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November, 2001, LOS ANGELES - As if some atavistic urge compels me, I always seem to have a need to go to London near the end of the year. I love the crisp, bracing air; the holiday hubbub; the sound of English spoken as in Merchant-Ivory movies. This year, the urge was even more compelling. The trip to London became symbolic. It was an assertion of defiance against the terrorists. I wasn't going to be intimidated. Vigilant - yes. Careful - surely. Anxious - perhaps. I wasn't going to let the terrorists change my plans. Besides, the British people and government have been our strongest allies in the effort against terrorism. Prime Minister Tony Blair has been a true stalwart.
We got to the airport three hours before departure. As I had anticipated, the security was tedious and time-consuming. But, I was glad. The hassle was reassuring. We felt exceptionally well examined and very secure. The trip was gratefully uneventful.
The reward for my determination was a trip filled with lucky, out of the blue experiences - like a joy ride up to a spectacular view of London on our first afternoon. Last year, when we tried to take a ride on the Millennium Eye, the giant Ferris wheel on the south bank of the River Thames, it was closed because of wind conditions. And all tickets for future opportunities during our stay were sold out. This year, we just walked up to the ticket booth, bought our tickets, and got in the glass capsule that leisurely lifted us up to the highest vantage point in all London. The air was crystalline and the vista was sharp and clear. The sky churned with dramatic clouds, just like a Gainsborough painting. And all of London lay before us from the office towers of Canary Wharf off in the distance, to stately Tower Bridge rising up across the Thames, to the classic dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, all the way down to familiar old Big Ben just below us. It was a sensational experience.
I had old English five pound and ten pound notes that had gone out of circulation from some previous trip. Banks all over London wouldn't exchange them. I had to go to the Bank of England itself in the financial district of the city known simply as the City. We got there before it opened so we decided to roam about the area admiring the imposing, gray architecture of the City. Serendipitously, we chanced upon a new men's shirt shop that had just opened its doors for the first time. It was an exclusive shop that catered to the financial people of the district. As a celebration special, they were throwing in a selection of handsome ties for the price of a shirt. What a bargain! I stepped in and they promptly made a sale. Now I own a shirt and tie just like the ones worn by those British bankers.
The Bank of England should be open by now. We crossed the street and walked past the now open bronze doors of the building where British banking began three centuries ago. A stern looking security guard stood blocking entry at a second set of doors. As I approached, his eyes narrowed. They seemed to penetrate right through me. Why is he scrutinizing me like that, I wondered. I'm not going to rob his bank. He stared intently at me until I stepped up to him. Then he demanded, "You're on Star Trek, aren't you?" I was completely thrown off balance. That phrase has been like "open sesame" for me. "I love your show," he stated. Star Trek has magically opened doors for me into some of the most inaccessible places in the world. The stern guard, still unsmiling, said, "Follow me, sir." He courteously escorted into an imposing marble domed banking hall. My outdated bills were graciously exchanged for me. Then my stern friend asked, "Would you like to visit our Museum of Banking, sir?" Would I? Door after unanticipated doors opened for me into a museum of the history, not only of the Bank of England, but of banking itself in England. That was a fascinating and educational afternoon - and totally unexpected.
London, for me, is theater land. My main mission, when I'm in London, is to immerse myself in some of the best theater in the English language. I spent every night in a theater. And every night was rich and engaging. There was a perfect production of Noel Coward's "Private Lives," starring Alan Rickman, who, you might recall, played the character based on Mr. Spock in "Galaxy Quest." At the National Theater complex, I saw a big and brilliant production of John Osborne's "Luther" in the Olivier Theater and in the Lyttleton, a sensational new play, "Mother Clapp's Molley House" about commerce and prostitution in the 18th century and today. There were revivals galore - a wonderful production of "Joe Egg," a hilarious production of "The Royal Family" starring Judi Dench, and a powerful production of Lillian Hellman's "Little Foxes" with a commanding performance by an actor named Penelope Wilton. British actors seem to have a gift for playing characters of the American south. But, the serendipity for me, was in the sold out hit, Lerner and Lowe's "My Fair Lady" with Jonathan Pryce playing Professor Henry Higgins. I didn't recognize the names of the actors playing Eliza, a Martine McCutcheon, and Doolittle, played by a Dennis Waterman. The reviews that were on display outside the Drury Lane Theater gave their performances glowing raves. You can imagine my disappointment when we arrived at the theater to learn that understudies were going on that performance for Eliza and Doolittle. Thank goodness, Jonathan Pryce was there to play Henry Higgins. We settled down in our seats not without some grumbling.
