Reflecting on the LA Fires
The writer, who contributes frequently to our publications with news from the theatrical and entertainment worlds, is bi-coastal with a family home in Malibu not far from the fires ravaging Los Angeles, that turned over 12,000 homes to ash and killed at least 27 people.
| 20 Jan 2025 | 01:15
The view from Malibu Beach where the author spent happy days in her youth and now worries about her many friends as Los Angeles battles fires that have already consumed an area twice the size of Manhattan. (
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It’s difficult to ask for sympathy when one has a home in the Malibu Colony. But I am touched by all the concern my family has received during this frightening time. I am currently in New York, but my heart always lies in Los Angeles: especially, with that unique mile-long gorgeous beach.
I was in my teens when I saw a photo of Jane Fonda and Roger Vadim walking alongside the Pacific. I asked my father if he’d ever heard of the Malibu Colony. He had survived a harrowing childhood in Ukraine, made it to America at the age of eight, and ultimately became a successful businessman. He had a great eye for real estate, so he decided to rent a place in the Colony. He bought a home there later, which my husband and I eventually purchased. It’s our family’s safe place. Well, it was.
Like every house in that mile-long privately guarded stretch, ours has a history. Robert Redford was sitting on our deck when he noticed a buttoned-up woman walking the beach. He then cast her—Mary Tyler Moore–in “Ordinary People.” Years later, he came for dinner to discuss politics with my father. “I’m sorry I’m late,” he said, “but I’ve been in a parking lot all day with Deep Throat.” (Yep, he was filming “All the President’s Men.”) Andy Gibb allegedly tried to take his life in one of our bathrooms; Princess Di’s father-in-law rented and left behind a bunch of sleazy photos.
Phil Kaufman wrote the screenplay for “The Right Stuff,” there, a movie which he also directed.
Barbra Streisand came to look at the house when she was about to shoot “The Way We Were.” She took one look at my dad—whose political causes she had often contributed to—and said, “I’ve given enough!” James Caan was our only tenant who got in trouble with neighbors and paid a price. We shared a tennis court for a while with Peter Guber and Jon Peters. Later we sold our share to the director Tony Scott. Likely our most famous neighbors were Ruth and Elliot Handler of Barbie doll and Mattel fame. Yes, I grew up next door to Barbie.
It is star-studded still (respecting privacy here) and again, no extra sympathy expected. Like our neighbors in the Palisades, we all have memories, and mementoes, and those are what are being most clung to at this perilous time. Sure, Pacific Coast Highway can be a bitch, and we all keep large boards handy when ocean swells break through windows. But the place that started as the Malibu Movie Colony in the 1920s truly is part of Southern California history. One that would be sorely missed should the flames continue their unstoppable journey.