The Story of Hollywood

by Gregory Paul Williams

  The Walk of Fame theoretically halted Hollywood’s decline. One booster said it would clean up “decrepit, honky-tonk type of properties.” Hollywood’s elegant light standards along its namesake boulevard disappeared for more modern ones. The city planted new sidewalk trees, this time ficus that grew to cover storefront signs and crack the sidewalk.

  The original Robertson’s Department Store/ J.C. Penney

  The 1960’s remodeling of the Robertson’s building.

  The renovation of the same site in 2003.

  The remodeling of facades proved a perfect example of one generation hating the architecture of its immediate predecessors. Details in Churrigueresque and now-considered-outdated Art Deco disappeared for more modern ornamentation. When Penney’s left its McCadden Place store, formerly Robertson’s, the building became unrecognizable after a modernization added two stories and a new facade. In 2000, it would undergo another complete remodel.

  To help Hollywood’s image, Sol Lessor, a producer in Hollywood since the early ‘20s, proposed a $4-million Hollywood Hall of Fame on three acres east of the Hollywood Bowl. Besides a museum, Lessor envisioned a five-hundred-seat theater and two soundstages for movie production. Lessor’s intent was serious enough to evict, under eminent domain, the owners of residential property on the site. Marilyn Monroe, as a young girl, had lived briefly with her mother in this area. When one resident, Steve Anthony, refused to move, SWAT teams violently evicted him after weeks of a televised standoff. After the demolition of Anthony’s home and others, the much-touted Hollywood Hall of Fame died from lack of support and money. (Toberman, who had encouraged the project, had received a bomb threat on his new First Federal building during this time.)

  The model of the never-built Hollywood Hall of Fame, 1961.

  In another eminent domain, the City of Los Angeles took Wattles Estate for a city park. Gurdon Wattles’s widow fought the seizure, led by a Chamber of Commerce member who ran a successful Pontiac dealership on Hollywood Boulevard. This businessman also served on the Park Commission and hoped to have the new park named after him. After the city seized Wattles Estate, officials discovered that city regulations required naming parks only after the people who donate the land. As city property, the Wattles Estate fell into disrepair.

  The Gittleson building in 1935.

  The Gittelson Building, northwest Hollywood and Wilcox in 1998, long after modernization removed the Chirrigueresque ornamentation for metal siding.

  East of Wattles, Huntington Hartford offered Runyon Canyon to the city for a park. Refused, Hartford sold the house and grounds to the importer of Kahlua who razed the mansion in 1964 and planned one hundred and fifty-seven luxury homes. Neighbors put up strong resistance. It took them ten years to kill the project.

  Marilyn Monroe poses with the 20th Century Fox newsreel crew on the Sunset and Western Fox lot circa 1953.

  Amid protest, the Garden of Allah at Sunset and Crescent Heights disappeared in 1959 for a bank and a bland mini-mall.

  The original Fox lot that straddled both southern corners at Sunset and Western disappeared in 1961. The historic and still-useful site remained in production up to its demolition. Marilyn Monroe worked there in its last years; TV’s Dobie Gillis shot on the lot. A suburban supermarket and chain drugstore took its place.

  The southwest corner of Sunset and Western, the former Fox lot, in 1999.

  THE SIXTIES

  Changing patterns of retail killed shopping districts across America, not just in Hollywood. In 1962, the first mass marketers, K-Mart, Target, and Wal-Mart, opened in suburbs across the country. Variety stores were dead.

  The Hollywood American Legion sensed it was time to close their waning boxing stadium. They leased the space in 1960. Contractors buried the fight arena under fifty feet of concrete for a bowling alley called Hollywood Legion Lanes.

  Harlan Palmer sold the Hollywood Citizen News to the publisher of the Beverly Hills Citizen in 1961. The paper declined and, in 1970, transferred the business to legal advertising.

  Members of Hollywood’s past who remained in the district were mostly silent film or supporting actors. Two Hollywood residents, William Frawley of I Love Lucy and Percy “Pa Kettle” Kilbraid, both died of heart attacks while on regular strolls along Hollywood Boulevard.

  Joseph Kearns, the first Mr. Wilson on television’s Dennis the Menace, lived north of Hollywood Boulevard on Vista del Mar. An organ aficionado, Kearns had a huge pipe organ in his early-Hollywood home. He entertained with it regularly. (Silent film director Mickey Neilan gets credit for starting the fad of pipe organs in Hollywood houses that was the rage in the ‘20s.)

  In 1962, Clara Blandick, best known for her portrayal of Auntie Em in The Wizard of Oz, put on an evening gown, lay down on her Shelton apartment sofa, and pulled a plastic bag over her head. Also that year, Irene Lentz, the second-most-famous female costume designer to Edith Head, jumped to her death from the eleventh story of the Knickerbocker Hotel. Unlike most of Hollywood’s jumpers, Irene was famous enough to have her suicide reported in the papers. Ironically, people thought she had died in New York because of the name of the hotel.

  When Los Angeles removed its twelve-story height limit in 1957 (imposed for earthquake safety in 1905), high-rises appeared. One real estate entrepreneur removed the original Hollywood Woman’s Club and put boring twin corporate towers at Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea.

