Hollywood History - part three

In 1940, to profit form this upcoming trend, Glenn Wallichs built his famous Wallichs' Music. The record store became so popular with students from both Hollywood and Fairfax high schools, that it sold more records than any store west of Chicago, Illinois. Wallich's popularity with his record store spurred him to partner with Johnny Mercer two years later to form Capitol Records. By pioneering marketing strategies coupled with album design, the company went on to become one of the top three in the industry. War drew Hollywood together as a close-knit family, erasing the distinction between stars and regular people. Returning soldiers swelled the city's population, and Hollywood pulled together to feed, shelter and entertain them. Hollywood's most famous names volunteered their time and services in the name of the war effort.Returning soldiers outnumbered civilians in downtown Hollywood ten to one. They slept in parks and theater lobbies, until "Mom" Lehr's Hollywood Guild and Canteen began offering them a bed and three meals a day. On average, 800 stayed with Mom on a week night 1,200 on weekends. The similar-sounding Hollywood Canteen catered to 2000 servicemen who would jam the club each night for free food, drink and top Big Bands. All 6000 radio and screen entertainers volunteered. Marlene Dietrich cut take, washed dished and sang. Betty Grable, Olivia de Havilland and Greer Garson played hostess. The busyboys: Fred MacMurray, Basil Rarhbone, John Loder and John Garfield. 100,000 soldiers a month devoured 4,000 loaves of bread, 1,500 pounds of coffee, and 150,000 pieces of cake. In 1948, box office receipts were down 45% from wartime heights. The culprit: television. From '46 to '51, the number of TV sets in American homes went from 10,000 to more than 12 million. Studios cut payrolls, back lots sprouted weeds, and sound stages went back. Film scrambled for a rash of new gimmicks: wide screens, 3D, Technicolor, stereo sound... and free dishes for moviegoers.

In 1949, the Chamber of Commerce came to the ailing Sign's rescue, removing the letters that spelled "LAND" and repairing the rest. Hollywood, with characteristic resilience, made the transition to TV. On January 22, 1947, the first commercial TV station west of the Mississippi River, KTLA, began operating in Hollywood. In December of that year, the first Hollywood movie production was made for TV, The Public Prosecutor. And in the 1950s, music recording studios and offices began moving into Hollywood. Other businesses, however, continued to migrate to different parts of the Los Angeles area, primarily to Burbank. Much of the movie industry remained in Hollywood, although the district's outward appearance changed. Television companies snatched up old studios and back lots. Symbolically, the emcee for Hollywood's first TV show was film star Bob Hope, with Cecil B. DeMille opening the program. When TV started filming programs, Hollywood was there to corner the market. By the end of the 50s, more sound stages were producing television than movies. Hollywood was the victim of a mass exodus of residents to suburbs in the Valley. They were opting for malls and multiplex cinemas over Mann's and the Boulevard. The mid-60s celebrated free speech, and a series of rulings on obscenity changed what could be shown at a movie theater. Hollywood became overrun with 'adult' theaters, and sex on the screen brought other 'adult' culture with it: massage parlors, 'adult' bookstores, and porn shows. In 1952, CBS built CBS Television City on the corner of Fairfax Avenue and Beverly Boulevard on the former site of Gilmore Stadium. CBS's expansion into the Fairfax District pushed the unofficial boundary of Hollywood further south than it had been. CBS's slogan for the shows taped there was "From Television City in Hollywood..."

The famous Capitol Records building on Vine Street just north of Hollywood Boulevard was built in 1956. It is a recording studio not open to the public, but its unique circular design looks like a stack of old 45rpm vinyl records. The Hollywood movie industrys high profile made it vulnerable in the cold post-war climate of anti-liberal hysteria. After 1939, things began to change. Antitrust lawsuits broke up the studios' control of film distribution. Many people felt the stars had too much power. To make matters worse, the Hays Commission, a self-regulatory body of the film industry, was set up in the late 1940s to control the moral content of Hollywood movies. Many stars found themselves blacklisted (put on a list of people not to be hired) on moral grounds.

