As the Hollywood sign turns 100 years old, the Mail gets exclusive access to get up close to the dazzling 40-foot-tall letters on a journey that shows LA is as weird and wacky as ever

Not many people can boast of having climbed the Hollywood Sign. The nine white letters made of corrugated steel are not open to the general public and stand a whopping 13 meters high on Mount Lee, which overlooks the city of Los Angeles.

Like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or Big Ben in London, the sign tells you where you are – except that, with American directness, it literally says so.

This year the monument celebrates its 100th anniversary and therefore I have special permission to visit it. I’ve admired it from afar, lying by the rooftop pool of the chic Thompson Hollywood hotel. Now I stand at the security fence above the sign, where I am admitted by the brilliant chairman of the Hollywood Sign Trust, Jeff Zarrinnam.

Luckily, I don’t get accosted by a Los Angeles police helicopter and get fined $10,000. Holding on to a rope for safety, we descend the steep and slippery slope until we reach the mighty H. From here it’s easy to stroll from letter to letter, admiring the sheer size and dazzling whiteness of the steel, which recently received a birthday paint job.

‘Can I climb on it?’ I ask. After a brief silence, Mr. Zarrinnam agreed. As I climb the back of the second L, my head pops out and I look down at the sprawl of LA. Los Angeles, of which Hollywood is a district, has always been the city of the new. At the beginning of the 20th century it became home to the new medium of cinema. Since then, bright young people have come here to try out new characters on screen and take on new faces, thanks to the skills of the make-up artists and surgeons.

Sometimes their dreams became nightmares. Think for a moment about British stage actress Peg Entwistle, who was so depressed over her failure to break into films that in 1932 she climbed the H of the Hollywood Sign and jumped.

Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros are also celebrating their centenary. Now LA is starting to get old for the first time. The blockbuster Barbie, starring Margot Robbie, is the most successful film in Warner Bros. history.

Yet in its time the film studio has given us classics like Public Enemy, Casablanca and Dirty Harry. These will all be celebrated in a special 100th anniversary exhibition as part of the public studio tour.

When Casablanca was made in 1942, the lead actor Humphrey Bogart lived in West Hollywood with his wife Mayo Methot. They had a tempestuous relationship, so much so that the couple, who were both heavy drinkers, were known as ‘the warring Bogarts’. Dorothy Parker joked that their neighbors were “lulled to sleep by the sound of breaking china.”

There is no evidence of such a struggle as I explore the leafy backstreets where they lived, driven by fashion designer Mia Latter in her 1980s Mercedes, along with her chihuahua Ginger.

Born British, Mia was always destined to become a Hollywood icon. Now she makes clothes for other icons, such as It girl Angelyne and rock star Troy Van Leeuwen. In our search for old Hollywood, we follow the advice of acclaimed filmmaker Whit Stillman, who knows a thing or two about Tinseltown.

“One of the good things about LA is that it’s so spread out,” he says. “It doesn’t have the same land premium as other cities. There is land to build on, so things will remain as they were. Certain neighborhoods really are Hollywood before the war.’

However, the Bogarts’ house has been replaced by high-rise buildings. So instead, Mia and I find the address on North Hayworth Avenue where the Great Gatsby author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, suffered a heart attack in 1940 after years of drinking.

Whatever scenes it once witnessed, the soft gray villa seems peaceful as we pull up in Mia’s convertible – more West Hampstead than West Hollywood.

From here we go to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. This turns out to be one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the world. The lush lawns are dotted with graves. The paths are lined with swaying palm trees with giraffe necks.

Deep in the heart of the mausoleum we find the vault of Rudolph Valentino, one of Hollywood’s first heartthrobs. The fresh tribute includes a passionate letter in French, declaring love for the actor. ‘Impressive pulling power from beyond the grave’, Mia notes admiringly. “That’s a filthy corpse.”

We also include the graves of Burt Reynolds and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. There is also a touching monument to Toto, the cairn terrier who accompanies Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz.

These are the oases in a city that, although dedicated to beauty, is often strikingly unbeautiful. On some streets you could be in the suburbs of Naples or Beirut.

“It can be vague if you don’t go to the right places,” admits Eric, my guide on a bike ride one morning. He takes me to the nicer places, such as the picturesque farmers market (established in 1934) in the La Brea district. Here I scoff at a chocolate-covered honeycomb at Littlejohn’s English Toffee House. Not so different from a Crunchie.

A trip to Dodgers Stadium is worth it, but the rules of baseball are baffling. I’m surprised to see an advertisement promoting the pseudo-religion of Scientology. Doesn’t everyone know it’s for fools?

It’s easy to feel completely at sea among the crenellated mansions of Hollywood, with their roses and barbed wire. One evening I left my second LA hotel, the stylish Delphi, and escorted Mia to a glamorous reception for filmmaker John Waters at the Academy Museum.

This one is called Pope of Trash, in tribute to Waters’ penchant for making films that ranged from eccentric (1988’s Hairspray) to downright disgusting, like Pink Flamingos (1972).

Mia radiates in a homemade burgundy pantsuit, embroidered with a cactus and horseshoe motif. I wear dusty sneakers.

Among the crowd are two famous drag queens, Mia says on TV. There’s also a country singer named Orville Peck, his face hidden behind a fringed mask.

Finally I see someone I recognize. It’s actress Jodie Foster. She looks great, albeit surprisingly small.

‘What a wonderful evening!’ says Waters, 77, into the microphone. “This is the victory of joyful bad taste.”

After a short silence he adds cheerfully: ‘And I didn’t even have to die!’

Another highlight of my visit is the messy hot dog I get later that evening at Pink’s, a fast food restaurant founded in 1939.

The most venerable eatery in Hollywood, however, is the luxurious Musso & Frank Grill, which dates back to 1919. Raymond Chandler wrote The Big Sleep in one of the red booths. At the bar, actor Steve McQueen tried to argue with writer Charles Bukowski.

The owner, Mark Echeverria, cheerfully tells me that he would never replace the faded wallpaper that lines the higher part of the walls in the older of the two dining rooms.

“There’s Humphrey Bogart’s cigar smoke in the air,” he laughs.

Outside, on Hollywood Boulevard, the street is paved with stars.

The Hollywood Walk of Fame, begun in 1960, now pays tribute to some 2,700 celebrities with its star-shaped plaques. I see 1980s star Rob Lowe alongside actor John Barrymore, a big name in the 1920s, starring as Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde.

In theory, anyone can get a star, as long as you’re willing to spend $75,000 for it.

Overall, of course, it’s thought that it’s your fans’ job to foot the bill, not yours. Yet there is one man who is known to have bought his own star: a certain Donald Trump.