50 Fun Facts About Hard Hollywood

Daeida Wilcox took the name 'Hollywood' from an acquaintance's estate in which state?

Her husband Harvey Wilcox laid out the town; H. J. Whitley, who opened the Hollywood Hotel in 1902, is also called the 'Father of Hollywood'.

Why did the independent city of Hollywood vote to merge with Los Angeles in 1910?

Hollywood had been incorporated as its own municipality only in November 1903.

Which 1910 D. W. Griffith Western is credited as the first film shot in Hollywood?

Griffith's Biograph company came west for the winter and shot the short in the still-rural village.

Hollywood's first permanent movie studio, opened by the Nestor Film Company in 1911, was housed in what?

The Blondeau Tavern stood on the northwest corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street.

What 1914 Western was Cecil B. DeMille's directorial debut and the first feature shot in Hollywood?

It was the first film of the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, made in a rented barn.

Many filmmakers moved west around 1913 to escape fees and lawsuits from whom?

Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company controlled almost every patent relevant to production, and the East Coast's early capital was Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Which New Jersey town was once the motion-picture capital of America, before Hollywood?

Edison's 'Black Maria', the first movie studio, was in nearby West Orange.

The Hollywood Sign was erected in 1923 to advertise what?

It read HOLLYWOODLAND, was meant to last 18 months, and lost its last four letters in 1949.

When the Hollywood Sign was entirely rebuilt in steel in 1978, how tall were the new letters?

The 1923 originals were 50 feet tall; the rebuilt sign is looked after by the Hollywood Sign Trust.

Actress Peg Entwistle died in 1932 after climbing which letter of the Hollywoodland sign?

The 24-year-old used a workman's ladder; her story became a grim Hollywood legend.

Which is the oldest surviving film studio in the United States, founded on April 30, 1912?

Carl Laemmle and partners founded it; Paramount followed eight days later on May 8, 1912.

In 1916 Adolph Zukor put 24 actors under contract and honoured each with what on the Paramount logo?

The mountain-and-stars logo has carried varying numbers of stars ever since.

Which four film figures founded United Artists on February 5, 1919?

The idea was to let stars control their own finances instead of depending on the studios; a rival quipped that the inmates had taken over the asylum.

Which four brothers founded Warner Bros. Pictures on April 4, 1923?

It replaced their earlier Warner Features Company, founded in 1910.

Which 1927 Warner Bros. film was the first feature with synchronized singing and speech?

Al Jolson performed six songs in it, and it effectively ended the silent era.

Which company merged with Fox Film Corporation in 1935 to form one of the Golden Age's Big Five studios?

Darryl F. Zanuck ran the new studio, one of the Big Five of the Golden Age.

RKO's initials stood for what?

RCA's David Sarnoff engineered the 1928 merger to create a market for its Photophone sound system; the studio made King Kong and Citizen Kane.

Which industrialist took over RKO in 1948, nine years before the studio ceased production?

He also bought a Hollywood Boulevard movie palace in 1949 and moved his offices to its second floor.

Which studio system 'Big Five' member was owned by Loews Incorporated, America's largest theater chain?

Marcus Loew formed MGM in 1924; the Little Three lacked big theater chains of their own.

Irving Thalberg, MGM's 'Boy Wonder', died at what age in 1936?

He produced some 400 films in twelve years and pioneered sneak previews and reshoots; F. Scott Fitzgerald based The Last Tycoon on him.

Thomas Ince, pioneer of assembly-line filmmaking, fell fatally ill in 1924 aboard whose yacht?

The official cause was heart failure, but the death remains a favourite Hollywood mystery.

Mack Sennett founded Keystone Studios in 1912 in which Los Angeles district?

Edendale is now part of Echo Park; the Keystone Cops and a young Charlie Chaplin worked there.

Chaplin's studio at La Brea and Sunset later housed A&M Records and then which puppeteer's firm?

Chaplin ran it from 1917 to 1953; a statue of Kermit dressed as the Tramp stood over the gate in the Henson years.

How long did the first Academy Awards ceremony last in 1929?

Tickets cost $5, 270 people attended, and Douglas Fairbanks hosted; it is the only ceremony never broadcast.

Which actor won the first Best Actor Oscar for two films, The Way of All Flesh and The Last Command?

Janet Gaynor won Best Actress for three films that year; Wings took Outstanding Picture.