Communist witch hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy tore Hollywood apart. McCarthy and his henchmen rounded up 19 prominent Hollywood writers, directors and actors, claiming that "Commies" had infiltrated Hollywood and were producing subversive films. Ten of these victims were sent to jail. By the early 50s, 400 Hollywood writers, actors and directors were blacklisted. One star survived by selling flowers, another by waiting tables in Arizona. Paranoia and persecution prevailed. Paranoia and betrayal was a common image seen in fifties America. The Hollywood Walk of Fame was created in 1958 and the first star was placed in 1960 as a tribute to artists working in the entertainment industry. Honorees receive a star based on career and lifetime achievements in motion pictures, live theatre, radio, television, and/or music, as well as their charitable and civic contributions. Hollywood experienced the flight of film power centers in the turbulent 60s. By 1970, Paramount was the only major studio left in town. Many other studios went bankrupt after the difficult years of blacklisting and television dominance. But movies weren't the only game around. The Sign -- well, it didn't take a Weatherman to show what the elements had done. In 1973, the Cultural Heritage Board gave the Sign landmark status, but it was still in need of tender loving care. For years, Hollywood was a major disappointment, a case study in urban decay and neglect - a seedy, run-down area populated by a virtual freak-show of young runaways, homeless transients, wannabe heavy-metal rockers, frenzied traffic, and harried crowds of bewildered tourists wandering the dirty sidewalks while trying to find some hint of former glamour left in the famous city. True glamour has always awaited tourists a few miles in Beverly Hills, but the actual Hollywood area - the downtown shopping district centered around Hollywood Boulevard - had degenerated from a cozy small town into a bad dream of urban blight. The Hollywood Sign was declared Los Angeles Cultural-Historical Monument #111 by the Cultural Heritage Board of the City of Los Angeles. The milestone was celebrated during a 1973 gala hosted by silent star Gloria Swanson. Unfortunately, a thick fog blanketed the event, undermining what should have been a picturesque affair. Despite this inauspicious commemoration, the Signs official monument status signaled a new era of restoration, preservation and global respect. To raise money for the Signs reconstruction, the newly established Hollywood Sign Trust enlisted the help of Hollywood's biggest names. A star-studded fund raising party was hosted by Hugh Heffner at the Playboy Mansion, where individual Sign letter letters were ceremonially "auctioned off" at a price tag of $28,000 per letter. The effort to preserve the Sign made for some strange celebrity bedfellows: Glam-rocker Alice Cooper 'bought' an 'O', while singing cowboy Gene Autry sponsored an 'L' and singer/songwriter Paul William funded the 'W'. With the help of these and other extremely generous sponsors, the Trust unveiled a pristine new Hollywood Sign in 1978. The 1978 restoration of the Sign was more than a matter of new sheet metal and steel pipe. It symbolically ignited a renewal throughout Hollywood that continues to gain momentum to this very day. In 1980, a $90 million grant from the federal government enabled Hollywood to launch a slew of re-development projects. In 1985, the Hollywood Boulevard commercial and entertainment district was officially listed in the National Register of Historic Places protecting important buildings and ensuring that the significance of Hollywood's past would always be a part of its future.

In 1984, The Olympic Games came to Los Angeles. Fourteen countries of the Soviet bloc boycotted the event. The Hollywood Sign was illuminated for two weeks in honor of the Olympics, which drew visitors and television viewers from around the globe. In the 80s, the film industry was also "going global". The Australian multimedia titan, Rupert Murdoch, took over 20th Century Fox in 1985. Japanese companies bought Columbia in 1989 and Universal the following year. As the costs of movie production soared and mega-industry fixed its eye on the bottom line, the film business became increasingly dependent on ancillary profits from foreign sales, television, video and product spin-offs. By the end of the 80s, video revenue was almost twice as much as ticket revenue. In this highly competitive world market, more and more films were being made overseas and on location elsewhere in the United States. Hollywood, for the time being, was the center of the film industry in name only. In 1985, the Hollywood Boulevard commercial and entertainment district was officially listed in the National Register of Historic Places protecting the neighborhood's important buildings and seeing to it that the significance of Hollywood's past would always be a part of its future. In 1989, Walt Disney Studios began a two-year, museum-grade rehabilitation of the historic El Capitan Theater, resurrecting what was once the most lavish legitimate theater in Southern California to its former grandeur. The historic Egyptian Theater was restored to its original 1922 glory ten years later and the famed Brown Derby restaurant, Roosevelt Hotel, and the Pantages Theater all received well-deserved makeovers during the last decades of the millennium. Hollywood was moving forward, in part, by wisely reinvesting in the monuments of its glamorous past. The old town finally got its act together and appeared to be revitalized. The long-awaited rebirth of Hollywood was well under way.

