In the August issue of In Style magazine, New York actress Mary-Louise Parker talks about one of her beauty rituals: "When I'm in L.A., I get facials from a woman out in the Valley. Her name is Myrna Kaufman."...

Anybody know if this Chatsworth rock formation survived time, construction of the Simi Valley Freeway, rocket testing at Rocketdyne (now Boeing) and development of the Iverson movie ranch into condos? The 1912 photographs (left and right) are in the Online Archive of California, from the papers of Owens Valley aqueduct builder Joseph Barlow Lippincott. They are identified only as "rock...

The CW television network, which launches this fall, will call Burbank home. Created by a merger of CBS-owned UPN and Time-Warner's WB, the new network will be based in the Pinnacle tower under construction at Olive Avenue and the 134 Freeway. CW joins ABC, CBS, NBC, Universal, Warner Bros., Disney, Bravo, DreamWorks, the Emmy-giving Academy of Television Arts and Sciences...

It won't do anything good tor the Valley's image, but Crash is the first Oscar winner for best picture to be set mostly in (and about) the San Fernando Valley. Ventura Boulevard, Ventura Court and Hoffman Street all get serious screen time, and there are references (mostly unflattering) to Studio City, Toluca Lake and Burbank—as well as the Valley itself....

Meghan, who works behind the camera in Valleywood and blogs at Musings, is still getting used to seeing celebs in her neighborhood. Her recent run-in came at a farmers market. While at the Studio City market, I was walking around the stalls and i saw one with a table of spray bottles set up. The labels said "Begley's Best" and...

Jerry L. Schneider's great website Movie Making Locations Plus has posted the story (with photos) of Lasky Mesa. It was a historic movie location ranch apparently established by the Jesse Lasky-Famous Players Co. in 1914. Gone with the Wind and other classic films had scenes shot there. We know the locale now as Ahmanson Ranch, the new public park adjacent...

On the hit Fox TV show "The O.C.", a running story line has the young, attractive and mostly spoiled Orange County kids watching a soap opera called "The Valley." The joke is that the characters and plot lines in "The O.C." are just like those "The Valley." (In an episode of the latter, a character complains, "I just don't feel...

After his service in World War II, director John Ford wished to honor thirteen colleagues who did not return from overseas service in the Naval Field Photographic Reserve. The unit, which Ford commanded, was made up mostly of cinematographers, actors and writers such as Garson Kanin and Budd Schulberg who traveled the world chronicling the war on film. Many others,...

This chapter appears in The San Fernando Valley: America's Suburb by Kevin Roderick. The first filmmakers to come to the Valley, soon after the turn of the 20th century, were attracted by its versatile terrain and authentic-looking western locations. Early Lasky-Famous Players movie crew. The weather was also a plus: Compared with New York or even Hollywood, it was more...