john altman lacma lamppost california dreaming dawn bowery

John Altman | Composer

And there is another thing about Los Angeles I admire and yet it makes me mad – it is bigger than the sum of its parts. It represents so much iconography, it’s infuriating that it takes so little notice of its own history. How I long for Chasens, the Brown Derby, the Mocambo, the Vine […]

anne coates

Anne Coates | Film Editor

Anne Coates Oscar winning film editor “Although I am now semi-retired, I still love to work and travel. Over the next few months I will be working on my next movie, Fifty Shades of Gray, which is being shot in Vancouver and post will be done in London. I am looking forward to spending the […]

Nigel Lythgoe

Nigel Lythgoe at the Television Academy

Nigel Lythgoe TV Executive, Dancer and Choreographer “We conquered America with a simple idea – a dream that could transform a coffee barista in Charlestown into the most famous face on television, that turned an Oklahoma farmer’s daughter into a global superstar. I feel we brought the ’American Dream’ back to America, and in doing so, we […]

ashley james, chef, four seasons, runyon canyon

Ashley James: Cake in the Canyon

Ashley James Executive Chef and Television Host “When I was a child, I would run to my parents’ home in the outskirts of Wolverhampton, and the first thing I would do was hit the biscuit tin, indulging in my mum’s favorite biscuits. I would scrape the cake bowl to eat the raw cake batter and […]

zandra rhodes, brits in la book, california dreaming, dawn bowery photography, los angeles photographer

Zandra Rhodes in her studio

Dame Zandra Rhodes Fashion Designer “For me, California was not so much a destiny, but fate – and what I do with that is up to me. Some people move here for the weather, but like Allan Jones and David Hockney, (UK painters,) I just love it when it rains! Additionally, I do try to […]

lucy davis, brits in la book,

Lucy Davis in Hollywood

Lucy Davis Actress “I don’t particularly have what a lot of people might think an ‘L.A. life.’ I don’t have lots of stories of glitz and glamour, and red-carpet dramas, and nightly premieres; although I do have a trainer, and I do whiten my teeth – does that count? But I do have things that […]

jim tavare, laugh factory

Jim Tavare at the Laugh Factory Los Angeles

Jim Tavare Comdedian “I have always enjoyed American audiences. You get the feeling that they really want the comic to do well. On the whole, they tend not to get quite as drunk as the crowds back home so they can seem a little more focused and less combative. Having said that, I still return […]

Atherton Twins in Malibu

The Atherton Twins Cirque Du Soleil Acrobats “On the night of the Emmy’s, we were performing Varekai in L.A. and immediately after the award was presented, the documentary crew came to the big top so they could join us on stage for the final bow. For the next eight and a half years we toured […]

ioan gruffudd chateau marmont

Ioan Gruffudd at the Chateau Marmont

Ioan Gruffudd Actor “The back of the house led up to a little vantage point where you could look out and see almost the whole of L.A. Every time I went up that little path and stood looking over this immense city I would feel a surge of excitementm twinned with a very unusual feeling […]