It's not your typical night at the movies: Fred and Ginger dance in the aisle, King Kong hangs out with Frankenstein's monster and E.T. phones home in the lobby.
In a mural overlooking the drab corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Wilcox Avenue, movie stars sit in a theater and stare out as if passing tourists are the characters on the silver screen. "You Are the Star" is a Hollywood tourist attraction, but 24 years of sun, smog and anti-graffiti coating have taken their toll. Artist Thomas Suriya has returned to renovate the 20-by-30-foot painting.
In 1983, Suriya had a dream, "a vision of a movie theater but in reverse, with the stars looking out at the world which is a projection - the opposite of what we do when we go to the movies," he said. A few days later his friend Michael Attie invited him to paint a mural on the side of a family building in Hollywood. "I came here cold - I had never painted a mural before, not even a portrait - but it grew into a wonderful thing," Suriya said.
He pored over film history books to find top-tier actors from different eras and different specialities. The mural's audience includes 71 recognizable celebrities from silent films to the 1980s. "The heavy hitters are in the front row," the 59-year-old painter said, pointing to Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
"All the tough guys are over there with John Wayne," he said. "There's James Cagney and Edward G. Then there's the science-fiction-fantasy section" with Superman and R2D2.
If Suriya were doing the mural today, Julia Roberts, Johnny Depp and Jack Nicholson would get a seat. The 1983 commission was the break Suriya had dreamed of, but the job didn't pay. He stayed with a friend and local businesses donated paint and scaffolding.
"It was a leap of faith on his part and an adventure for me," said Michael Attie, whose parents owned the building. It's not your typical night at the movies: Fred and Ginger dance in the aisle, King Kong hangs out with Frankenstein's monster and E.T.
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