Portal:Greater Los Angeles

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The Greater Los Angeles Portal

Greater Los Angeles is the most populous metropolitan area in the U.S. state of California, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino County and Riverside County in the east, with Los Angeles County in the center, and Orange County to the southeast. The Los Angeles–Anaheim–Riverside combined statistical area (CSA) covers 33,954 square miles (87,940 km²), making it the largest metropolitan region in the United States by land area. The contiguous urban area is 2,281 square miles (5,910 km²), whereas the remainder mostly consists of mountain and desert areas. With a population of 18.4 million in 2024, it is the second-largest metropolitan area in the country, behind New York, as well as one of the largest megacities in the world.

In addition to being the nexus of the global entertainment industry, including films, television, and recorded music, Greater Los Angeles is also an important center of international trade, education, media, business, tourism, technology, and sports. It is the third-largest metropolitan area by nominal GDP in the world with an economy exceeding $1 trillion in output, behind New York City and Tokyo.

There are three contiguous component urban areas in Greater Los Angeles: the Inland Empire, which can be broadly defined as Riverside and San Bernardino counties; the Ventura/Oxnard metropolitan area (Ventura County); and the Los Angeles metropolitan area (also known as Metropolitan Los Angeles or Metro LA) consisting of Los Angeles and Orange counties only. The Census Bureau designates the latter as the Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim metropolitan statistical area (MSA), the fourth largest metropolitan area in the western hemisphere and the second-largest metropolitan area in the United States, by population of 13 million as of the 2020 U.S. census. It has a total area of 4,850 square miles (12,561 km²). Although San Diego–Tijuana borders the Greater Los Angeles area at San Clemente and Temecula, it is not part of it as the two urban areas are not geographically contiguous due to the presence of Camp Pendleton. However, both form part of the Southern California Megalopolis which extends into Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. Throughout the 20th century, Greater Los Angeles was one of the fastest-growing regions in the United States, but growth has slowed since 2000. (Full article...)

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The O. J. Simpson murder case (officially the People of the State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson) was a criminal trial held at the Los Angeles County Superior Court, that spanned from the jury being sworn in on November 2, 1994, to opening statements on January 24, 1995, to a verdict on October 3, 1995. The former professional football star and actor O. J. Simpson was tried on two counts of murder after the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and a waiter, Ronald Lyle Goldman, in June 1994. The case has been described as the most publicized criminal trial in American history. Simpson was acquitted after a trial that lasted more than eight months.

Simpson hired a high-profile defense team, initially led by Robert Shapiro and subsequently led by Johnnie Cochran, and which also included: F. Lee Bailey, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Kardashian, Gerald Uelmen (the dean of law at Santa Clara University), Robert Blasier, and Carl E. Douglas, with two more attorneys specializing in DNA evidence: Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. Los Angeles County believed it had a solid prosecution case, but Cochran was able to persuade the jurors that there was reasonable doubt about the DNA evidence (a relatively new form of evidence in trials at the time) – including that the blood-sample evidence had allegedly been mishandled by lab scientists and technicians – and about the circumstances surrounding other exhibits. Cochran and the defense team also alleged other misconduct by the Los Angeles Police Department. Simpson's celebrity and the lengthy televised trial riveted national attention on the so-called "Trial of the Century". By the end of the criminal trial, national surveys showed dramatic differences in the assessment of Simpson's guilt between most black and white Americans. more...

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... that Los Angeles Lakers executive Jeanie Buss (pictured) was named one of the Top 20 Most Influential Women in Sports by Sporting News?
... that basketball executive Jim Buss of the Los Angeles Lakers attended jockey school even though he stood 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m)?
... that Ben Orloff set school records in college baseball for career hits, runs scored, and games played at the University of California, Irvine?
... that during the eight-year course of making The Decay of Fiction, in which he honors the past of the Ambassador Hotel, director Pat O'Neill collaborated with 45 actors and spent US$250,000?
... that Luigi's Flying Tires, a Disney California Adventure attraction that opened in 2012, is based on Disneyland's Flying Saucers ride of the 1960s?
... that Gold Base (pictured) in Riverside County, California, is the Church of Scientology's closely guarded international headquarters?

January - March 2013

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Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind

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Williams in 1950

Esther Jane Williams (August 8, 1921 – June 6, 2013) was an American competitive swimmer and actress. She set regional and national records in her late teens on the Los Angeles Athletic Club swim team. Unable to compete in the 1940 Summer Olympics because of the outbreak of World War II, she joined Billy Rose's Aquacade, where she took on the role vacated by Eleanor Holm after the show's move from New York City to San Francisco. While in the city, she spent five months swimming alongside Olympic gold-medal winner and Tarzan star Johnny Weissmuller. Williams caught the attention of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer scouts at the Aquacade. After appearing in several small roles, and alongside Mickey Rooney in an Andy Hardy film and future five-time co-star Van Johnson in A Guy Named Joe, Williams made a series of films in the 1940s and early 1950s known as "aquamusicals", which featured elaborate performances with synchronised swimming and diving.

Every year from 1945 to 1949, Williams had at least one film among the 20 highest-grossing films of the year. In 1952, Williams appeared in her only biographical role, as Australian swimming star Annette Kellerman in Million Dollar Mermaid, which went on to become her nickname while she was at MGM. Williams left MGM in 1956 and appeared in a handful of unsuccessful feature films, followed by several extremely popular water-themed network television specials, including one from Cypress Gardens, Florida. (Full article...)

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Jo Stafford Anna May Wong Angelina Jolie Jack Parsons (rocket engineer) Genie (feral child) Charlie Chaplin Antonio Villaraigosa Jack L. Warner Joseph Barbera Bette Davis Spencer Tracy Judy Garland Paul Conrad Katharine Hepburn Jayne Mansfield James Cagney Joan Crawford William Hanna Marilyn Monroe John Barrymore Madman Muntz Caroline Brady (philologist) Jake Gyllenhaal