The Paul McCartney Walk of Fame ceremony on Feb. 9 was the climax of a short and very frantic time period from the official announcement to the day of the actual event. But Ana Martinez, media representative for the Hollywood Walk of Fame, told us things were already in motion well before the public knew about the event.
The announcement, on Feb. 1, was made with barely a week's time, less notice than usual. The first clues to the event came on Jan. 25, when Martinez sent out a note on Twitter. It said, "We finally got him, we finally got him to set a date for his star ceremony! Stay tuned for details, peeps!"
Neither Martinez or McCartney's reps would say at that time who they were referring to when we asked, which led to the story we published that night.
But Martinez was already at work on the event. She told us events such as this involve about 15 separate contacts and several city divisions, including the maker of the star and the staging company. When those are arranged, the announcement is made through a press release, as it was on Feb. 1.
Why did it finally happen? The answer is pretty simple -- it was tied to the MusiCares benefit honoring him last Friday and his Grammy nomination, which turned into a win for Best Historical Album Sunday night.
"One of the execs at Capitol had been after him for the past few years," Martinez told us. The exec talked to McCartney's team about three weeks before the event. "So it was a quick turn around," Martinez said.
Martinez gave regular updates through her Facebook page and Twitter account of the huge interest for the event, including that the demand by the press to attend was huge. Fearing people would camp out overnight, it was announced camping out would not be allowed.
The day of the ceremony was warm and sunny with temperatures in the upper 70s. Crowds began showing up early and swelled to about 2,000 at the time of the ceremony. Inside the Capitol Records tower, McCartney and a few friends were gathered. Chris Carter, host of "Breakfast With the Beatles" on Sirius/XM and KLOS-FM, was one of those invited to the pre-event gathering, which included wine and hors d'oeurves. Carter mingled with the attendees, who included Jeff Lynne, formerly of Electric Light Orchestra.
Carter told us in a phone interview that McCartney drove up to Capitol Records in his Corvette with Nancy Shevell, his wife. "Just regular guy Paul," he described him.
"I walked out with all of those guys and stood next to Neil Young and those guys," he said. The event, which had originally been approved to take place back in 1993, was amazingly low-key for a guy of McCartney's celebrity.
Carter said he made McCartney laugh during the ceremony. "It was when the guy was reeling off all the albums. 'And the Beatles with 'Please Please Me. And in 1970, 'McCartney'." And I was standing right next to Paul. And Paul's like raising his eyebrows. 'Oh, my God!' And (the guy) goes, '1971, Paul and Linda's "Ram"' and 'Band on the Run." And I go, 'Hey Paul, he forgot Wings' 'Wild Life' and 'Red Rose Speedway.' And Paul laughed. 'He did, he did!'."
"He's still the coolest," Carter says about McCartney. "Look at the old movies. Look at guys in their '70s. Look at a movie from 1945 and see a man in his 70s. They look like that old bank owners. And then you see Paul up there jumping around. He's got it together. And Ringo looks just as good!"
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