Celebrities, Friends Remember Honorary Hollywood Mayor Johnny Grant

It was fitting that Johnny Grant would be memorialized on Hollywood Boulevard.

After all, Grant had been honorary mayor of Hollywood since 1980.

He also was master of ceremonies at more than 500 Hollywood Walk of Fame star unveilings, traveled with Bob Hope to entertain troops in four wars and saved the Hollywood Christmas parade from extinction more than once.

On Thursday, famous friends and fans of Grant, who died Jan. 9 at age 84, gathered to remember him at the venerable Pantages Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.

The foyer told his life story in scores of photographs of Walk of Fame events, mementos of his numerous trips overseas to entertain soldiers, his awards and other memorabilia.

Angie Dickinson, Connie Stevens, Stefanie Powers, Rhonda Fleming and Mamie Van Doren were among many celebrities who turned out, along with an Army band and a military color guard.

“Johnny put more people in cement than Al Capone,” actor Jamie Farr of TV’s “M-A-S-H” joked during one of many tributes.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called Grant “a great icon of Los Angeles,” and “Hart to Hart” star Powers said, “There just won’t be anyone like him ever again.”

Dickinson, whose career has ranged from “Rio Bravo” to “Police Woman,” called Grant “one of the most interesting men I have known.”

Others on hand included Ruta Lee, Nancy Sinatra, Erik Estrada, Monty Hall, Jim Lange, Gary Owens, A.C. Lyles and Pamela Bach Hasselhoff. Bob Hope’s daughter Linda showed up, representing the Hope family.

In the audience were visitors from Grant’s hometown Goldsboro, N.C., where he had been a cub reporter on the radio station WGBR.

While in the Army during World War II, he visited Hollywood and decided it would be his future. After his discharge, he landed small roles in movies and began doing radio interviews in the lobby at Ciro’s, a nightclub that attracted Hollywood greats in the 1940s and ’50s.

He worked for Gene Autry at the Western star’s radio station and in 1980 the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce named Grant honorary mayor. He was also chairman of the Walk of Fame, through which he ardently promoted Tinseltown.