La Jolla is home to more than 46,000 people and a place where locals and visitors alike revel in its beauty. This “Jewel” is mentioned in everything from song lyrics to novels and much more.

La Jolla’s history is as rich as its pristine beaches, beautiful homes, the famous La Valencia Hotel (The Pink Lady), and so much more.

The Spanish word for La Jolla is “Joya,” which is similar in pronunciation to Jolla, and translates to Jewel. Historians say sometime in the 19th century when Spanish colonials arrived on the land, they called it Joya.

Here’s some examples that you might not have known where La Jolla is mentioned or referred to in various instances from song lyrics to novels and has even been the place for a comic book publisher.

NAME IN PAGES

As previously reported, La Jolla’s La Valencia Hotel (under the faux name “Esmerelda”) is the setting for Raymond Chandler‘s final Philip Marlowe novel, “Playback,” published in 1958.
Chandler lived in La Jolla for the previous decade and in the book La Jolla’s Hotel del Charro becomes “Rancho Descansado.” Several of the mentioned landmarks described within its page can still be found today.

Other books can be found here that mention or are based in/around La Jolla. Michael Crichton’s novel “Next” “blends fact and fiction into a tale of a new world where nothing is what it seems, and a set of new possibilities can open at every turn. ‘Next’ challenges our sense of reality and notions of morality.”

Clive Cussler, author of the celebrated Dirk Pitt novels “Treasure of Khan” and “Valhalla Rising,” presents the third novel in his newest series, called “The Kingdom” following the adventures of treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo. “The Kingdom” follows Spartan Gold and Lost Empire.

Lady Lazarus by Andrew Foster Altschul is described as “a poetic satire of rock ’n roll and a rock ’n roll ode to poetry.”

The Fat Innkeeper by Alan Russell is “about a doctor investigating fraud in a visiting New Age cult who winds up dead, hotel detective Am Caulfield scours the premises for clues while struggling to keep a group of swingers under control, in the sequel to ‘The Hotel Detective.’”

Besides juicy novels, mysteries, and more, if you’re a comic book fan, you might already know that La Jolla was where the comic book publisher WildStorm Productions, founded by Jim Lee in 1993, shuttered its doors in 2012 when DC Comics, which had bought the publisher as an imprint in 1998, took over the company and moved the offices to Burbank.

SONGS

For all you Beach Boys followers, La Jolla is mentioned in the Beach Boys’ 1963 song “Surfin’ U.S.A.”

La Jolla is also mentioned in The Network’s 2003 song “Spike” and more recently, on June 25, 2020, Wilbur Soot released an album called “Your City Gave Me Asthma,” which included a song called La Jolla.

SCREENS

Of course, many a film, documentary, or reality series has been made in La Jolla. For instance “Cruise of the Zaca” starring the original hero, Errol Flynn was filmed in 1946 and features Scripps Institute of Oceanography along with the actor known for films “Captain Blood,” “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” “The Sea Hawk,” and others. Zaca was the name of Flynn’s beloved 118-foot schooner built in 1930, according to film history.

From sci-fi films like “Gattaca” to murder-themed TV shows including “Silk Stalkings”, and “Veronica Mars,” La Jolla offers ocean and, coastline views, mountains, and desert scenery.

Also, the Netflix sitcom “Grace and Frankie” is set in La Jolla, but the exteriors are filmed in other parts of California.

Scenes from the 2018 film “The Samuel Project” were filmed in La Jolla and Disney+ “Big Shot” takes place in La Jolla, too.

REALITY SERIES

More recent productions include reality shows such as The Real World: San Diego, where MTV’s The Real World goes “city to city, picking a new cast of young folks who live together and are filmed for a reality show.” The seasons were filmed in houses in Point Loma (2004) and Bird Rock in La Jolla (2011).

Even the Kardashian clan has spent time in La Jolla, specifically at the La Valencia Hotel where they filmed their reality TV show including an evening pool scene in 2016.

There’s surely not enough space here to include every place La Jolla is or has been mentioned as this is just the crux.

Yes, La Jolla is known for its beauty where people flock and continue to revel in her glory and explore what makes this city so appealing to everyone – and everything.