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The sometimes painful truth about the Golden Age of Hollywood

is that with each day that passes, we move further and further away from it.

The world of Hollywood in that time can sometimes feel like some alien world

where manners and heroism, romance and decency were valued above all other attributes.

Thankfully, our means of connecting to that time are numerous.

We can watch the films.

We can look at the history and pass along the stories of these pioneers.

Or if we want to take a shortcut to old Hollywood via the senses,

we can always glance across at Hollywood's oldest surviving star, safe in the

knowledge of its constancy. This is one Hollywood legend that even time cannot take away from us.

As leading men go, this is one of the more lofty when it comes to height.

James Stewart famously stood at six feet and three inches, while John Wayne beat him out ever so slightly standing at six four.

On this particular Hollywood star dwarfs even these men,

standing at a proud 45 feet tall.

When it came to overhauls, Rita Hayworth's

electrolysis designed to give her a squareer hairline sounded painful enough.

As did Marlene Dietrich's procedure, which involved the complete removal of her molars so as to accentuate her cheekbones.

However, these comparatively minor alterations were nothing next to the wholesale revamping of our tall star, who since birth has been replaced and renovated

so many times that no original body parts actually exist anymore. And all that one has to do in order to see this emblem of the past

is to glance skyward toward Mount Lee in the Beachwood Canyon area of the Santa Monica Mountains.

There stands proudly one of the defining stars of Old Hollywood and whose grand eye casts

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