trip and have pics to prove it. When I drove by it again in 2007 a few hours before I was to attend a party there that evening, I glanced at the book over in the passenger seat of my rental car and gave it a knowing smile.

My copy is autographed. Don't know if that increases its value, but it is a nice touch.

The Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book is full of interesting facts, historical tidbits and interviews with Hollywood natives that provide readers with a realistic view of Hollywood, past and present. As any worthwhile tour guide should, this book lists hundreds of locations of interest to visit in and around the Hollywood area, extending it's reach to surrounding Los Angeles communities that have ties to the entertainment business. However, the tone of Gordon's book is informative, straightforward and friendly, not off-putting or intentionally misleading, as some guide books can be.

Not surprisingly, Gordon's book is even a fun read for those of us born and raised in Hollywood. For me it brought back memories of old haunts, and it evoked nods of approval among friends as we read through many accurate descriptions of favorite locales and pages of sound advice about what to visit and why, as well as what to avoid.

Whether you're a native of the Los Angeles area, a tourist planning just a few days' visit to Hollywood, or a local history buff searching for a fun and interesting book to read, you can't go wrong picking up a copy of William Gordon's Ultimate Hollywood Tour Book.

About 5 years ago I took a summer job giving tours of Hollywood on an old trolley car. One of my most memorable experiences was the day one of the guides for the Beverly Hills tour got sick and I was thrown into the front seat of a tour van and sent on my way to give a tour of the star's homes. It was without a doubt one of the more embarrassing moments of my life as it wasn't my regular gig and I had to make a lot of stuff up because I had no idea whose house was whose and the guy driving the van was as clueless as I was. But if the owner's of the tour company had seen fit to give me this book beforehand I would have known where I was and all those tourists wouldn't have asked for their money back when the tour was over.