AP Features, July 12th, 2007
It's not your typical night at the movies: Fred and Ginger dance in the aisle, King Kong hangs out with Frankenstein and E.T. phones home in the lobby.
In a mural overlooking the drab corner of Hollywood and Wilcox, movie stars sit in a theater and stare out as if passing tourists are the characters on the silver screen.
"You are the Star" is a Hollywood tourist attraction but 24 years of sun, smog and anti-graffiti coating have taken their toll. Artist Thomas Suriya of Taos, N.M., has returned to renovate the 20-by-30 foot painting.
In 1983, Suriya had a dream, "a vision of a movie theater but in reverse, with the stars looking out at the world which is a projection _ the opposite of what we do when we go to the movies," he said.
A few days later his friend invited him to paint a mural on the side of a family building in the heart of Hollywood.
"I came here cold _ I had never painted a mural before, not even a portrait _ but it grew into a wonderful thing," Suriya said.
He pored over film history books to find top-tier actors from different eras _ from sex symbols to action heroes. The mural's audience includes 71 recognizable celebrities from silent films to the 1980s.
"The heavy hitters are in the front row," the 59-year-old painter said, pointing to Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Chaplin, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
"All the tough guys are over there with John Wayne," he said. "There's James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. Then there's the science-fiction-fantasy section" with Superman and R2D2.
Jack Lemmon, Bruce Lee and the Marx Brothers are his personal favorites, the self-trained artist said, but the star of his favorite movie _ Harrison Ford in "Blade Runner" _ didn't make his cut in 1983.
If Suriya were doing the mural today, Julia Roberts, Johnny Depp and Jack Nicholson would get a seat.
The 1983 commission was the big break Suriya had dreamed about, but the job didn't pay. He stayed with a friend and local businesses donated paint and scaffolding.
Before he came to Los Angeles, Suriya was living in the Northern California mountains with friends, including Michael Attie, whose parents owned the building and ran a lingerie store on the ground floor.
"It was a leap of faith on his part and an adventure for me," he said. "It was pretty intense."
He went on to paint other murals in the city and work as a special effects designer. In 1993 he and his partner, Francine Harrington, moved to Taos, where he paints still-life and desert landscapes and exhibits in local galleries.
"Now I look at it (the mural) and it looks so rough," he said, pointing to James Dean's hand. "I was so ambitious."
This time, Suriya is getting paid for his work through a grant from the Hollywood Arts Council.
Suriya admitted he was reluctant to return to Los Angeles because of the working conditions: Heat, car exhaust and a narrow sidewalk on a seedy corner.
But he's been surprised. "People trudge along with their shopping carts and they look up and say, 'Nice job,'" he said.
Luxury lofts and chain stores have been built a few blocks away, but redevelopment hasn't touched this stretch of Hollywood Boulevard.
"The spirit is different now," he said. "In the early 80s the economy wasn't that good, but the vibe was better."
The Attie family sold the building last month to an East Coast investment group, Steve Tronson, a commercial real estate broker said. They plan to preserve the mural and the exterior of the elegant 1931 Art Deco building, Tronson said.
Suriya hopes the restored mural will last another quarter century.
His first work has been photographed by thousands of movie buffs and tourists and has played bit parts in commercials, music videos and movies, including "The Player," "S.W.A.T." and a David Bowie video. It had a leading role in "The Movie Hero," an independent flick that made a splash at film festivals in 2003.
That's where Barbie Buzzelli, 16, of Eau Claire, Wis., first saw it, so she made the street corner a special stop during her family's Southern California vacation.
"I wanted to see it in person," she said. "I love movies and I want to go to college here."
Her mother stood in traffic to snap a photo while Buzzelli posed with Suriya in front of James Dean, her favorite actor, in the mural that feeds her California dreams.
