t was Christmas, 1957. After neatly wrapping the contents of his toy box — to dole out to family members in lieu of proper gifts — five yearold Dennis Woodruf was taken aside by his grandmother. “Be proud of the fact you are a Woodruf,” she told him. “You are a very special person, don’t let anybody ever tell you that you’re not.” Motioning towards the window of her extravagant home, located deep in the Hollywood Hills, she added: “Your grandfather built Hollywoodland.” Indeed, his grandad was real estate developer S. H. Woodruf. In the 1920s he, along with a crack team of eager investors, transformed a humble canyon in the foothills of Los Angeles into a beacon of prosperity, embodied by a row of 43-foothigh sheet-metal letters that, as night fell, lit up the skyline: HOLLYWOODLAND. While Woodruf Sr.’s place in history would be relegated to a footnote (his “crowning achievement” sullied by the Wall Street Crash, floods, fire, the loss of “LAND” to bad upkeep and in 1932 actress Peg Entwistle leaping from the ‘H’ to her death), his sign remains a potent symbol of the entertainment industry below. As for young Dennis Woodruf, it was here, peering out of the glass, in the shadow of his grandpa’s sign, that he decided: stardom awaited. After all, Hollywood was his birthright.
SIX DECADES LATER, AND the 88th Academy Awards are just days from taking place. But while the usual Armani-clad suspects will engage in their time-honoured skirmish in pursuit of a hallowed, 24-carat gold-plated man, there is one Hollywood resident who, as he does every year, will simply watch it on TV. “I do still wonder why I haven’t been invited to the Academy Awards, it hurts my feelings,” confesses Woodruf, now 63. “In reality I am a bit of an icon in Hollywood,” he reasons. “I live just around the corner and they even have seat-fillers at the awards; why can’t I go?” Though he does own an Oscar — it’s duct-taped to his car’s bonnet and cast in gold plastic — industry recognition still eludes Woodruf. Yet this isn’t to say he is not a big deal in Hollywood. Far from it. In a town bloated with an estimated 109,000 actors — of which just 21,000 have had a paying job and 80 per cent are unemployed at any given time — Dennis Woodruf is something of a cult hero. Studio heads recognise his face
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Above: Dennis Woodruff attends ‘his’ star on the Walk Of Fame. Only a matter of time. Clockwise from top right: The multi-hyphenate hits the streets of LA for more madcap vox pops; Spaceman SFX; the TMZ-style Dennis Woodruff Show; Fergie as Angelyne (see sidebar, right) and Josh Duhamel as Woodruff on Hallowe’en, 2012.
(Woodruf’s been known to stand outside the Paramount gates with his headshot on a stick). Celebrities do, too — Transformers actor Josh Duhamel dressed as Woodruf for Hallowe’en in 2012. Other Angelenos, meanwhile, can’t make their mind up on Woodruf’s character. “[He] is possibly LAs most unique (sic) creative local legend…” tweeted one last December; “Dennis is the product of distilling all the delusion, fantasy, desperation and wrong headed tenacity in this city into a single human being,” went a post on Reddit. But unlike the lustrous invitees to the Oscars, Woodruf is famous for not being famous. And from a time when the phrase “reality star” didn’t exist. But does this make the spotlighthungry filmmaker LA’s greatest loser, a victim of the Hollywood establishment’s refusal to recognise his talent? A mere hustler? Or does he illustrate a triumph of spirit, the American Dream in glorious Technicolor, a plucky underdog unafraid
to wrestle the Hollywood machine? One Wednesday in November, Empire tracked Woodruf down to his converted garage home to figure out which.
THE FIRST THING YOU notice about Woodruf’s abode is the fact that “garage” really means just that. In the dimly lit, windowless living room, guns dangle precariously from the wall, ten thick-backed TV-sets are piled upon each other and Daisy — a rescued Chow “mixed with I don’t know what” — snores noisily on the couch. “Did I tell you I’m from outer space?” booms Woodruf, by way of a hello. As a conversationalist he confuses easily, often spinning of on wild tangents. But Woodruf’s enthusiasm is truly boundless, even if at times we see his self-confidence waver. He habitually asks Empire if he’s doing okay, are we getting what we need, has he answered our question properly? Meeting him,