Hollywood Christmas Lane Parade of the Stars (1961)

Tinseltown's famous parade of stars down Hollywood Boulevard, circling back along Sunset Boulevard, takes place yearly on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, a tradition since 1928. That was the year Hollywood merchants transformed a one-mile stretch of Hollywood Boulevard into "Santa Claus Lane" as a marketing ploy. It worked and what was originally called the Santa Claus Lane Parade was born. The Parade was suspended from 1942 to 1944 out of respect for our troops fghting World War II but returned the first Christmas after war's end in 1945 to record attendance. Celebrities among its participants include Gene Autry, The Cisco Kid Duncan Renaldo, Ty Hardin, Clint Eastwood and the Rawhide cast (westerns were all the rage on TV and in movies in 1960), Soupy Sales, Ray Corrigan with the Corriganville truck and trailer and many more celebrities like Don DeFore, Bozo, and Pinky the Rollerskating Donkey