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Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, California
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Laurel Canyon is a canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, and like Topanga Canyon very oriented to the central thoroughfare, Laurel Canyon Boulevard. There are many side roads that branch off the main canyon, but most of them are not through streets, reinforcing the neighborhood as self-contained. It was first settled in the 1920s, and became a part of Los Angeles in 1923. Unlike other canyon neighborhoods, Laurel Canyon has houses lining one side of the main street most of the way up to Mulholland Drive. Some of the main side streets are Mount Olympus, Kirkwood, Wonderland, and Lookout Mountain Avenue. The zip code for at least part of the neighborhood is 90046.
It is an important transit corridor between West Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley, specifically Studio City. The division between the two can roughly be defined by the intersection of Laurel Canyon & Mulholland Drive. As of the first few months of 2005, the first section of the road on the Hollywood side had been partially washed away in a rainstorm, and traffic was still being redirected to a normally quiet residential side street going along the main drive.
Laurel Canyon found itself a nexus of counterculture activity and attitudes in the 1960s, becoming famous as home to many of L.A.'s top rock musicians, such as Frank Zappa, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and Love. Joni Mitchell, inhabiting the home in the Canyon immortalized in the song written by Graham Nash, "Our House," would use the area as title and inspiration for her third album. The bohemian spirit from that time period endures to this day, and every year residents gather for a group photograph at the country market. The famous rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers themselves were formed here and are currently based here in Laurel Canyon.
Laurel Canyon has been mentioned in many films and novels of Los Angeles, including Laurel Canyon written and directed by Lisa Cholodenko in 2002, and is the subject of a book by Michael Walker, Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Legendary Neighborhood, published by Faber and Faber in May of 2006.
Among the famous places in Laurel Canyon are the Log Cabin house once-owned by silent film star Tom Mix that became home to the Zappa clan, and one that may or may not have been owned by Harry Houdini.
Lauren Canyon was also prominently featured in the 2003 film Wonderland, which chronicled the 1981 Wonderland Murders which occurred at 8763 Wonderland Avenue in the Canyon, and involved porn star John C. Holmes and reputed gangster Eddie Nash. The Wonderland Massacre has been described as one of the bloodiest mass murders in California history.
Between 1912 and 1918, a trackless electric trolley ran from Sunset Boulevard to the top of Lookout Mountain Road.
Contents |
- Anthony Kiedis, 1990s-present
- Robert Mitchum, 1940s-'60s
- Errol Flynn, early to mid 1950s
- Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr. 1960s - present
- Cass Elliot, 1960s
- Peter Tork, mid 1960s
- Jim Morrison, late 1960s
- Abigail Folger and Wojciech Frykowski, 1968-1969
- Frank Zappa, 1968-1993
- John Mayall, 1969-1979 (see the 1968 blues album Blues from Laurel Canyon)
- Joni Mitchell & Graham Nash, early 1970s
- Roman Gabriel, former quarterback of the Los Angeles Rams, lived on Skyline Drive, 1970s
- Alice Cooper, 1971-1976
- Eric Burdon, 1970s
- Jerry Brown, 1970s.
- Dusty Springfield, 1970s
- Victory Tischler-Blue aka Vicki Blue, 1980s - 1990s, producer / director, bass player for the 1970s all-girl band The Runaways
- Keith Richards, 1970s
- Marilyn Manson, 1997-2004 (residence is on Appian Way at the famed 'Mary Astor House', built in the 1920s as a 'Hills hideaway for the silent film starlet, Mary Astor, who used the home secretly for her romantic trysts with studio execs and other notables; Marilyn Manson wrote the entire Mechanical Animals album at this house, and much of it was recorded at 'The White Room'--Manson's home recording studio in his pool house)
- The Rolling Stones, 1970s (interestingly, The Rolling Stones occupied the same house mentioned above, the 'Mary Astor House' in which Marilyn Manson lives today; their film, Cocksucker Blues was filmed here)
- Denny Doherty, 1960s (also lived in the Mary Astor house on Appian Way)
- Leslie Caron, 1950s (lived on Ridpath Dr)
- Chuck Connors, 1950s (lived on Ridpath)
- Fabian Forte, 1960s (lived on Ridpath)
+Troy Donahue, early 1960s (lived on Ridpath)
- John Saxon, 1960s-70s (lived on Jewett Dr.)
- Keith Moon, mid-1970s (Studio City side of Laurel Canyon)
- Orson Welles, lived on Greenvalley Road, late 1970s.
- Slash, 1976-mid-'80s
- Jennifer Aniston, early-mid 1990s
- Christina Applegate, present
- Meg Ryan, present
- Ian Thorpe, present
- Harry Houdini, 1919-1921
- George Augustus Phillips (d. 1966)
- Luther Williams (d. 1978)
- Paul Scotch (d. 1980)
- Keith Raymond (d. 2001)
- Bryan Collins (d. 1994)
- Frank Zappa (d. 1993)
- Leonardo DiFondo (d. 1956)
- Ramon Novarro (d. 1968)
- Laurel Johnson Canyon or known as The Founder of Laurel Canyon (d. 1940)
- Wonderland Murders, the 1981 quadruple murder of the Wonderland Gang, the then-leaders of the LA cocaine trade.
- LA_a-z LA_a-z2 "Laurel Canyon". Los Angeles A to Z (1). (1997). by Leonard Pitt and Dale Pitt, published by the University of California Press, Los Angeles.
- "Music and Mayhem in 'Laurel Canyon'", from NPR.org broadcast September 6, 2006
