Leon Smith

Is it love or is it business? Jackson Carter is on an unplanned Latin American adventure to Colombia, and definitely didn't plan on meeting her.

Leon R. Smith was born into a poor family in 1931, but he never let his modest roots prevent him from chasing his dreams. He was like a banty rooster, which is a small fighting rooster with a feisty attitude-one that walks with its chest out, struts its stuff, and commands the attention of others. At seventeen years old, he joined the National Guard, and after joining the U. S. Army in November 1948 and completing basic training, he was sent to Japan, where occupation duty was a soldier's paradise. He spent twenty-five years in the Army, serving during the Korean War and jungle fighting in Vietnam. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, he could never be fifteen minutes away from a telephone. If he received a call and somebody said, "cocked pistol," he had thirty minutes to start loading his unit on airplanes. After retiring from the Army in 1970, Smith owned small businesses and became a truck driver, traveling millions of miles across the United States and Canada.

It is often said that the greater Los Angeles area is the largest movie set in the world, and if a person lives there long enough their home or street will probably be featured in a film or television show. The tourism industry in Tinseltown is huge business, with thousands of devoted fans each day flocking to see just where their favorite star's blockbuster was filmed. This work documents locations used in more than 335 motion pictures and 86 television series filmed in Los Angeles and San Diego. The locations were identified and verified after an extensive review of films, video tapes, site photographs, and personal interviews with film industry personnel. Synopses of the motion pictures and television series cited are included. An index provides instant access to names, places, monuments, landmarks, film studios, film titles and television titles.

Did you ever wonder where Beaver Cleaver's house was? How about the mountain where King Kong had his hideaway? Or Mr. Roark's mansion and lagoon on Fantasy Island? Of course, all were in Hollywood. This is a photographic guide to 382 sites in and around Los Angeles that have been used in film and television. Some are well known (Mann's Chinese Theater, the Hollywood Bowl, the Los Angeles Zoo); others are obscure (such as the Hollywood Hills house used in Double Indemnity, the garden from Dark Shadows and the Indian head rock seen in Noah's Ark). The sites are grouped geographically, and each entry includes the exact address and photographs of what the location looks like today. A brief plot background is also provided.