Who designed the Oscar statuette, sculpted by George Stanley?

It is 13.5 inches tall, weighs 8.5 pounds and depicts an Art Deco knight standing on a film reel with five spokes.

Academy librarian Margaret Herrick is said to have named the Oscar after whom?

The story dates to 1931; the statuette is gold-plated bronze on a black metal base.

Between 1949 and 1959 the Academy Awards were held at which Hollywood Boulevard theater?

Its owner ran RKO at the time; the Oscars did not return to Hollywood until the Kodak (now Dolby) Theatre in 2002.

The Motion Picture Production Code, or Hays Code, governed studio films between which years?

It was named for Will Hays, president of the producers' association from 1922 to 1945; the ratings system replaced it.

The 1948 Supreme Court 'Paramount decision' ended what studio practice?

It also opened American screens to more foreign and independent films.

The Hollywood blacklist began on November 25, 1947, a day after ten filmmakers were cited for what?

The Hollywood Ten had refused to answer HUAC's questions about Communist affiliations.

Which Hollywood Ten screenwriter did Otto Preminger openly hire for Exodus in 1960?

Kirk Douglas then acknowledged him as the writer of Spartacus the same year.

Grauman's Chinese Theatre opened on May 18, 1927 with the premiere of which Cecil B. DeMille film?

Sid Grauman built it in 18 months; its forecourt holds stars' hand- and footprints in concrete.

Grauman's Egyptian Theatre hosted the world's first film premiere in 1922: which Douglas Fairbanks movie?

The Egyptian was eclipsed by the Chinese Theatre five years later.

Which entertainer is the only person honoured with a Walk of Fame star in all five original categories?

The categories are film, television, recording, radio and live performance; Bob Hope's plaque calls him Citizen of the Century.

Walk of Fame stars are made of coral-pink terrazzo rimmed with what?

The first permanent stars were laid in 1960 after the idea was conceived in 1953.

Whose star was Jennifer Lopez's on the Walk of Fame, by count?

A plaque beside it records the milestone; the walk now has more than 2,800 stars.

The Hollywood Bowl officially opened on July 11 of which year?

Its famous concentric-arch shell stood from 1929 to 2003 before being replaced.

The blinking light atop the Capitol Records Building spells out what in Morse code?

Samuel Morse's granddaughter switched it on; in 1992 it blinked 'Capitol 50' for the label's anniversary.

Architect Louis Naidorf designed the Capitol Records tower, considered the world's first what?

He was 24 when he drew it; it is nicknamed 'The House That Nat Built' after Nat King Cole's sales.

Which restaurant, opened in 1919, is the oldest in Hollywood?

It is named for original owners Joseph Musso and Frank Toulet and was a haunt of writers like Faulkner and Chandler.

Who opened the original hat-shaped Brown Derby restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard in 1926?

The Hollywood branch on Vine, not the hat-shaped one, was where the stars actually gathered.

Schwab's Pharmacy, the legendary Sunset Boulevard hangout for actors, closed in which year?

It opened in 1932; the tale that Lana Turner was discovered at its soda fountain is a myth.

The Chateau Marmont was loosely modeled on a former royal castle in which French valley?

Attorney Fred Horowitz picked the Sunset Boulevard site in 1926 for an apartment building.

From 1939 to 1998 Hollywood Forever Cemetery was known as 'Hollywood Memorial' what?

It became Hollywood Memorial Park in 1939 and was renamed Hollywood Forever in 1998; Paramount's lot sits on 40 acres carved from it.

The Hollywood Canteen, which entertained servicemen 1942-45, was co-founded by John Garfield and which actress?

A uniform was the only ticket needed, and stars waited tables and danced with the troops.

The Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard, opened in November 1963, was based on whose geodesic dome design?

It was built to show widescreen Cinerama films and closed in 2020.

Griffith Observatory's 12-inch Zeiss refractor is claimed to be what?

Admission has been free since 1935 under the terms of Griffith J. Griffith's will.

Which rock singer paid for an O in the 1978 Hollywood Sign rebuild, in memory of Groucho Marx?

Donors sponsored individual letters: Alice Cooper an O, Andy Williams the W, Gene Autry an L and Hugh Hefner's honour the Y.

Which category was added to the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2023 as its sixth?

Sports Entertainment joined motion pictures, television, recording, radio and live theatre, which had been added in 1984.