The Sunset Strip has long been known as the playground of the stars.

The most popular rendezvous, Ciro’s, opened there in 1940, and today it’s called the Comedy Store (left), world-famous laugh club.

But late at night, the ghosts of Ciro’s rule the roost …

William “Billy” Wilkerson was a colorful figure in Hollywood history. In the late ’30s and ’40s, he founded several nightclubs, among them Ciro’s and Cafe Trocadero — both industry meccas that earned him the nickname “Father of the Sunset Strip” (he would later also be called “The Man Who Invented Las Vegas,” for his role in the building of the famous Flamingo Hotel).

A ladies man, he had an eye for female talent, discovering, among others, Lana Turner, whom he spotted on a soda fountain stool in a malt shop.

But his real baby was the Hollywood Reporter, the first Hollywood-based daily trade newspaper covering the entertainment industry, which he founded in 1930, and his spirit continues to be seen and felt in his old office to this day.

Actor Clifton Webb, a two-time Oscar nominee (shown here with Barbara Stanwyck in Titanic), is one of the few who saw a ghost, lived with a ghost and later, became a ghost.

It all happened in Beverly Hills in a stucco house north of Sunset Boulevard, the kind of home people lived in at the pinnacles of their careers.

Set back from the street, in the heart of Beverly Hills, it was home to many celebrities and the frequent setting for lavish parties … and for ghosts.

Did you ever have such a wonderful night that you wished it never would end … or that you could live it one more time … or ten … or twenty times?

The Palace Theater provided that kind of night for people.

Today, as Avalon, it has been remodeled as a lavish nightclub used for television specials, premiere parties and film locations as well as a showplace for top music artists. There’s no question, more Oscar-winning celebrities have worked this stage than any other theater in Hollywood — and some continue to work it, even after death.

The Pantages Theater, Hollywood’s last glorious movie palace, opened June 4, 1930, near the fabled corner of Hollywood and Vine. An Art Deco masterpiece, it’s still considered one of the most beautiful theaters in the world.

In 1949, millionaire-aviator Howard Hughes turned studio owner when he took the reigns of RKO Studios, including its flagship theater. Hughes loved the Pantages and set up plush offices on the second floor. In the early ‘50s, he invited the Academy to hold two Oscar ceremonies there before he sold RKO and retired from public life.

Today, Howard Hughes’ footsteps are heard throughout the building…

In the early summer of 1992, I received a private tour of the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theater with a small group of historians.

Upon going backstage, our guide, out of the blue, said, “This place is so haunted.”

With that, all six of us were silently compelled to turn back to the stage. Where I had stood, a section of the heavy ceiling-to-floor drape was violently shaking. We could see the impressions of unseen hands in the velvet as it jerked back and forth hard.

We stared in silence until I stammered the classic phrase: “Do you see what I see?”

Among the Academy Awards handed out on that very first night was a special award given to the four Warner brothers for producing the talkie musical The Jazz Singer.

Brother Sam poured his life’s blood into a new theater – the largest on Hollywood Boulevard and the first built for sound. Sam planned the spectacular opening for their film in Hollywood, but construction delays forced the brothers to open The Jazz Singer in New York.

The critics raved; but Sam never lived to hear them. The night before the premiere, he collapsed and died from a cerebral hemorrhage. Just 40, he’d literally worked himself to death.

Death had cheated Sam on the very eve of the success of which he dreamed. But Sam would not be cheated, not even by death …

On Thursday night, May 16, 1929, fewer than 250 guests arrived at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, Hollywood’s first grand hostelry, for a little ceremony hosted by the newly formed Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

It was the beginning of the annual phenomenon now known as the Academy Awards.

Today, guests at the Roosevelt are entertained by a plethora of paranormal activity from the hotel’s past …

This is not to say that all moral crusaders are charlatans, but Robert Preston played one of the most delightfully devilish ones ever to hit the stage or screen. Here he is in his most famous role, as Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man.

Each Saturday we highlight a humorous and sometimes poignant video, interview, comic, or skit concerning different “careers,” past and present. From W.C. Fields to Rowan Atkinson, from classic films and commercials to Monty Python—all and everything will be tapped for this look each week at various professions and pastimes (loosely defined).

Click here for all of the videos and careers highlighted to date and click below for a larger viewing screen.

Earlier this year I was commissioned to shoot the 2010 campaign imagery for the New Zealand Opera’s upcoming performances.

Here’s an image from the Figaro shoot and a link to my shots for Macbeth.

Hope you enjoy them!