February 13, 2007

No glitter in this Hollywood

Smith's last days spent in Hollywood--not the one of her dreamsFor all the hours of airtime and columns of newsprint Smith's final hours prompted, she died not an A-list starlet but simply a face too familiar not to acknowledge. And as her final hours ticked away, she found herself here, five floors up from a twinkling, clinking casino in a Hollywood that's not the one of every girl's dreams.

There are no stars on Hollywood Boulevard; it has pawn shops and car lots and a buffet of all-you-can-eat fried chicken, and eventually gives way to cheap motels and apartment buildings yearning for a fresh coat of paint. The street cuts through State Road 7, which is lined with a vacant mall and an adult video store, and leads through an urban Indian reservation to the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, which rises like a phoenix from a landscape otherwise screaming for some sparkle.

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