Ice-T Gets A Star On Hollywood Walk of Fame

HOLLYWOOD, CA -- Saying ``I never thought I would get a star,'' rap icon and actor Ice-T nonetheless got one today on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, becoming the 2,747th celebrity so honored along Hollywood Boulevard.

``The way my life was going, it was like, what can we come up in Hollywood and steal?'' Ice-T told the crowd gathered in front of 7065 Hollywood Blvd., recalling his early days in Los Angeles -- before hip-hop, the idiom he helped shape, changed his life and altered the musical landscape.

``We were really out here causing real problems,'' Ice-T said. ``And this was just out of the question -- show business was out of the question. And then hip-hop came, and I found something that I could do. What I did was, I told the stories of the life I was living, and we invented a genre.''

Ice-T -- who is also in his 25th year of co-starring in ``Law and Order: SVU'' -- was joined at Friday's ceremony by ``SVU'' co-star Mariska Hargitay, series creator Dick Wolf and fellow rap legend Chuck D. Ice-T's wife, Coco Austin, sat in the audience with Ice-T's son and a daughter, while Ice-T's and Austin's young daughter, Chanel, stood on stage at her dad's side.

Friday's unveiling came one day after Ice-T -- born Tracy Lance Marrow in Newark, New Jersey -- celebrated his 65th birthday.

-- City News Service