Goodbye Superman

His death this week surfaced feelings of nostalgia for my era of Hollywood that isn’t any more. I’d mostly see him in my Hollywood Blvd club days when I was younger, usually on my way to the punk/goth/nu-wave clubs of the 90s/early 2000s, Clockwork Orange, Helter Skelter, or Perversion, in the years just before big corporate money and gentrification washed the Blvd clean. Him walking away from the main fracas leaving “work” into the neighborhood just on the other side of La Brea, as I was entering the fray, loaded up on two Red Bulls to guarantee a full, tireless night on the dance floor, by way of a pit stop at The Roosevelt Hotel lobby which is much cleaner than the barely functional facilities of Hollywood Blvd nightclubs.

Sometimes, I went into Hollywood early to record shop and grab a bite to eat before a night out. I usually wound up at Hamburger Hamlet, which is now a tacky yet popular 2-story Hooters near the corner of Hollywood Blvd and Orange St. I’d sit in the window booth watching the tourists fade away back to their hotels, and the street punks and night dwellers emerge as the sun set. It was like a Hollywood Blvd changing of the guards. From the restaurant booth, I could see the carnival of characters in front of then Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Elmo, Batman, Spongebob, Charlie Chaplain, Elvis, and Marilyn hanging out bored, but eagerly waiting for tourists to request pictures so they could pop back into character, for a tip of course. But even among the biggest “stars” standing on the footprints of the celebrities they impersonated, Christopher Dennis was THE “celebrity” to get your photo with. He was Hollywood Blvds’ Superman after all. Posing as a representative of “truth, justice, and the American Way”, making the forecourt of the theater his very own Metropolis. The faces of passing children lighting up, the same way I did inside, when I’d see the Superman of Hollywood.

I’ve got my own photos with him from when I was a newly minted Angeleno. They are somewhere in a box deep in my garage. Hard copies taken in the days before smartphones, before cell phones even had a camera, or clouds existed for digital storage. I once bought him a street dog and had a superficial conversation with him. Just the usual hello and have a great night type of conversation. I did of course compliment his almost-there Christopher Reeve resemblance, and asked how long he’d been on the Blvd. At that time, he told me his tenure was approaching 10 years.

The more I explored Hollywood and became part of the Blvd nightlife myself, Superman became part of the background and atmosphere to me. That blur of flashing lights, digital billboards, traffic sounds, gawking tourists, and endless stream of Walk of Fame stars beneath my feet, all there but unregistered “white noise”, as I headed towards my destination unimpressed by the “glitter” of that environment any more. But he was such a presence there, I’d notice when the blue suit was missing from the historic structures and crowds. Where is Superman?

I haven’t seen him in a while. I’ve stopped going into that part of Hollywood years ago due to the ever growing, and increasingly annoying tourist crowds. The places I used to haunt 5 nights a week are long shuttered, or turned into a wanna-be-posh nightclub filled with the uninteresting Kardashian type crowd, and the men that want to “keep up” with them. Gross.

I’ve wondered about him over the years, if he had changed along with Hollywood Blvd, the way the image of Superman has changed. Christopher Reeves’ Superman was his niche, his brand, but in recent years Warner Bros. has updated the look of the character with Henry Cavill and a darker textured suit. Was a Christopher Reeve Superman still relevant to today’s young tourists? Was he still able to make money wearing the iconic teal blue suit and the just-off-brand 70s matinee idol looks? Or was he now relegated to being a street wallflower along with the all but ignored “stars” of yesteryear; the Charlie Chaplains and sword wielding Errol Flynns, watching the newer characters, the Jack Sparrows, Transformers, Minions, and Jason Vorhees entertaining the modern crowds and collecting their dollars?

The last time I saw him was about 18 months ago. I was behind him on the UP escalator in the tunnel of the North Hollywood Metro station. He was in full Superman regalia, his red cape flapping in the breeze, only this time a bit more stained and tattered, the boots scuffed, cracked, and less shiny than previous sightings. He was noticeably thinner. I didn’t talk to him. I just watched as people stared at him fascinated despite his ragged suits’ appearance, perhaps experiencing their own childhood nostalgia for the character and the values he represents.

To most, Christopher Dennis was just one of a large group of assorted pop culture characters on Hollywood Blvd panhandling in exchange for a photo with a store bought costume filled by a mortal. In the costume, he was a living tourist attraction.There for attention, photos, and yes, the hopes of big studio discovery. But to me, he represented what Hollywood is; a manufactured facade, meant to appear bigger, more powerful, and more confident than he really is, to sell a dream, a fantasy, a romance for the unreachable glitz and glamour of fame, for the price of just a few dollars or less. He even had a newsworthy tragic ending.

In our youth, we’ve all imagined ourselves as superheroes, but then we inevitably grow up. His costume provided the nostalgia for what we once dreamed to be, but his location of occupation showed us the reality of what we are. No matter what daily “costume” we don for the world, we are mortal, just like the man on the Blvd wearing the red and yellow “S” shield.

Goodbye Superman of Hollywood Blvd with the tattered cape, scratched boots, and scars of a rough and embattled life. May you finally be at rest in your Fortress of Solitude.