BIG NAMES HANGIN' ON THE BOULEVARD.

Byline: Janet Weeks Daily News Staff Writer

``All the vampires walkin' through the Valley

Move west down Ventura Boulevard 

And all the bad boys are standing in the shadows

All the good girls are home with broken hearts.''

- Tom Petty in ``Free Fallin' ''

Thank you, Tom Petty, for immortalizing Ventura Boulevard in your hit 1989 song. Just one question: What?

Vampires on Ventura? Maybe that explains why there are so many coffeehouses - to keep moving west after the sun goes down, those vampires probably need hefty shots of caffeine.

But thanks, Tom, anyway, for mentioning the street that we nonvampires have come to love. And you're not the only artist who has introduced The Boulevard to the rest of the world through popular culture.

Frank Zappa mentioned Ventura Boulevard in his killer '70s satire song ``Valley Girl.'' The movie ``2 Days in the Valley'' featured a guy getting beaten up on The Boulevard. ``The Brady Bunch Movie'' featured Taft High School on The Boulevard.

And The Boulevard shops, restaurants and newsstands have stood in for everything from New York street corners to city landscapes in countless other films, TV shows and videos.

Hollywood's connection to the street doesn't end with fiction. Like the rest of us, stars who live and work in the Valley head to Ventura Boulevard to shop, eat, drink, laugh, gossip with hairdressers, take in movies and watch the traffic go by.

And, occasionally, they cause trouble along The Boulevard, too. But first the well-behaved.

Charlton Heston has been seen parting the aisles of the tony Gelson's supermarket at Hayvenhurst Avenue and Ventura in Encino. Jack Palance prefers to push a cart around the Ralphs across the street, as does ``Baywatch'' star David Hasselhoff.

``NewsRadio's'' Phil Hartman dines at Chevy's near Balboa Boulevard. After an evening of taping, the cast of ``Seinfeld'' breaks at the Jerry's Famous Deli (where else?) near the show's Studio City sound stage. Lantern-jawed late-nighter Jay Leno fills up at the Koo Koo Roo chicken joint nearby.

And let's not forget the First Family of Encino - the Jacksons, who live just south of The Boulevard. Jermaine hangs at Trilussa, Tito at Tempo.

Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey, a 1977 Chatsworth High grad who was raised in the Valley, says he and his friends grew up romping along The Boulevard and still hang out there.

``What we still do for fun on Ventura Boulevard is go to Jerry's deli and then go bowling,'' he says.

Indeed, Spacey even mentioned The Boulevard when he picked up his Best Supporting Actor Oscar last year. He thanked his mother for driving him to acting lessons at a Ventura Boulevard studio.

``God, Ventura! I mean, it was the place to go,'' he says. ``Before we discovered Westwood, it was the place to go. I remember sneaking into Universal Studios, which I always think of as Ventura Boulevard and Lankershim. In the Valley, that's my turf.''

Other stars head to The Boulevard not to knock down pins but to whip up their follicles.

Hairstylist Allen Edwards, who has three Ventura Boulevard salons, counts among his clients Raquel Welch, Sally Field, Dustin Hoffman, Donna Mills, Lauren Holly, Geena Davis and Marcia Clark.

``Grace Under Fire'' star Brett Butler and rocker Eddie Van Halen and wife Valerie Bertinelli also get their tresses tousled along the road of kings, at Papillon. Singer-dancer Paula Abdul hangs out with her stylist at Salon Syndicate.

Now, about those troublemakers. While Ventura Boulevard may not be as notorious as its southern sibling Sunset when it comes to celebrity arrests (think Hugh Grant) or deaths (River Phoenix and John Belushi), there have been a number of star-studded scandals along the Valley's big boulevard, too.

``Martin'' star Martin Lawrence was arrested on The Boulevard in Studio City after he ran screaming into traffic. He was later found to be carrying a loaded and concealed handgun.

Flash-in-the-pan rapper Vanilla Ice, whose real name is Robert Van Winkle, was arrested in a parking lot at Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Ventura in 1991 for brandishing a pistol at a street vendor.

Abdul was a crime victim in 1995 when her Mercedes-Benz was carjacked off the driveway of a pricey Boulevard restaurant in Encino.

Actor Kenneth Charles Swofford, who is best-remembered as the principal in the old TV series ``Fame,'' was sentenced to two years in prison after his drunken-driving arrest. Swofford was driving the wrong way on The Boulevard when he struck a car and seriously injured a Studio City man and his two sons.

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3 Photos

Photo: (1) Celebrities' faces adorn the wall of Photocity, a one-hour photo lab in Studio City.

(2--3) Actor Kevin Spacey, left, likes to down some deli food and then go bowling on Ventura. Rocker Tom Petty immortalized The Boulevard in his song ``Free Fallin'.''