Without the ‘doughnut on the roof, we’d be just another doughnut shop.’

It has appeared next to Jamie Lee Curtis in “Love Letters” and on the same screen as Richard Gere in “Breathless.”

One of Inglewood’s biggest inanimate celebrities has a host of other credits, including appearances in “Earth Girls Are Easy” and “The Golden Child,” and a photo spread in the bathing suit issue of Hot Rod magazine.

A nice list of credits, especially for an oversized doughnut.

The 45-foot-tall, 20-ton steel and cement treat balanced atop Randy’s Donuts on West Manchester Boulevard dates back to the days of programmatic architecture--a style that proliferated in the 1950s and included giant chili bowls, milk bottles, tamales, ice cream buckets--and even a coffee cup and a pumpkin.

The three-dimensional billboards were devised to catch the eye and whet the appetite of passing motorists, said Teresa Grimes, preservation officer with the Los Angeles Conservancy.

In the non-consumable category, there was a florist shop in the form of a flower pot, a shoe repair shop masquerading as a shoe, a music school as an accordion and a camera store as a camera.

“If we didn’t have the doughnut on the roof, we’d be just another doughnut shop,” said Ron Weintraub, who runs Randy’s Donuts with his brother, Larry.

But changing times threaten to gobble up Randy’s, a fate that has already descended on a number of the area’s other roadside wonders.

The Weintraub brothers own the shop under the doughnut, but they rent the land it sits on. City redevelopment officials have targeted this prime property over the past decade for projects such as an office complex, a hotel and, most recently, a Cadillac dealership. All the plans have fallen through, giving the shop one reprieve after another.

Pat Way, Inglewood’s acting redevelopment director, said no plans for the lot have come forward since negotiations with Jim Lynch Cadillac broke down in November. She said the city may consider moving the doughnut shop to another location within the city if new plans emerge.

“Randy’s Donuts is a fine example of a type of architecture that is fairly unique to Los Angeles,” said Grimes, who traced the pop style back to the 1930s. “At one point there were many Randy’s Donut shops, but over the years they’ve been demolished.”

A few other giant doughnuts remain atop shops in Gardena, Los Angeles and Long Beach.

“It’s part of the history of the community,” Ron Weintraub said. “Everyone who stops at the traffic light (on Manchester Boulevard) just stares at it. Kids are pointing at it right now as I look out the window.”

Weintraub is eyeing state or federal landmark status for the shop, but preservation officials are not optimistic that even that would protect the giant doughnut.

If the shop were to be demolished, Randy’s fans say it would leave a giant hole in the region.

“It breaks my heart to see these places go down,” said Pat Hinz, a sculptor from Palos Verdes who is planning to capture the shop in clay.

Brenda Conyers, a member of the Historical Society of Centinela Valley, added: “We all care about the doughnut. . . . It’s a local thing we like to see in the movies.”

Legend has it that Randy’s was Salvador Dali’s favorite L.A. landmark.

And Weintraub says the doughnut has also served as a landmark of another kind. A pilot once told him he uses the doughnut as a guide when he descends into Los Angeles International Airport.