Wildfires in Los Angeles very much affected celebrities, many of whom live and work in the area of Southern California where the blazes are raging.
Actor Steve Guttenberg, who resides in the upscale Pacific Palisades neighborhood, which lies steps away from the beaches of Malibu and Santa Monica, took action Tuesday to help his community. He spent much of the day helping fire crews to move cars on streets close to the blaze so that emergency vehicles could make it through the winding roadway.
“Well, what happened was the fire got so close and everybody was trying to get out that it became sort of a little bit of a panic,” Guttenberg tells Entertainment Weekly by phone.
Known for movies such as Three Men and a Baby, Police Academy, and Short Circuit, Guttenberg has lived in Pacific Palisades for 30 years. As thousands were evacuated from the area, the streets were clogged, and some people simply abandoned their cars without leaving their keys behind.
The message he wanted people to get about the fires, he said, is to help when you can.
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Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson star in ‘Three Men and a Baby’. Everett Collection
“In a crisis, always remember that you are, you’re part of a community,” he shares with EW, “and if you’re able-bodied, you’ve got to help. You’ve got to help. You can’t walk by somebody when they need something. You just can’t walk by them. You have to help them. There are a lot of people who need help. Some people are so scared. Some people are in wheelchairs, some people are old or infirm, and you need to help them, and you can’t just walk by.”
He knew he had to take action after seeing the vehicles lined up. “I knew that we needed emergency vehicles through there,” Guttenberg says. “And I wasn’t the only one. But I started just moving cars.”
He said that he and his family would stay with a friend for the night, adding that he thinks they will “be able to go back tomorrow.”
Meanwhile, actor James Woods said on social media that his neighbor’s house was on fire.
At the same time, several glamorous events, including the premieres of the Jennifer Lopez movie Unstoppable, which had been planned for the DGA Theater in West Hollywood, and for Wolf Man, at the storied TCL Chinese Theatre, were canceled.
