Hollywood has long been famous as the apex of the movie industry, and it's been turning out cinema-filling blockbusters for more than a century. Tourists flock here to see attractions like the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the iconic Hollywood Sign. But there is a host of historical nuggets about LA's showbiz neighborhood that you might not know.
Click through to discover 31 fascinating facts about Tinseltown...
Long before Hollywood was synonymous with studios and movie theaters, the Los Angeles Basin was home to the Indigenous Tongva people, alongside other tribal communities. Archaeologists believe the Tongva resided in the region for at least 10,000 years, and it’s known that there was once a large Tongva village in downtown LA.
Pictured here in 1905 is a native Tongva woman, Mrs James Rosemyre – one of the last fluent speakers of the Tongva language.
Real estate heavyweight Harvey Wilcox and his wife Daeida moved from Topeka, Kansas to Southern California in the 1880s, and soon laid out plans for what would become Hollywood in the Cahuenga Valley.
Wilcox sent an official map to the Los Angeles County Recorder’s office in 1887. In his blueprint, the main street was 'Prospect Avenue', which became the precursor to the now-famous Hollywood Boulevard.
As prohibitionists and devout Christians, the Wilcoxes hoped Hollywood would be a haven for religion and a place to escape the immoral trappings of the modern world.
Mr. Wilcox took pleasure in planting pepper trees, so early Hollywood was a green oasis. Meanwhile, alcohol, pool halls, and firearms were all banned.
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More homes sprang up around Hollywood and most were grand manor houses with large, lush gardens. Around 500 people lived here at the turn of the century and the place was scattered with lemon and avocado groves, and fields ripe with tomatoes.
By this time, the sleepy settlement had markets, a hotel, a livery, and a post office.
Harvey Wilcox may have founded Hollywood, but it was another real estate magnate – Hobart Johnstone (HJ) Whitley – who began to turn the town into the buzzing urban hotspot it is today. Nicknamed the 'Father of Hollywood,' Whitley was responsible for opening the Hollywood Hotel (pictured), which would quickly become a Tinseltown icon.
Today, the Dolby Theater, which has hosted the Oscars every year since 2002 (except 2021), occupies the site.
When it comes to the name 'Hollywood,' there are competing stories. Some say Daeida Wilcox dreamt up the name, simply because she liked the sound of it; others attribute it to HJ Whitley.
Whitley was supposedly honeymooning in the region when he and his wife met a man who said he was "hauling wood." Whitley misheard the phrase and decided that 'Hollywood' was the perfect name for the bucolic surrounding land. This photo shows the then-unpaved Cahuenga Pass in 1905.
Hollywood eventually became a stomping ground for showbiz elite. But when it was still a quiet rural town, its first and biggest celebrity was a French watercolor painter named Paul de Longpre.
De Longpre was attracted to Hollywood mainly for its beautiful flora, which was perfect fodder for his paintbrush. Daeida Wilcox reportedly gifted him some land near her own home, and it’s said that he paid his rent in paintings.
De Longpre set about creating a fragrant, technicolor rose garden to serve as a muse for his paintings. Eventually, he opened his flower-filled grounds to the public and thousands of visitors poured in.
He soon added concession stands and, by appointment, granted entry to his antique and artwork-filled mansion, a 1901 Mission Revival-style structure built for him by Canadian architect Louis Bourgeois.
By 1900, Los Angeles was mushrooming, but Hollywood remained a separate town and was even incorporated as its own municipality in 1903. The peaceful settlement only merged with the City of Angels in 1910, apparently due to water supply issues.
The intersection of Second Street and Spring Street in downtown LA is pictured here in 1905.
Hollywood’s movie career started small. The very first film shot in Tinseltown was named In Old California (pictured) – a silent Western that lasted just 17 minutes.
Pioneering director DW Griffith visited Hollywood and decided to shoot the film there, due to its charming scenery and amiable populace. When the movie was released in 1910, he couldn't possibly have realized the movie-making juggernaut that Hollywood would become.
Before Hollywood had any movie-making clout, New Jersey was the center of the film world. This was partly thanks to inventor Thomas Edison (pictured), who had pioneered equipment related to motion pictures and sound recording.
However, the patents on his inventions restricted the ideas of other moviemakers. Their solution? Escape legal battles by moving as far away as possible – to Hollywood where the dry, sunny climate also proved perfect for their projects.
The first dedicated film studio opened in Hollywood in 1911, the first step in the area's transition into a global entertainment superpower. It was owned by the Nestor Film Company (which would merge with Universal Pictures by 1917) and had a prime location on Sunset Boulevard.
This photo from 1911 shows President William Howard Taft (center, top) on a visit to the area, signaling Hollywood's rising importance.
More studios began to spring up through the 1910s, many of them transplants from the East Coast. Prohibition – which banned the manufacture and sale of alcohol in the US from 1920 to 1933 – only bolstered the business.
Unable to frequent bars and saloons, punters flooded into movie theaters instead, while the exploits of gangsters and rumrunners offered ready-made plot lines for screenwriters. A bird's-eye view of an increasingly built-up Hollywood is captured here in the 1920s.
Now an icon not just of Tinseltown but LA as a whole, the Hollywood Sign was erected in 1923 as a temporary addition to the Hollywood Hills. The sign was originally installed to advertise a swanky new housing development called 'Hollywoodland,' and it bore this longer name until 1949.
The sign became increasingly renowned, and the decision was taken to leave it up as a symbol of the city. As if it wasn’t eye-catching enough, it used to be lit up by some 4,000 bulbs.
It reportedly had its own caretaker who lived in a cabin nearby and replaced any blacked-out bulbs. The sign's lights were turned off for the final time in 1939.
