HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD, Part 1: Hollywood & Vine

I’ve been living in Los Angeles for four years now but I have mostly stayed away from the unofficial city center, because I’m leery of tourists and tourist-hunters. Add to that the fact that I wasn’t really sure where to look for the history on Hollywood Boulevard… Local businesses have worked so hard over the years to hide the glamor of the old with the glitz of the new, and it takes a fair amount of research and patience to find and appreciate the historical aspects of this near-mythic stretch of road. Recently I learned that if you’ve got the patience, the Hollywood Heritage Foundation has got the research. On Saturday, I went on their weekly Walking Tour, which began just south of the intersection of Hollywood & Vine and ended near the intersection of Hollywood & Highland.

Hollywood Heritage has been around for almost thirty years, and one of their first projects was the preservation of the Lasky-DeMille Barn. In 1927, the barn was moved from the corner of Selma & Vine onto the back lot of Paramount. Director Tom McLoughlin remembers that it was still there in the late 1970s, housing all of the studio’s exercise equipment. In 1980, the Hollywood Heritage Foundation moved the building to Highland Avenue, across the street from the Hollywood Bowl and adjacent to the historic Whitley Heights neighborhood (the Beverly Hills of early Hollywood). The building is now their official headquarters and houses a collection of silent-era movie memorabilia.


The barn was built in the early 20th century on the southeast corner of Selma & Vine, in the days when Hollywood was nothing but a citrus ranch. Today... it's a parking lot.



Horace Wilcox, the owner of the property that eventually became Hollywood, originally wanted to call his ranch “Figwood” because fig trees grew so abundantly on the property… but his wife didn’t like the name. She opted instead for “Hollywood,” even though holly wouldn’t grow anywhere near the ranch. (Her original name for Hollywood Boulevard was Prospect Avenue.) The Wilcoxes were staunch Methodists who migrated to the west coast from Topeka, Kansas, and envisioned their new home as a religious retreat.

That plan was dashed in 1913, when three filmmakers made the first feature-length movie on the corner of Selma & Vine – which was, by then, city property. The movie was a western called THE SQUAW MAN, and the filmmakers were Cecil B. DeMille (one of the silent era’s best known directors), Jesse Lasky (future head of Paramount), and Samuel Goldfish (later Samuel Goldwyn, head of MGM). Because lighting techniques were so primitive, all of the interior sequences had to be shot outdoors.



Our guide said that THE SQUAW MAN had already been a hugely successful play… so, from the very beginning, Hollywood was opting for remakes over original stories. The plan worked. THE SQUAW MAN was a huge financial success, and it essentially started a second “gold rush” to California. Actors and producers inundated Hollywood with their get-rich-quick dreams.

Within a few years, silent films gave way to radio shows and “talkies”… and the corner of Hollywood & Vine became the main nerve of the entertainment industry. A few blocks away from the filming location of THE SQUAW MAN, Cecil B. DeMille built the first Hollywood nightclub The Brown Derby, hot spot of the stars and birthplace of the Cobb Salad. Opened on Valentine’s Day 1929, the Hollywood Brown Derby burned down in 1987. Only a small section of the mall-front remains, but the interior was immortalized in an early I LOVE LUCY episode featuring William Holden.




Across the street was the Hollywood Plaza Hotel, built in 1924, where silent star Clara Bow opened her “It” Club in 1937. The Plaza is now a Best Western and (like Clara Bow in 1937) it has seen better days.



Likewise, the corner of Hollywood & Vine can’t quite live up to its reputation. That said, the intersection has undergone a major revival in the past three or four years. After more than four decades of relative squalor, there’s now plenty of action in the neighborhood – thanks in large part to the addition of a metro stop and a brand new luxury hotel called The W.

Just up the hill is the long-standing Capitol Records, still regarded as one of the best recording studios in the world. Some of the artists who record there now have penthouse suites in the historic B.H. Dyas Building, which became a hotel in 2007.




At the same intersection sits the Taft Building, built in 1923 in the Renaissance Revival style and home to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences from 1935 to 1945 (as well as the office of Charlie Chaplin). Directly opposite is the Equitable Building, built in 1929 in the Art Deco style that defines much of historic Hollywood Boulevard.




The neighboring Pantages Theater was supposed to be equally tall, but the developer ran out of money during construction. The theater was finished in 1930, and this is where the Academy Awards were held from 1949 to 1959. The Pantages also hosted one of the most lavish Hollywood premieres of all time: for A STAR IS BORN in 1954. From here, most of the action moved west...

HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD, Part 2: "You Are the Star"

Just west of Vine, Hollywood Boulevard becomes a bit more… democratic. On the northwest corner of this famous intersection sits an empty parking lot. Until recently, it was the site of the Laemmle Building, built in the International Style for Universal Studios founder Carl Laemmle in 1932. The building was destroyed by a fire in 2008, but this blogger has gathered some historic photos. The building next door, another International Style design which originally housed Sardi’s Diner, has suffered an equally depressing fate… it’s now a Russian strip club.

Further west, at the intersection of Hollywood and Cahuenga, sits the Streamline Moderne-style Julian Medical Building, built in 1934 as the Owl Drug Store. According to our tour guide, this was also the site of the original Los Angeles City Hall. (The current City Hall, featured prominently in the TV series DRAGNET, was built in 1928.)


It seems only appropriate that City Hall should have been across the street from the Security Bank Building, which novelist Raymond Chandler used as the model for hardboiled detective Phillip Marlowe’s office building. The building, erected in 1921, is currently vacant.

Another slice of fictional Hollywood history is right around the corner: Visible to the north of the intersection is the Alto Nido apartment building, where struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis lived before he fell into the clutches of aging actress Norma Desmond in SUNSET BOULEVARD.

A little further down the street is the Warner-Pacific Theater. This is where THE JAZZ SINGER, Hollywood’s first feature-length talkie, was supposed to premiere in 1927… Sam Warner convinced his brothers to sink practically all of their money into the place. Construction delays prevented the big premiere, and Sam Warner died from a cerebral hemorrhage the night before THE JAZZ SINGER opened in New York. Local lore says that his ghost still haunts the place (!). Until the Northridge Earthquake in 1994, the night watchman says, he used the ride the elevator in the middle of the night. Today, the Warner-Pacific is only open on Sundays… for church services.


A few blocks away, you can find another Halloween-themed stop. According to our guide, Bela Lugosi’s house is just north of the corner of Hollywood & Hudson. In the later years of his life, he used to walk down the street to the Smoke Shop on Hollywood Boulevard. He smoked one cigar a day, in spite of his doctor’s orders. I’m a little baffled by this particular anecdote, as I know that Lugosi was living in an apartment building on Carlton Way in the 1950s when he “starred” in Ed Wood’s opus PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. By then, of course, he had bigger problems than a daily cigar.


Also in the neighborhood are the Hillview Apartments, built in 1917 by movie moguls Jesse Lasky and Sam Goldwyn, as a home exclusively for actors. (At the time, many boarding houses in Hollywood advertised: “No Actors, No Dogs.”) During the silent era, it was the most sought-after residence in Hollywood, and was briefly home to Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel and Clara Bow, among others. In more recent decades, Hillview has been home mostly to squatters. It was badly damaged in the Northridge earthquake and scheduled for demolition until private investors intervened and renovated the building in 2006. Unfortunately, recent economic developments have not been kind to the renovators. Hillview is now in foreclosure, and a quick Internet search indicates that some of the current residents aren't very happy with their historic home.


Next door to Hillview is a mini strip mall that leads right to the front door of Jane’s House, a 1903 Victorian cottage that once sat on the Boulevard. One of the most interesting things about the Hollywood Heritage tour was our guide’s insight into a lost era of Hollywood history. He even brought a book of photos so we could see proof that Victorian homes literally lined the boulevard (then known as Prospect Avenue). Jane’s House is the only remaining relic of that time. During the silent movie era, it housed a family-run school for the children of celebrities including Cecil B. DeMille, Jesse Lasky, Charlie Chaplin, and Douglas Fairbanks. The school closed in 1926, but the same family lived in the house until 1982. Since then, it has been a visitor’s information center, an upscale restaurant and (briefly, from the summer of 2009 until June 2010) a night club. There has been some talk of eventually turning Jane’s House into a museum… Imagine: A real Hollywood History Museum right in the heart of Hollywood Boulevard! Unfortunately, this seems unlikely in a city that casually discards its past. Currently, the house is sitting empty.


Tourists who want a glimpse of real history have to pay close attention. For example: Between Hudson and Whitley, you can spot prime examples of early Hollywood’s eclectic architecture – from the Spanish Colonial influence to Art Deco, and even a hint of Victorian.







If you want to hear about authentic Hollywood history, you can pop down the street to Musso & Frank’s, Hollywood Boulevard’s oldest watering hole. Opened in 1919, this old fashioned bar and grill was especially popular with the literary crowd: Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Chandler and Charles Bukowski. At one point, a corner booth was perpetually reserved for Charlie Chaplin. According to the film ED WOOD, it was also a popular destination for Orson Welles.

Other eateries from the time period included the Montmarte Café (a nightclub built in 1922, now a convenience store) and the Pig n Whistle (a burger and beer joint opened in 1927, restored and reopened in 2001). The latter sits right next to Sid Graumann’s Egyptian Theater. In fact, there is a side entrance in the Egyptian’s expansive courtyard, where Hollywood’s earliest movie premieres were held. The Egyptian was built in 1922, the same year that King Tut’s tomb was discovered in Egypt, and the theater’s first gala premiere was for Cecil B. DeMille’s silent epic THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.




