Search results
May 8, 2018 · To advertise their housing development, the Hollywood sign was erected. We, of course, all know the sign today but back in 1923 there were four more letters: L-A-N-D. The 13 letters were illuminated at night by 4,000 incandescent bulbs meant to shine so brightly they could be seen by all of Los Angeles below to build interest in the real estate ...
Jul 13, 2023 · History | July 13, 2023. The Hidden History of the Hollywood Sign. Now 100 years old, the iconic billboard started out as an advertisement for an upscale housing development.
- Just A $21,000 Billboard
- A Young Actress Dies by Suicide at The Hollywood Sign, Making It Infamous
- The Hollywoodland Sign Becomes The Property of Los Angeles
- The Musician Eden Ahbez Camps Out Beneath The Hollywood Sign
- The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce Repairs The Sign –and Removes The “Land”
- Hugh Hefner Hosts A Playboy Mansion Fundraiser to Rebuild The Sign
- Michelle Yeoh Dangles from A Helicopter For A Hollywood Sign Photoshoot
- December 2013: The Brad Pitt of Mountain Lions
- Pranksters Alter The Sign to Read ‘Hollyweed’, For The Second Time
- The Sign Celebrates Its 100th Birthday
The Hollywood sign begins life as a temporary advertisement for a new housing development in the Hollywood Hills. Its precise date of construction is unknown: by the end of 1923, a few news reports in Los Angelesmention, in passing, a giant sign reading “Hollywoodland”, illuminated with electric lights. The sign cost $21,000, according to the Holly...
Peg Entwistle, a British actor who had some success on Broadway, dies by suicide at the sign after struggling to find success in Hollywood. Her death, prominently covered by the tabloids, made her known as “the Hollywood Sign Girl”, and it continues to inspire literary and TV interpretations about the lure and the danger of Hollywood dreams. The ro...
After the Hollywoodland development it advertised goes bust in the wake of the Great Depression, ownership of the Hollywood sign is quietly transferred to the city, according to the sign trust.
The songwriter and mystic eden ahbez, who lived for a time beneath the Hollywood sign, becomes a media sensation after writing a hit single for Nat King Cole, Nature Boy, in 1948. The story is that ahbez slept under the first “L” of the sign, Vogue reported: the most famous line from his song is, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn / Is just to l...
Battered by wind and weather, the Hollywood sign falls into disrepair. At one point, the H is blown down, which “made a cockney out of Hollywoodland”, the Los Angeles Times reported in 1944, with the sign reading “OLLYWOODLAND”. There are public debates over whether the sign should be torn down or repaired. In 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerc...
By the mid-1970s the sign has been officially made a cultural landmark, but it is also “rusted, dilapidated, soon to literally crumble under its own weight”, according to the Hollywood Sign Trust, which notes that, during this period, “the top of the ‘D’ and the entire third ‘O’ toppled down Mt Lee, and an arsonist set fire to the bottom of the sec...
Michelle Yeoh performs a daring stunt above the sign for a 1997 National Geographic cover story. More than 15 years later, the images are going viral in advance of the Oscars, where Yeoh is a leading contender to win this year’s best actress award. The photographer “thought it would be fantastic if we have this actress hanging over the Hollywood si...
Another legendary image is made in 2013 when a National Geographic photographer takes a remote portrait of a mountain lion stalking the hills in front of the Hollywood sign. The photo catapulted the cat, named P-22 after the number of his tracking collar, to international fame. P-22, dubbed “the Brad Pitt of mountain lions”, became the face of a su...
The big letters on the hill have been a prank target for decades: the first time the sign was altered to read “Holllyweed” was in 1976, according to the Hollywood Sign Trust. (Both “Hollyweed” alterations, in 1976 and 2017, were “marking the enactment of looser state marijuana laws”, the trust notes.) The sign has also been altered to read “Holywoo...
The sign readied for its 100th year with a PR team, special events and a makeover, including a fresh paint job in 2022. The once-a-decade repainting of the Hollywood sign, a process that takes weeks, is itself a minor media event. In January, to kick off a year of centennial celebration, the president of the Hollywood Sign Trust announces a campaig...
- Lois Beckett
Nov 29, 2021 · Surveyors and builders working on the Hollywoodland housing development pose for a portrait beneath the sign erected to advertise the site. 1923. The sign was erected in 1923 and originally read “HOLLYWOODLAND”. Its purpose was to advertise the name of the new segregated housing development in the hills above the Hollywood district of Los Angeles.
Early Views of Hollywood (1920 +) (ca. 1920s) * - The HOLLYWOODLAND sign was erected in 1923 to advertise a new housing development in the hills above the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. In 1949 the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce contracted to repair and rebuild the sign.
In 1987 The HHA developed the Hollywoodland Specific Plan ( #168, 121) to protect Hollywoodland from excessive and inappropriately scaled development and to foster the neighborhood’s historic character, fabric, and relationship to the park. The Specific Plan addresses fences, walls, room additions, and new house construction.
Nov 26, 2023 · A sign advertises the opening of the Hollywoodland housing development in the hills on Mulholland Drive overlooking Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.