The overture started up and the Cockney denizens of Covent Garden sauntered out to set the stage to perform a delightfully choreographed dance prelude. It seemed to be getting off to a good start. Eliza entered. Her first sounds of Cockney seemed "spot on" as the British say. Through her smudge-smeared make-up, one could see that she had a beautiful face. Her first exchange with Higgins went perfectly. Her first song number, "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" revealed a gorgeous voice. She was wonderful!
When the character of her father, Doolittle, entered, we knew immediately that he was a fun-loving, conniving witted, energetic, Cockney low-life. He had the cockiness of a bantam rooster on coke. Then he exploded on stage with his first production number, "With a Little Bit of Luck." He brought the house down! Both understudies were extraordinary! I couldn't imagine the regular actors topping their performances. My bravo, bravo, bravos go to Kerry Ellis as a brilliant Eliza and to David Shaw-Parker as the best Doolittle I have ever seen. "My Fair Lady" was an unforgettable experience. And yes, as we expected, Jonathan Pryce was good as well. But the understudies, Ellis and Shaw-Parker, were our serendipitous, unexpected good fortune.
London is a place of magic that passes too quickly. All too soon, we were in a London taxi headed back to Heathrow Airport for the trip home. The driver seemed eager to chat. He talked about current events. He firmly believed that the Taliban would fall soon enough. He lamented the absence of tourists in London. He told us that the English like to take their holidays in Spain. He nattered on and on. When he said "holiday in Spain," I suddenly realized. His accent was perfect Cockney! As a matter of fact, we had Doolittle himself driving us to the airport! As we neared our terminal, he said, "with a little bit o' luck, your flight will take off on time." I almost expected him to break out in song. He was the perfect driver to see us off back to Los Angeles, California. Ah, I shall look forward to the next serendipitous return to London.
February, 2002, SACRAMENTO, CA - As the plane began descending toward the Sacramento airport, the green patterns of the farm fields below shifted to suburban housing developments, then to a scattering of rectangular high rise buildings surrounding the golden dome of the state capitol. I tried to locate the Victorian structure of the Crocker Art Museum but the plane quickly flew past the downtown area and was again descending over farm fields. I could now see the airport approaching. I was arriving for the opening of one of the Japanese American National Museum's traveling exhibits, "Henry Sugimoto: Painting An American Experience" at the Crocker Art Museum of Sacramento.
This trip, however, was more than my fulfilling my duties as the Chairman of the Japanese American National Museum. Sacramento is a special place to me. It was to this land, one hundred years ago, that my grandparents came from Hiroshima, Japan. It was here that my grandfather began farming, growing strawberries, plums, and hops. It was here, in an old Victorian farmhouse that my mother was born. It was here in the soil of Sacramento, the capital city of California, that my American roots were first planted.
The exhibit of Henry Sugimoto's paintings is also very personal to me. When World War II began, this gifted artist was among the 120,000 Japanese Americans who were rounded up by the U.S. military and incarcerated in American internment camps. He painted scenes of his imprisonment in the two camps in Arkansas -- Rohwer and Jerome. Rohwer was the camp to which my family was sent from our home in Los Angeles. I look at Sugimoto's paintings of the camp landscape and they remind me of the swampy creek where I used to play by the barbed wire fence. I remember the scenes he painted of the communal hubbub in the washroom, where babies were bathed as well as the laundry done. I recognize the picture in his painting of the long line at the mess hall where we queued up three times a day for our meals. I look at these paintings by Henry Sugimoto and I'm reminded of the fear and anxiety of fellow Americans that sent us into that barbed wire imprisonment. I hear from these images on canvas, the resonance of the fear and anxiety felt today toward people of Middle Eastern descent. These paintings of sixty years ago are profoundly relevant to our times today.
We live in a time of terror. When in public places, when in congested places, certainly when we're at the airport, we feel an indefinable sense of anxiety.
A dark, bearded person might fill us with some unease. That nervousness is not irrational. We are responding to what we have read, heard, or seen. That sense of unease might be called experiential "racial profiling." But race has to be just one part of the whole picture. That dark, bearded person might be a student or a dentist or a salesman -- nothing more. Simple racial profiling is an inadequate rationale for anxiety. Indeed, a terrorist can look like the all-American boy next door - like Timothy McVeigh.
