Thursday, January 10, 2008 5:48 PM
Grant was a longtime friend of the LA Press Club, dating back to the years he helped recruit Marilyn Monroe as Miss Press Club
By Alex Ben Block (Jan. 10, 2008)
The honorary “Mayor of Hollywood” leaves behind him a significant legacy as the pioneer who pushed the Walk of Fame to new heights and made Hollywood a symbol of the stars around the world. He was also a pal of the LA Press Club.
Grant goes way back with the club. Like the modern LAPC, Grant was part of the post war boom years in Southern California. He was part of the early era of live television in Los Angeles when shows were actually produced by local stations.
Grant started as a newscaster and broadcast journalist in 1939, with a deep, rich booming voice, and after an interruption to serve in the Army Air Corp., moved to New York and then back to Hollywood, where he became close with Gene Autry, the singing cowboy who had parlayed his movies into a financial and broadcasting empire in his time. Autry owned KTLA Channel 5 in Los Angeles along with other TV stations and radio outlets. He gave Grant a show doing Hollywood news for a while, and other duties, which put him in touch with many of the cities celebrities.
Grant evolved into the official greeter for the mythical fiefdom of Hollywood. He was Chairman and organized the Hollywood Christmas Parade and telecast for many years, and only when he fell ill, did it fall off the map. He loved every celebrity he ever met. He was always was gushing about how wondrous they were. And we loved him for it.
He served as a major general in the California State Military Reserve, which in that era backed up the California National Guard. He won the Order of California and was given the highest honors by the USO.. He served on the Los Angeles City Fire Commission, the County Social Service Commission and the Burbank Police Commission. Even in recent years he was active in the Los Angeles City Cultural Heritage Commission.
Back in the 1950s when there was a Miss Press Club, Grant helped bring the LA Press Club a visit from Marilyn Monroe. There were pictures of photogs flashing away as Monroe posed with her chest thrust forward to show off the LA Press club banner. For more than thirty years, Grant has been a fixture at awards dinners, big events and the LA Press Club Headliner Awards, when we had Headliner Awards.
He lived in a penthouse apartment at Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel and was never far from the world he loved. Grant had a big heart. He produced and hosted the very first national telethon ever held in 1952 to raise money to send American athletes to the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. His co-hosts for that show were Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra.
Grant died late Wednesday at age 84, quietly and with dignity. Whatever he died of, we know what he lived for – his Hollywood. He was a familiar figure in publicity pictures whenever some star received a star on the sidewalk along Hollywood Boulevard. He was a little plug of a guy with the energy of a moon rocket on full speed ahead.
A native of Goldsboro, North Carolina, Grant got his first notoriety as a reporter broadcasting reports on a local murder trial, with Grant getting the big scoops. After serving in the Army Air Corp, he landed in New York City where during the war he did a daily radio show for those in the military, and as part of his job would interview any visiting celebrities. He stayed in New York shortly after the war, working as a reporter for WINS radio, before heading to Hollywood.
Bob Hope passed on to Grant the tradition of bringing a troop of Hollywood celebrities to boost the morale of the American soldiers serving overseas. He made a reported 60 trips, including Korea, Vietnam and last month, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Grant was said to have been most proud of three things – Restoring the Hollywood sign and making it an internationally known trademark. Establishing the Walk of Fame in Hollywood as the supreme honor in show business. And convincing U.S. postal authorities to use a Hollywood postmark, even though it was not its own city.
In a way he will be with us forever. An intersection north of the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue is now called “Johnny Grant Way.”
