Sallywood? Famous Hollywood landmark gets a makeover
The sign was originally an advert for a housing development that failed
Chris Ayres in Hollywood Times of London
The sign was originally an advert for a housing development that failed
Chris Ayres in Hollywood Times of London
For the past 87 years, it has sat high above the glittering megatropolis of Los Angeles, advertising a luxury housing development that was never finished because of the crash of 1929.
But the Hollywoodland sign - long since shortened to Hollywood, and now a world-famous symbol of LA’s movie industry - might not be visible for much longer.
The 15m-by-61m (50ft x 200ft) floodlit billboard would remain in place. But from many angles it would be hidden thanks to a proposed residential development - ironically enough, the very same kind of development that the giant white letters were originally designed to promote.
In protest, a conservation group known as The Trust for Public Land last night began to cover the sign with a banner reading “Save The Peak”. By 5:30pm (LA time), the first two letters of the sign had been covered, leaving the landmark to read Sallywood.
The stunt was primarily a fund-raising effort: the trust says it has already raised £4.5 million to buy the land around the sign - currently owned by an investment firm, Fox River Financial Resources - but needs another £3.3 million to close the deal before an April deadline.
“More than 100 acres of open land and the view of the one of the world’s most famous landmarks, the Hollywood sign, are threatened,” said Tom LaBonge, a Los Angeles City council member who enlisted the Trust for Public Land to help save the area.
“It is absolutely critical that we acquire this property.” Until recently, hillside engineering technology wasn’t affordable enough to make development of the site feasible. But that’s no longer the case, and Fox River is keen to capitalise on the spectacular 360-degree views of LA from above the sign, an area known as Cahuenga Peak, formerly owned by the aviation pioneer Howard Hughes.
The Hollywood sign has faced plenty of other dramas during its life time.
In 1932, for example, the Welsh Broadway actress Peg Entwistle committed suicide by jumping off it, after her movie debut as Hazel Cousins in the psychological thriller Thirteen Women was received poorly by test audiences, resulting in the studio cutting her out of scenes.
“I am afraid, I am a coward,” she wrote in her suicide note, left at the base of the letter H. “I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain.” Entwistle’s body wasn’t found at the bottom of the ravine until two days later: the actress had most probably died a long, agonising death from multiple pelvis fractures.
Since then, access to the sign by the public has been extremely limited. But that didn’t stop the letter H being destroyed in 1940 when the sign’s caretaker crashed his car into it, while drunk. Meanwhile, those who went on to live in the semi-completed Hollywoodland development included the British writer Aldous Huxley, until his home - along with 23 others - was destroyed by a fire. Many of the surviving Hollywoodland homes are still there today, but efforts to retain the original European Village architecture have largely failed.
The sign itself, which cost $21,000 to build, with each sheet metal panel being dragged up the hill by a caterpillar tractor, fell into disrepair by the 1940s with the ‘land’ part of the sign disappearing when those letters collapsed. By 1973, however, the Hollywood sign had been declared a Historic-Cultural Monument - in spite of many having originally regarded it as a blight on natural beauty of the Santa Monica mountains - and in 1978 a handful of celebrities, including the rock star Alice Cooper agreed to buy individual letters for $27,000 each, so that the landmark could be rebuilt. Cooper later turned his O into lots of small Os and handed them out to his friends.
Aside from the issue of the sign being obscured, there is also concern that the landmark might be increasingly used as a billboard to raise money for the city. It has already been modified several times, provoking complaints from the editorial pages of the Los Angeles Times (whose former publisher, Harry Chandler, was one of the backers of Hollywoodland).
Nevertheless, the paper gave the most recent stunt its blessing, saying that protection of the sign and the surrounding land “would be a lasting gift to the people of LA”.
But the Hollywoodland sign - long since shortened to Hollywood, and now a world-famous symbol of LA’s movie industry - might not be visible for much longer.
The 15m-by-61m (50ft x 200ft) floodlit billboard would remain in place. But from many angles it would be hidden thanks to a proposed residential development - ironically enough, the very same kind of development that the giant white letters were originally designed to promote.
In protest, a conservation group known as The Trust for Public Land last night began to cover the sign with a banner reading “Save The Peak”. By 5:30pm (LA time), the first two letters of the sign had been covered, leaving the landmark to read Sallywood.
The stunt was primarily a fund-raising effort: the trust says it has already raised £4.5 million to buy the land around the sign - currently owned by an investment firm, Fox River Financial Resources - but needs another £3.3 million to close the deal before an April deadline.
“More than 100 acres of open land and the view of the one of the world’s most famous landmarks, the Hollywood sign, are threatened,” said Tom LaBonge, a Los Angeles City council member who enlisted the Trust for Public Land to help save the area.
“It is absolutely critical that we acquire this property.” Until recently, hillside engineering technology wasn’t affordable enough to make development of the site feasible. But that’s no longer the case, and Fox River is keen to capitalise on the spectacular 360-degree views of LA from above the sign, an area known as Cahuenga Peak, formerly owned by the aviation pioneer Howard Hughes.
The Hollywood sign has faced plenty of other dramas during its life time.
In 1932, for example, the Welsh Broadway actress Peg Entwistle committed suicide by jumping off it, after her movie debut as Hazel Cousins in the psychological thriller Thirteen Women was received poorly by test audiences, resulting in the studio cutting her out of scenes.
“I am afraid, I am a coward,” she wrote in her suicide note, left at the base of the letter H. “I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain.” Entwistle’s body wasn’t found at the bottom of the ravine until two days later: the actress had most probably died a long, agonising death from multiple pelvis fractures.
Since then, access to the sign by the public has been extremely limited. But that didn’t stop the letter H being destroyed in 1940 when the sign’s caretaker crashed his car into it, while drunk. Meanwhile, those who went on to live in the semi-completed Hollywoodland development included the British writer Aldous Huxley, until his home - along with 23 others - was destroyed by a fire. Many of the surviving Hollywoodland homes are still there today, but efforts to retain the original European Village architecture have largely failed.
The sign itself, which cost $21,000 to build, with each sheet metal panel being dragged up the hill by a caterpillar tractor, fell into disrepair by the 1940s with the ‘land’ part of the sign disappearing when those letters collapsed. By 1973, however, the Hollywood sign had been declared a Historic-Cultural Monument - in spite of many having originally regarded it as a blight on natural beauty of the Santa Monica mountains - and in 1978 a handful of celebrities, including the rock star Alice Cooper agreed to buy individual letters for $27,000 each, so that the landmark could be rebuilt. Cooper later turned his O into lots of small Os and handed them out to his friends.
Aside from the issue of the sign being obscured, there is also concern that the landmark might be increasingly used as a billboard to raise money for the city. It has already been modified several times, provoking complaints from the editorial pages of the Los Angeles Times (whose former publisher, Harry Chandler, was one of the backers of Hollywoodland).
Nevertheless, the paper gave the most recent stunt its blessing, saying that protection of the sign and the surrounding land “would be a lasting gift to the people of LA”.
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