A new maturity came to Hollywood in the last decade of the century. In 1992, California Attorney General Dan Lungren laid out a road map for the Sign's future, identifying three official parties responsible for its ongoing stewardship. Under the ruling, the Hollywood Sign Trust was empowered with the protection, preservation and promotion of the Hollywood Sign as the global icon of the entertainment industry. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, meanwhile, was charged with protecting the image of the Sign, specifically by ensuring that any likenesses of the Sign are approved and appropriately licensed. The City of Los Angels, finally, received a mandate to maintain and protect the restricted Griffith Park space that's home to the Sign, allocating Park Rangers and other resources to ensure the Sign's ongoing security. The final days of 1995 also saw the formation and private funding of the Hollywood Business District by Hollywood Boulevard property owners.

Through intensive security street cleaning and marketing efforts, the District reduced crime by 50 percent during its first 180 days of operation. Its success laid the groundwork for the ongoing development of posh hotels, theaters, eateries and shopping. In the 1990s, the digital revolution captivated filmmakers, allowing ever more spectacular special effects. In 1999, Toy Story became the first film to go from production to presentation in digital form. Some think this process may signal the beginning of the end for traditional film. In 1997, Hollywood marked its coming of age with the opening of the new Hollywood Entertainment Museum, which celebrates the turbulent, fascinating story of this unique city and its ever-changing entertainment industry. In 1995, the Sign got a new paint job courtesy of Dutch Boy Paints. Its new coat was unveiled at a ceremony MC'd by the queen of face-lifts, Phyllis Diller. Unfortunately, as had happened on some other important nights in the Sign's history, a thick fog set it, and many press cameras couldn't even see the drapes being pulled off the Sing. During its lore-filled history the Hollywood sign was just about seen it all. So when a bolt of lightning tore through the landmark's surveillance booth in 1999, wiping out the entire security system with one fell blow, it seemed like just another dubious chapter in an often ill-cursed saga. The destruction, however, turned out to be a blessing in disguise when Hollywood-based Panasonic Corporate Systems Company (PCSC) replaced the fallen (and woefully out of date) booth with a new state of the art surveillance system. Charged with protecting arguably the most famous nine letters on earth, PCSC engineers designed, engineered and installed a cutting-edge security network comprised of a vas closed circuit television (CCTV) surveillance network, external alarms, microwave-triggered motion detectors and a bilingual audio warning feature. Streaming video images are fed from a suite of remote cameras through fiber optic lines to the City of Los Angeles Parks and Recreation Security Headquarters, where rangers can monitor all of the cameras simultaneously. 1999 also saw the return of trains to Hollywood, when Metro Rail's Red Line opened its gleaming doors to the public. The 4.6 mile underground Hollywood line, which links into the citywide Metro Rail system, boasts five immaculate, beautifully designed stations - at Vermont and Beverly, Santa Monica and Sunset, and on Hollywood Boulevard at Vine, Western and Highland - providing visitors with convenient transportation to Hollywood most sought after destinations. The Red Line represents the first Hollywood rail service since L.A.'s fabled 'Red Cars' were scrapped in the late 50s.

In a spellbinding display of lights and megawatt special effects, the nine 45-foot letters of the Hollywood Sign were lit, one by one, as Los Angeles counted down to the New Millennium. Standing beside event host Jay Leno, then-Mayor Richard Riordan "flipped the switch" at the 15 seconds before midnight, illuminating the 450-foot-long Sign in a dance of swirling hues and cinematic lightning effects that was visible throughout Hollywood and beyond. Powered by more than two million watts of electricity, the lighting of the Sign was the culmination of a citywide "Celebrate L.A. 2000" event. "New York has Time Square, Paris has the Eiffel Tower, Cairo has the Pyramids," said Mayor Riordan. "Los Angeles' world symbol is our Hollywood Sign, which is appropriate, since Hollywood is the global entertainment capitol of the world." ABC Network aired the event on live television, enabling millions of viewers to witness the historic lighting. (The Sign had been lit only two times: for the 1974 inauguration of the rebuilt Sing, and for two weeks during the 1984 Olympic Games.)