I hasten to add that this is also where I attended the premiere of George A. Romero’s DIARY OF THE DEAD in 2007. The American Cinematheque organization, which also runs the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, is constantly out-doing itself in terms of programming. Just this week, for instance, they scheduled a Roy Rogers / Gene Autrey double feature (in celebration of the 75th anniversary of Republic Studios) and three John Carpenter double features over the weekend! Now that’s the Hollywood I know and love!

HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD, Part 3: Hollywood & Highland

In 2001, a massive open-air mall opened at the corner of Hollywood and Highland. Its centerpiece was a Babylonian courtyard, built (to scale) to match the sets of D.W. Griffith’s 1914 epic INTOLERANCE. Some local residents complained that it was excessively gaudy and architecturally schizophrenic. I say, Isn’t that what Hollywood is all about?



Today, the Hollywood & Highland complex is the center of tourism in L.A. and the intersection itself is thriving. One notable exception is the First National Bank Building on the northeast corner. Built in 1927 by the same architect who designed The Egyptian Theater, this striking Gothic/Art Deco tower looms large above all of the hustle and bustle of the intersection – yet, for some reason, remains empty. Right next door is a 1928 Spanish Colonial building that currently houses two cultural oddities: Snow White Café and the Hollywood Wax Museum.




Across the street sit the Guinness Book of World Records Museum (housed in the old Hollywood Theater, which opened in 1938) and the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum (housed in an old apartment building that was constructed in the 1920s and remodeled in 1935). I avoided these two tourist attractions like the plague, but I was eager to visit the Hollywood History Museum just behind it. This museum, housed in the 1935 Max Factor Building, has an impressive collection of movie memorabilia… Rocky Balboa’s boxing gloves, Superman’s cape, John Ford’s shirt, Indiana Jones’s Grail Diary (as well as the Holy Grail itself), Pee Wee Herman’s lost bike (presumably requisitioned from The Alamo), Roddy McDowall’s pink toilet (?), and the mask from William Lustig’s classic slasher movie UNCLE SAM. Currently, an entire floor is devoted to the life and death of Marilyn Monroe. (Where else can you gaze longingly at her bathroom tile?) But the real find is in the basement… where you can walk through the prison set from SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, and have a seat in front of Dr. Lecter’s cell. For me, this more than justified the museum’s entrance fee. Afterwards, we went next door and had lunch at Mel’s Diner – featured in AMERICAN GRIFFITI. How’s that for a schizophrenic juxtaposition?







On the west side of Highland, we saw the El Capitan Theater, built in 1926 as “Hollywood’s First Home of Spoken Drama.” This is where CITIZEN KANE had its world premiere in 1941. Soon after, the building was remodeled and reopened as the Hollywood Paramount Theater. In the early 1990s, Disney took over and started premiering many of its films there – often in conjunction with a live Jimmy Kimmel stage show next door at the Hollywood Masonic Temple, built in 1922.


One more block west is the Roosevelt Hotel – original home of the Oscars. We visited the eerie blue ballroom where the first Academy Awards ceremony was held at a private brunch on May 16, 1929 – with an audience of only 26 people. Times have certainly changed. Now the Oscars are held across the street in the Kodak Theater – which has 3,332 seats.




But the Kodak still can’t compete with the grandeur of Grauman’s Chinese Theater next door. For my money, this is still the crown jewel of Hollywood & Highland. A friend of mine convinced me to go see a movie there a few months ago, and I was awe-struck -- by the ornate interior, if not by the crappy A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET remake. Despite the crush of people, I must admit that I was also captivated by the plaster-casts in the courtyard... and even by a few of the “characters” (the accepted colloquial term for costumed pan-handlers) on the boulevard. I had just seen the Chinese Theater in its full opening-night glory on a sixth season episode of HBO’s ENTOURAGE, and been introduced to several of the odd-but-immanently-likable “characters” by the excellent 2007 documentary CONFESSIONS OF A SUPERHERO… so maybe I was seeing things through rose-colored glasses... But isn’t that the point of all this?


I highly recommend, to tourists and non-tourists alike, taking the Hollywood Heritage walking tour. It’s easy to wander the boulevard and see only the painfully-glaring tourist traps, but this tour provides a great opportunity to slow down and notice of the overlooked history of Hollywood. The $10 tour begins each Saturday at 9am, and you can make reservations by calling 323-465-6716.

... And while you're at it, do check out CONFESSIONS OF A SUPERHERO. It's a fantastic documentary.

Glimpses of Hollywood Boulevard