Walking with Ana Martínez along the Walk of Fame, the heart of Hollywood and the most visited point in the city of Los Angeles, is a revealing experience. With her, the terrazzo stars in gray and pink with a gold edge look different, basically because she has selected them and placed them there. Not with her hands, but with her work, which she has been doing for 36 years as a producer, media relations manager and vice president of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, the highest authority in granting those symbols, the most recognizable in the city of stars With permission from the Hollywood sign, of course. But without envy: the Chamber, and therefore Martínez, are also responsible for the nine famous white letters on the hills. Ella, Angelina, daughter of a Mexican (also daughter of a Cadiz woman) and Peruvian, who started as a secretary in the Chamber, is now the one who answers the phone to the stars who are looking for her own star.
Martínez has a job that he loves and from which, at 62 years old and with almost 40 years in the world of entertainment, he does not intend to give up in at least the next five. He doesn’t lack enthusiasm and energy, but if he has to make a mistake, he assures: “It consumes you. It’s 24 hours a day…” Because she is the one who receives the more than 200 annual applications (precisely at this time of year, spring, when they open the season), manages them, accumulates the documentation and presents them to the president and CEO and also to the more than 40 members. of the Chamber of Commerce, who vote on whether or not the candidate deserves the star. Every year around 30 are granted, which means around thirty annual ceremonies in the heart of Hollywood Boulevard, one of the busiest streets in the city. She is the one in charge of organizing them, checking that the star is the right one, that the police are prepared, the press is summoned, the sponsors are in place and the fans are going crazy.
It is Martínez who reveals many of the stars’ secrets but also acknowledges, with a tired smile, that she can’t do much more about who has their name engraved in gold on the Paseo and who doesn’t. She explains it—in the perfect spanglish that dominates the city, mixing phrases and words in a way, although it may seem incredible, completely understandable—telling how the process works. First, the celebrity in question has to be proposed. He can do it anyone: a fan club, a friend, one of his managers, whoever. Often it is Martínez herself who calls her agents or meets with the big studios to offer them the nomination. You just have to do it through an official form and pay $250. Of course: he or she has to accept. “It is the call Springsteen Policy, indeed,” laughs Martínez. Yes, it comes from Bruce Springsteen: he was the first person who, already nominated and in the process of acceptance, raised his voice and refused to receive the star. Hence, prior approval from the celebrity is now needed.
“I don’t know why he didn’t want it,” admits the head of the Chamber of Commerce. “Like Clint Eastwood, or Julia Roberts…” Doesn’t Roberts, America’s Sweetheart, have a star among the more than 2,700 on the Walk of Fame? Well no, the procedures began… but everything fell by the wayside, acknowledges Martínez, who would love to give it to him in person and who already has a very clear idea of where it would be: “I’m saving him the only space left in the Chinese Theater ”, he reveals. That is, if she accepts. She would be in the Film category, but there are five more: Television, Music, Radio and Live Performance, plus a new one: Sports Entertainment.
After the nomination and once selected, now is when they have to pay a fee. There are 75,000 dollars that are usually assumed by record companies, movie studios, streaming platforms. streaming… “That money usually goes to a trust, a fund, to repair and improve the stars themselves,” says Martínez. This also pays the costs of the ceremony itself. It is Martínez who chooses where the star will be installed (for example, when there are romantic couples they like them to be together, like Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, both at the door of the El Capitan theater), in what exact area it will be placed and on the day of the ceremony, which will take place at 11:30 in the morning. Each one of them takes between two and three months to prepare, and there are months in which the vice president has had up to four, one a week. They are all broadcast live; the latest, those of Lenny Kravitz, Gwen Stefani, Dr. Dre or Marc Anthony, among others. All of them are accompanied by exceptional sponsors, from their children to other artists.
“It is an event that attracts a lot of money: there are people who travel to see their idols, there are flights, shopping, restaurants…,” he says. In November 1998, Vicente Fernández kissed his star in front of more than 4,000 fans. Martínez remembers it perfectly, and also the surprise it caused him to see the Paseo flooded with followers who brought their own music, their food… Only the Mexican singer Selena Quintanilla broke the charro record, with 4,500 people at its inauguration in November 2017, when 22 years had passed since his death. Beginning in the second year after her death, a star can be awarded posthumously.
Afterwards, the star stays there forever. You don’t have to pay an annual fee or anything similar. At the moment, the House has never removed any, although there are certain critical voices that demand removing Donald Trump’s. Ana Martínez is discreet about it, but she suggests that it would be hasty to make such a decision, despite the fact that there are pressure groups from the city of Los Angeles, which has a lot of power, that have been asking for it for some years. In fact, the city council is one of the main interlocutors of the Chamber of Commerce. They have shared responsibilities, such as cleaning or where to place the stars, for example: they are prevented from passing by bus stops, for example. The Hollywood sign is also shared. Martínez says that it is very protected and that it is difficult to hold events or interventions in it, that they only keep it up to date and paint it white from time to time. With the new mayor, Karen Bass, the protection is even greater. As an example: you cannot walk to it, and it cannot even be illuminated at night, something that many tourists are surprised by. The residents of these neighborhoods are afraid that the streets will become saturated or that they will suffer fires or accidents and that emergency services will not be able to access them.
At 62 years old, little remains of that proverbial shyness that initially plagued Martínez, whose beginnings were working at McDonalds and clothing stores to get a scholarship in television, in The Right Price. Then he saw an ad on Variety for which they were looking for a receptionist in the Chamber. She “She was very shy, she had just left college. Two years later, the previous producer left and they suggested that I apply for the position… I thought not, but look…,” she says, still surprised by the vicissitudes of life, which make her cross paths every 10 days with some of the most famous people in the world and become one of the most powerful women and Latinas in the global entertainment industry. She, who for years has not even wanted to have an assistant (“I have had a girl working part-time for two years… technology is difficult for me,” she admits) and who recognizes that her daughters, now in their twenties, were somewhat embarrassed explain to her friends what her mother did, she continues dreaming of stars. Who would you like to have it? “Adele,” she blurts out without hesitation. “And Taylor Swift, too.” And Julia Roberts, please.