The original Hollywood Sign isn’t the one we see today. By the 1970s, the sign had suffered significant wear and tear (only one and a half of the three 'o's remained intact, resulting in the word 'Hullywo d').
The wooden sign was replaced with a sleek steel iteration. The old sign’s letters were 50 feet high, while the new sign reaches 45 feet.
Prior to its replacement, the sign had faced the wrecking ball. It was the late Playboy editor Hugh Hefner who ultimately saved the landmark.
Determined to preserve the sign, Hefner rallied other celebrities through a lavish fundraiser. Famous faces, including Gene Autry, paid big money to sponsor new letters and see the attraction rebuilt.
Hollywood continued to build through the 1920s. Its future as the nucleus of the movie industry was cemented in 1927 with The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson.
It was the first 'talkie' – a feature-length film with synchronized dialog – and a big success in its day. The film features actors in blackface, an offensive practice with origins in early minstrel shows.
In 1929, the first Academy Awards ceremony looked quite different to the glittering spectacle of today. But it was still a luxurious affair involving a banquet, lots of speeches, and 270 carefully selected guests.
The ticket price was just $5 and it was held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The first Best Picture winner was Wings, the most expensive movie of its time. It tells the story of two World War I fighter pilots who fall in love with the same woman.
When the Great Depression hit, many thought the film industry would be decimated. However, Hollywood heavyweights insisted that their industry was 'Depression-proof,' and though many production companies did run into debt, the public didn’t stop going to the theater.
Movies full of glamor and intrigue offered an escape from the everyday, and the 1930s is considered by many to be the Golden Age of Hollywood. This photo shows an unidentified movie being filmed in the early 1930s.
Despite World War II, Hollywood remained a hive of activity during the late 1930s and 1940s, as the so-called Golden Age continued. The period produced notable war-themed films such as Casablanca and Mrs Miniver.
This was the era of Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, and Judy Garland – in fact, the motto of studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was "more stars than there are in heaven." Meanwhile, future stars such as Marilyn Monroe (pictured) emerged.
As Hollywood grew, studios went to great lengths to keep the glamorous veneer of their stars intact. Entire departments and ‘fixers’ existed to cover up scandals, such as extra-marital affairs – shocking to audiences of the day – and even crimes.
Following the 1921 arrest (and later acquittal) of silent film star Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle (pictured, center) for murder, morality clauses started being written into actors’ contracts, giving studios control over their conduct.
The bold Capitol Records Tower opened in the 1950s and the striking circular building – the world’s first circular office tower – remains a beacon of Hollywood. The blinking light on the top of the building stands out even more.
But you might not know that it communicates a secret message. Only those with the keenest eye (and knowledge of Morse code) would notice that the flashing light spells out the word 'Hollywood.'
The Hollywood Walk of Fame was conceived in the 1950s and the official groundbreaking ceremony took place in 1960. It’s now one of Hollywood’s most famous landmarks.
But did you know that having a star on the boulevard doesn’t come for free? In fact, it costs $55,000, which goes towards the creation, installation, and maintenance of the terrazzo and brass stars.
Stars ranging from Elton John and Dolly Parton to Halle Berry and Leonardo DiCaprio are represented on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But some celebrities have done things a little differently.
Muhammad Ali (pictured) requested that his star be placed on the wall as he didn’t like the idea of his name being walked on, while Neil Armstrong and his Apollo 11 crewmates Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins have a moon instead of a star.
Starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, historical epic Cleopatra is a landmark movie in Hollywood history. Released in 1963, it was the most expensive movie made at the time.
Costing $44 million – equal to about $350 million today – it nearly plunged studio 20th Century Fox into financial ruin. Despite its nearly four-hour running time, it was the highest-grossing film of 1963, but the high production costs meant it initially failed to break even.
As well as hosting the first Academy Awards ceremony, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel has a reputation for being haunted by the deceased stars who once stayed there. Marilyn Monroe lived at the hotel for two years and there have long been rumors that her spirit still occupies Suite 1200.
Guests have also reported sightings of Errol Flynn and Montgomery Clift, alongside less-famous apparitions and other spooky activities. It all feeds into the rich history of the hotel, which has been a feature of Hollywood Boulevard since 1927.
No one’s quite sure where they came from, but Hollywood has a flock of feral chickens, which has become quite famous. Some say the birds were saved from a local school that could no longer keep them as pets.
Another story is that they're descended from escapees from a wrecked poultry truck. Either way, the chicken population thrives just off the Hollywood Freeway.
The Hollywood Bowl is an iconic open-air music venue which supposedly holds a secret – buried treasure. The story goes that a shepherd stole a cache of gold, silver, and gemstones from the Mexican government in the 1860s and buried it where the Hollywood Bowl parking lot is now located.
Would-be treasure hunters were given a permit to dig for the precious booty in the 1930s, but they found nothing.
With plenty of high-profile attractions, Hollywood’s Forever Cemetery often flies under the radar. Dating to the 19th century, it is the final resting place for lots of famous names, including mobster Bugsy Siegel and prolific voice actor Mel Blanc.
As well as its maze of elegant tombs and mausoleums, the cemetery hosts regular cultural events, including outdoor screenings and concerts.
Over the years, as studios have closed and film and TV production has moved out of LA, Tinseltown has started to lose some of its glitz. However, there’s more to Hollywood than just the movies.
An example is the Vinyl District. Its boutique hotels, trendy restaurants, and up-and-coming art spaces – some in repurposed historic recording studios like Grandmaster Recorders – are giving the neighborhood a makeover. The future of Hollywood looks very hip indeed.
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