Happy 83rd Birthday, Hollywood Sign!

I lived in L.A. in the early 1970s. My father grew up in Silverlake, & I chose to go to University at Loyola Marymount. They were happy years, full of adventures (some of which I have done blog posts on & some to be done in the future. I actually love the city. I was never less then thrilled when ever I caught view of the Hollywood Sign. For me, it symbolized not just the glamour & excitement of the movie industry, but also the hardship & heart break of trying to be an actor.

The sign is located on the southern side of Mount Lee, the tallest place in L.A., in Griffith Park, north of the Mulholland Highway.The Hollywood Sign measures 450 feet long, its mammoth letters are 45 feet high, & it's visible from all parts of Hollywood & many neighborhoods of L.A. Erected in 1923 as an advertising sign for a real estate development in Beachwood Canyon- Hollywoodland The last 4 letters were removed in 1945, after Hollywood was well known as the world's movie capital, & the Sign had become a well known landmark. It is officially- "Los Angeles Cultural-Historical Monument #111.


In 1932, a despondent young actress, Peg Entwistle, jumped to her death from the Sign's giant letter "H."


The original sign contained thousands of light bulbs, which were changed daily by a caretaker who lived in a small house behind one of the Sign's giant "L's.


In 1978, in large part because of the public campaign to restore the lanndmark by Alice Cooper (who donated the missing O), a group set out to replace the intensely deteriorated sign with a more permanent structure. 9 donors gave$27,700 each to replace the with letters made of steel, guaranteed to last for many Donors.


The new letters are 45 feet tall & range from 31 to 39 feet wide. The new version of the sign was unveiled on Hollywood's 75th anniversary, November 14, 1978, before a live television audience of 60 million people. The doners were:


• H - Terrence Donnelly – publisher of the Hollywood Independent Newspaper
• O - Giovanni Mazza – Italian movie producer
• L - Les Kelley – originator of the Kelley Blue Book
• L - Gene Autry – singer, actor and businessman
• Y - Hugh Hefner – founder of Playboy magazine
• W - Andy Williams – singer
• O - Warner Bros. Records
• O - Alice Cooper – singer, who donated in memory of comedian Groucho Marx
• D - Dennis Lidtke – businessman


In spring of this year, Hugh Hefner donated the final $900,000 needed to save the Hollywood sign from extinction. The land on which the sign sits, once owned by Howard Hughes, had been touted as a potential site for luxury homes or a posh new hotel. The developers offered to sell the 138 acres to the city, but the money had to be gathered by Late April 2010.” To save the landmark, the Trust for Public Land, a conservation group, needed to raise $12.5 million.

Donations from Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Aileen Getty, Norman Lear, and studios such as Sony, NBC Universal, and Warner Bros. put T.P.L. just $1 million short. Thanks, Hef, for coming through & saving the sign. Hefner: “I am proud we were able to come together & create a public/private partnership to protect this historic symbol that will continue to welcome dreamers, artists & Austrian bodybuilders for generations to come.”