We are Americans, the most diverse people on this planet. We look like the people of the world - every race in every shape and form. We are also a people who subscribe to the rule of law - not of racial discrimination. We believe in a system of due process where a person cannot be detained without charges, due cause or right to counsel. That is what makes our system of justice so great. Yet, at times of stress, our government can react hastily and without clear thinking. In the aftermath of September 11th, Middle Eastern immigrant men have been detained without charges and without counsel, their families uninformed of where the men had been taken or when they might be released. It was exactly the same with Japanese immigrant men immediately after Pearl Harbor. This kind of racial profiling ultimately resulted in a most egregious violation of the U.S. Constitution - the wholesale removal and incarceration of all Japanese Americans from the West Coast. There was no due process - no charges, no trial, just imprisonment by race. The scenes that Henry Sugimoto painted from his "American Experience" have this profoundly important cautionary message for our times today.
The opening of the exhibit of Henry Sugimoto's works in Sacramento was a great success. I'm told that this was the biggest opening in the history of the Crocker Art Museum. In my mother's hometown, in my state capital, where my roots go down deep, my own American experience was hugely well received. The exhibit will be in Sacramento until March 24, 2002.
March, 2002, HOLLYWOOD - I love Hollywood. It's a part of my hometown, Los Angeles, that I've been stuck on all my life. My life history is literally embedded here.
When I was a kid, it was the exciting part of town that my parents took me to for special occasions - a movie, a dinner, and a drive admiring the glamour of the neon signs and art-deco architecture. As a movie-struck teen-ager, Hollywood Boulevard was where I hung out. It was where I got the only jay walking ticket in my life, dashing across Hollywood Boulevard right in front of the legendary Grauman's Chinese Theater. I spent hours exploring in bookstores on the boulevard, like Larry Edmund's and Pickwick Books, and chancing across stars like John Derek and Gig Young also browsing among the stacks. Music City, on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street, was where I went to listen to the latest hit records in the glass booths facing the street. In the evenings, we went to movies at celebrated theaters like the Pantages, the Egyptian, and, of course, Grauman's Chinese Theater.
But over the years, Hollywood started to decline. The big department store closed down, followed by other fine clothing stores. Seedy operations began opening up. The smaller movie houses shifted their booking to X-rated films. Fine restaurants closed and reopened as greasy spoons. The people on the street changed. We stopped going there at night. When the Pantages and Egyptian theaters went dark, I was shaken. Those were landmarks of our city. It was unthinkable. It was like a death of a loved one. It hurt - and I also felt guilty. I hadn't supported those great movie palaces in years. It was heartbreaking to watch a beloved, once legendary street going derelict.
A few hardy institutions were toughing it out against the tide of nastiness and squalor. Musso & Frank's Restaurant, the gathering place of stars since the days of silent movies, had been on the boulevard since 1919. I still went there on occasion for their steaks, chicken pot pies, and, especially, their great martinis. It was wonderful bumping into Ricardo Montalban there shortly after we worked together on "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn."
And tour buses still congregated at old Grauman's Chinese Theater with its autographed and hand printed forecourt. Through thick and thin, the Chinese was a perennial.
"Star Trek" did its galactic best to buttress up the renown and traditions of Hollywood. When Gene Roddenberry was honored with his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, we all gathered - with the exception of Bill Shatner - to rejoice with our boss, the Great Bird. With each new star on the Walk of Fame for a fellow member of our Star Trek family, we got together to celebrate the happy occasion. And hundreds of fans joined us from far and near.
The year 1986 was my turn and I will never forget the joy of that day. My name embedded in a rose terrazzo star on the sidewalk that I had been walking over all my life! Before feet from all over the world could tread over my good name, my mother, who gave me life and taught me to walk, had to be the very first one to step on my star. She reveled being in the spotlight. After the ceremony, we partied at the historic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Mayor Tom Bradley proclaimed October 30, 1986, George Takei Day in Los Angeles. The heady memory of that day will forever be my personal treasure.
