"I'm sure that developers are dying to tear it down, but that would
be criminal. It was built there a long, long time ago. So it's one
of the survivors."
After a long day in the car, I'm ready to run, hike, bike, or yoga.
Martin has lots of suggestions. But mostly he rides, biking from
Beverly Hills into the woody surroundings above and beyond the city
limits.
"I would go up into Bel Air on my bike, from the Flats, or I would
go south, south of
Beverly Hills, past Rodeo and down past Wilshire
and into the parks in Century City. All over. For hiking, there's
Runyon Canyon, which is a really nice, big, steep walk, a lot of
people there."
It sounds better discussed about than actually done, so I keep
cruising and see another only-in-Beverly Hills phenom: office after
office of
plastic surgery clinics.
When night descends, I'm thinking about L.A. Story, the 1991 movie
that Martin wrote and starred in as Harris K. Telemacher. He
attempts to land a reservation at an upscale L.A. French restaurant
called L' Idiot (pronounced Leedy-O), only to be interrogated about
his finances by the Fourth Reich Bank of Hamburg. "He can't have
the duck!..." the chef snorts. "He can have the chicken."
I'm sitting in Spago Beverly Hills, which, while pricey, is a
great, easygoing place (no financial statements required), perfect
to watch the crowd that passes by the bar. A suited local storms in
like he's in a parade, greeting three middle-aged, easy-to-spot
out-of-towners with the line, "Welcome to Beverly Hills!" But
Martin says the movie restaurant L' Idiot is merely "exaggeration,"
another case of fiction being more important than fact.
"The Grill is a very important restaurant for showbiz. It's just
that they have great, great
food, and it caters more toward the
business end of show business than the celebrity end, but it's
really a nice, nice restaurant and they keep the quality of the
food really high. It's kind of on the alley. You don't really go
into the alley, though."