Name: The Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Age: 63.
Appearance: Mysterious, lifesize, trivia-based board game.
What is it? A series of stars, rendered in terrazzo and brass, embedded in the pavement along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of intersecting Vine Street in Los Angeles.
How many stars are we talking? More than 2,700, each bearing the name of a legendary Hollywood luminary.
Such as? King Baggot, Rod La Rocque, Jetta Goudal and Snub Pollard.
I’ve never heard of any of them. They have also squeezed in Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Even so, it sounds rubbish. Not for nothing has the Hollywood Walk of Fame been named the world’s worst tourist attraction, beating the Grand Bazaar in Turkey, the Taj Mahal in India and Busch Gardens in Florida.
Who awarded the title? The luggage storage company Stasher compiled the ranking using five data collection points, including safety, TikTok engagement and Google reviews.
So the thousands of Hollywood stars have got thousands of one-star reviews? “Smells like urine” is a phrase that keeps cropping up. There is drug-dealing and aggressive peddling in the immediate area. Parking is expensive. And the prime attraction is a bunch of dirty stars on the ground.
Whose idea was the Walk of Fame? The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce proposed the scheme in the 1950s. The first 1,500 stars were laid out in one go and the rest followed over the years.
How do the stars get assigned? Roughly 200 nominations in different entertainment categories are received annually, from which about two dozen names are chosen. The nominator has to agree to foot the $75,000 bill and the celebrity in question must attend the unveiling.
Sounds strict. It’s a mess – lots of celebs have more than one star. Gene Autry has five, for some reason.
And I suppose not everybody has remained famous. Many have become downright notorious. Donald Trump’s star, laid in 2007, has been repeatedly destroyed and repaired, leading to calls for its removal.
How do you get a star removed? You can’t. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce is in charge and it insists that once a star is in place, it stays. Bill Cosby’s is still there, along with stars commemorating tax evaders, racists, sexual abusers and at least one murderer: the band leader Spade Cooley, who beat his estranged wife to death in 1961.
Another reason not to go. As if you needed another.
Do say: “Sorry, I thought you were meant to pee on them. Everyone else is.”
Don’t say: “Lie down next to this one so I can take your picture.”