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Part of Five kinds of honour, with a walk of fame star as the example
Walk of fame directory search beyond Hollywood: which register to try
Walk of fame directory search beyond Hollywood: match a clue to one of six registers, search it by surname and record what the result shows.
A walk of fame directory search outside Hollywood begins with a different question: which walk holds this person? Six public registers cover different places and fields, and each is run by its own body. Searching the wrong one returns nothing, and nothing from one register proves nothing about the rest.
The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce runs the largest register, at walkoffame.com. The other five are Canada's Walk of Fame, Music City Walk of Fame, St. Louis Walk of Fame, Palm Springs Walk of Stars and Las Vegas Walk of Stars. Check the current search fields on each administering body's site before relying on a result.
What to take away
- Choose the walk from what you already know about the persona place, a field or a Hollywood category.
- Hollywood's register at walkoffame.com is run by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and sorts honorees into five categories.
- The other five walks are run by separate bodies, each with its own inductee list.
- A missing name in one walk says nothing about the others.
- Record the walk, its administering body and the date checked beside every result.
- Cite the administering body's list, not a fan map or an aggregator list.
Which walk to search first
Start from the clue you already hold. A hometown points to a city walk, a career field to a field-based walk, and a screen, recording, radio or live theatre credit to the Chamber's register. The table matches clue to walk.
| Clue you hold | Walk to try | Run by | Where the stars are | Website |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A credit in film, television, recording, radio or live theatre | Hollywood Walk of Fame | Hollywood Chamber of Commerce | Hollywood sidewalk, by block and address number | walkoffame.com |
| A career in film, music, sport or another field, with a Canadian link | Canada's Walk of Fame | Canada's Walk of Fame, a national charity | Honors in Toronto | canadaswalkoffame.com |
| A music career tied to Nashville | Music City Walk of Fame | Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp and the City of Nashville | Walk of Fame Park, Nashville | musiccitywalkoffame.com |
| St. Louis roots | St. Louis Walk of Fame | St. Louis Walk of Fame, a nonprofit | Brass stars on Delmar Boulevard in University City, Missouri | stlouiswalkoffame.org |
| Ties to the Coachella Valley | Palm Springs Walk of Stars | Palm Springs Walk of Stars | Palm Canyon Drive | palmspringswalkofstars.com |
| An entertainer or notable Las Vegan | Las Vegas Walk of Stars | Las Vegas Walk of Stars | Las Vegas Boulevard | lasvegaswalkofstars.com |
Five of the six walks are tied to a place, and Hollywood is tied to a category. A person with no clear place or category may sit on none of them, and that is a finding, not a failure of the search.
When one person fits more than one walk
Check every walk the clue fits, not only the first. A film actor with St. Louis roots points to two registers, and a Nashville recording artist with Las Vegas ties to two more. Each walk decides on its own, so a hit in one is no evidence about another.
Record each result as its own entry, with the walk's name, its administering body and the date you checked. The same discipline keeps a film credit separate from a television one, and it stops two honors from being merged into a single claim.
Where a clue fits no walk cleanly, search the largest register first and then the nearest place-based one. Write down every register you tried, so that a later reader can see which negative results are on file.
Searching a walk outside Hollywood
Open the administering body's own site, not a fan map. The table above gives the address of each inductee list, and the steps below work the same way for any of the five walks outside Hollywood.
- Open the site of the walk the clue points to and find its inductee list.
- Search the surname first, then narrow with whatever fields that walk's own search offers.
- Confirm the match against something besides the name, such as the place or the field the walk lists for the honoree.
- If nothing returns, try the earlier name or another spelling. A name that changed since the award can sit under the earlier spelling, as it does in the Hollywood register.
- Note the walk, the body and the date, then stop and record the result.
Each walk announces its inductees separately, and none of their lists is a settled record before the administering body publishes it. A name that circulates ahead of an announcement is a lead to verify, never a source.
What a result can and cannot show
A listing confirms one thing: the walk's body names this person as an honoree. It does not confirm the credit behind the honor. For that, go to the matching record, such as television credits or the fields an awards record needs, and match name, field and year there.
Find with the transcription, cite the original. The National Archives describes provenance as the basic principle of arrangement, and the same logic explains why a walk's own list outranks a map made from it. For the wider habit of sourcing, see sources that hold up.
A walk that matches none of the six
Sometimes a walk turns up that is not on any list. Judge it by structure, not by looks: who decides, whether the decision-makers are named, and when any money changes hands. Those three signals separate an honors program from an honors product.
Program or product?
When was the body founded?
check what predates the website
treat as new and promotional
A cost that arises after a committee decision is a funding mechanism. A payment that produces the decision is a purchase. Ask also whether the approach came unsolicited with a deadline attached, which is the shape almost all of these take.
Researching an older honor
Stars conferred before a walk's list went online are the ones that send researchers to the local record. The Hollywood Walk's early stars date to 1960, and the earliest ceremonies are documented in local press rather than in a digital register.
Older honor research checklist
- Newspaper for the ceremony week
- Historical society photograph collection
- Authority permit files
- Any surviving ceremony program
- National library research guides
Work through the newspaper for the week of the ceremony, the library's photograph collection, the city permit files and any surviving program. For stars of earlier decades, the working conditions of the period are mapped in the actors by era directory, and theatre honorees are traced through live theatre credits.
National library research guides such as the guide to performing arts collections show what kinds of material tend to survive from ceremonies and organizations. They also give a sense of the level of citation to aim for.
Before you record a result
A result is ready for a record when these checks pass. The second and third matter most where a name changed between the award and now.
- The walk that fits the clue has been named, and every other fitting walk has been searched.
- The match agrees with the name and with a second field, such as the place or the category.
- Any earlier spelling or variant of the name has been searched.
- The source is the administering body's own list, with the date it was checked.
Where a result fails one of them, record it as claimed and keep the lead. Search again when the walk announces its next inductees, and add the new result beside the old one.
Common questions
Which walks of fame have a searchable directory?
Hollywood's register at walkoffame.com is the largest. Five others are searchable by name or year: Canada's Walk of Fame, Music City Walk of Fame, St. Louis Walk of Fame, Palm Springs Walk of Stars and Las Vegas Walk of Stars.
How do I search a walk of fame outside Hollywood?
Open the administering body's own site, search the surname and confirm the match against a second field. Check the current search fields there first, because each body sets its own.
Can one person appear on more than one walk?
Each walk decides on its own, so check every walk the clue fits. Record each result separately, with the body and the date checked.
What if the name is on no list?
Search the earlier spelling and the surname alone. For an honor conferred before the lists went online, look to the local press, library photographs and city permit files.