Incredibly, that day was topped by a shared day of jubilation. In the 25th anniversary year of "Star Trek," just before the premiere of "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country," the entire cast was honored with Hollywood's version of consecration - a place in the forecourt of the hallowed Grauman's Chinese Theater. Cheering fans lined both sides of Hollywood Boulevard as we paraded down in convertibles. The USC Marching Band blared away in front of us. We arrived at the Chinese to be greeted by the ever-ebullient Johnny Grant, the Honorary Mayor of Hollywood, with a cortege of young fans dressed as Starfleet officers, Klingon warriors and an Andorian Ambassador or two. This ceremony was going to be unique from any other in the Chinese Theater's long and colorful history. Ours had visitors from throughout the galaxy. A large square of fresh cement moistly awaited our autographs. The studio publicists had instructed us that, due to the limited space, we were to write our autographs only - nothing else. Bill Shatner and Leonard Nimoy led off obediently as instructed with only their signatures on the wet cement. I surmised then, that I was obviously the only one who knew the whole tradition. A handprint must accompany the autograph in the cement. It was tradition. As the only native Angeleno, the responsibility for continuing that tradition lay solely with me. When my turn came, I wrote my name clearly and then, despite the instructions from the studio, I pressed my palm firmly into the wet cement. The shocked exclamation that followed came from Bill Shatner. "George put his hand in!" Then after a pause, "I want to put MY hand in too!" Splat! He slapped his handprint into the moist cement right beside his signature. Pandemonium broke out as everyone else ran to add their handprints to their autographs. Leonard - always thinking in character - placed his handprint in the form of his Vulcan greeting. The continuity of the hallowed rite of the handprint was not broken. I took quiet satisfaction in knowing that I was the one responsible for maintaining that tradition.
The day after that memorable ceremony, I drove down Hollywood Boulevard. Tourists with cameras were still ambling around the Chinese Theater. But the rest of the street had returned to its shabby dereliction. The crowd was gone and the grungy, the delinquent and the deranged had shambled back. "Star Trek" had brought only a brief day of excitement to a growingly forlorn street.
Over the years, there were many initiatives to revitalize Hollywood. Every disappointment was followed by redoubled efforts to reclaim a valued part of the city. Everybody knows Hollywood. From Bombay to Helsinki, from Morocco to Outer Mongolia, Hollywood is a place known throughout the world. In some parts of the world, Hollywood may be better known than Los Angeles itself, of which it is actually a part. Los Angeles could not allow the decline to continue. Hollywood was too valuable and too well known.
With much effort, a revitalization plan was crafted with tax incentives, historic restoration credits, improved security programs and, most importantly, leadership commitment. When the film appreciation society, American Cinematheque, working closely with the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles, restored and reopened the historic Egyptian Theater as its new home, the re-ascendance of Hollywood began. It was quickly followed by the welcome return of the Pantages Theater. The great movie palace was magnificently restored and premiered just over a year ago with Disney's stage production of "The Lion King." It is a smash hit still playing today. And, last month, Hollywood saw the spectacular opening of the Kodak Theater and the Babylon Court of Hollywood and Highland. This is the biggest and most fantastically over-the-top complex of theaters, shops, and restaurants in Los Angeles. Just last week, the Japanese American National Museum held its annual dinner in the glamorous new Grand Ballroom on the rooftop of the complex. In two weeks, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present the Oscars for the highest achievements in motion pictures for the year 2001 in the dazzling new Kodak Theater, designated as its permanent home.
Hollywood Boulevard is where Oscar belongs. It was born 75 years ago at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, just across the street from the Kodak Theater. Since then, Oscar roamed all over Los Angeles and Santa Monica, finally to find a permanent home back on Hollywood Boulevard. Hooray for Hollywood!
The people are coming back. The excitement is coming back. Now that the money is coming back, so are the politics.
There are people politicking to have Hollywood secede from the City of Los Angeles. After Los Angeles had struggled through the tough years of Hollywood, after all the effort and investment to revitalize the area, after the Metro Rail subway system was built to bind Hollywood with the rest of the city, there are activists trying to break away. They are advocating to place a measure on the November ballot declaring Hollywood an independent city. The irony is that, if they did succeed, they will still have to contract with Los Angeles for all their services.
I don't live within the specific boundaries of Hollywood. But, I consider it an intrinsic part of my hometown. I have childhood memories there. I went to summer school at Hollywood High. As a Los Angeles High School cross-country runner, I competed in races against runners from Hollywood High. I work in an industry that is synonymous with Hollywood. I go to movies, eat, play, and spend my money in Hollywood. I don't want a room in my civic home taken away from me.
One more thing - that world famous sign on the hillside of Griffith Park that announces "Hollywood" in great big bold white letters is in Los Angeles. And, we won't give that up. What is Hollywood without the Hollywood sign? It would be like Paris without the Eiffel Tower or New York without the Empire State Building. I say to the activists trying to break away, "give it up." Your effort is misguided. And we ain't giving up our Hollywood sign!