AMERICAN SCENE: Cleaning Up the Act in Hollywood

"Stars in the sidewalk, bars on the doors "

Hooray for Hollywood/ That phony super Coney Hollywood," lyricized Johnny Mercer 40 years ago in a sardonic paean to the legend: instant fame, endless sex and the money to pay for it all. Since then the illusion of celluloid glamour has turned into the tawdry reality of a Los Angeles neighborhood of 250,000 people harassed by crime and vice, mired in the flesh and drug trades and fast fading into the sunset of American cultural history. Now Hollywood is trying to stage a comeback—a...