  The pioneering Muller family built a high-rise at northeast Ivar and Sunset where, in 1893, patriarch Jacob Muller had opened his meat market. RCA Records installed offices and a modern recording studio in the building.

  In 1960, the Max Factor company gave Hollywood its first tower, a black-glass structure across from the Chinese Theater. It served as Factor’s world headquarters.

  Sunset and Vine got a thin high-rise bank on its southeast corner in 1963, removing the Carpenter’s Drive-in.

  Ann-Margaret at groundbreaking for the RCA building on the Muller family’s Sunset Boulevard property. Inset: Sunset Boulevard looking west from Vine Street to the RCA Building, 1961.

  The Muller Brothers demolished their “world’s largest” service station for Pacific Theaters Cinerama Dome, 6360 West Sunset Boulevard. Buckminster Fuller designed the world’s only geodesic dome made completely from concrete.

  The Streamline Moderne NBC radio center at Sunset and Vine came down in 1963. Home Savings and Loan took the corner with a building by architect Millard Sheets that included historical Hollywood stained glass windows. The bank gave Pioneer Broadcasters a room in the basement as a nod to the corner’s broadcasting past.

  With the loss of NBC, Nickodell’s closed its Argyle Avenue restaurant, and continued its Melrose restaurant near Gower Street.

  Next to NBC, the Otto K. Olesen Building, a relic from the Paramount-Lasky days, disappeared for a parking lot. Olesen relocated to Ivar Avenue Otto K. Olesen died the same year.

  Nickodell’s Melrose Avenue restaurant, near Paramount Studios.

  NBC Radio’s demolition, 1963.

  Hollywood Ranch Market was one of the first twenty-four-hour markets, on southeast Vine Street and Fountain Avenue (demolished).

  When Peggy Stevenson served as Hollywood’s City Council representative, developers built tall apartment buildings across the district, replacing blocks of vintage single homes. Ozzie Nelson wrote of his neighborhood, “The big beautiful homes that used to line the street from Hollywood Boulevard to Franklin Avenue have all been swept away by bulldozers.” High-density units offered few amenities, minimum setbacks, and limited open space. Absentee landlords owned most of them. By 1963, the number of renters in the area had doubled since 1944.

  Though Toberman had sold his real estate holdings, he acted as broker for an apartment project where his first Hollywood home had stood on Orange Avenue. The Madison Apartments served as his vision for Hollywood’s future of modestly priced high-rise apartments. When the investment group fell behind on payments, Toberman’s First Federal
foreclosed on the building.

  Toberman also acted as advisor on one of the last upscale subdivisions in Hollywood, Mt. Olympus. On the eastern side of Laurel Canyon, with streets named after Greek gods, it was considered a financial disappointment. Two other subdivisions at the time were moderately more successful: one in Los Feliz, on a tract east of Fern Dell Park that had grown cut flowers, and the other by Lake Hollywood.

  The proposed Hollywood Ardmore built at 1838 North Whitley Avenue replaced vintage homes.

  Palladium crowds line up to buy tickets for a dinner honoring President John Kennedy, 1961.

  Syndicated and network TV shows provided some show-business cachet. In 1961, Lawrence Welk began a long run of champagne music from the Palladium. Joe Pyne conducted punchy, opinionated shows from KTTV. Steve Allen brought his talk show to the Filmarte on Vine Street. (Owners had adapted the theater for television in 1952.) ABC bought the former Mutual–Don Lee on Vine Street from CBS. Joey Bishop briefly held forth as a late-night challenger to Johnny Carson. Regis Philbin served as his sidekick.

  In 1963, the Los Angeles Times sold KTTV at Sunset and Van Ness to Metromedia who took out nearby apartments for more soundstages. Gene Autry’s Golden West Broadcasting bought KTLA (Warner Studios) across the street.

  KABC, on Prospect Avenue, steamed merrily along under general manager Elton Rule. It was one of the most successful stations in the country. In 1968, over lunch at the Vine Street Brown Derby, Rule accepted the job as head of the ABC network on the basis of his station’s success.

  In late 1963, ABC made a deal with Jerry Lewis for a two-hour variety show from Vine Street’s El Capitan Theater. Lewis received $8 million for forty Saturday-night shows a year, making him the highest-paid star in television. The comedian sank $4.5 million of the network’s money into remodeling the theater, adding gold-upholstered seats, a gold curtain, and his gold-leaf initials on the front doors. A cast-concrete caricature of his face went in the front sidewalk.

  The Jerry Lewis Show debuted with much fanfare on September 21, 1963. Lewis thought he could improvise the program, but it proved to be a disaster. A few weeks later, ABC pulled the show and chiseled Lewis’s caricature off the sidewalk.

  Lewis’s mid-season replacement, The Hollywood Palace, renamed the theater and hosted a popular show with rotating celebrity emcees. Bing Crosby was the first. Dean Martin hosted frequently, making cracks about Jerry fixing up the theater for him. Raquel Welch got a career boost holding cards on camera.

  Don Lee’s Mutual TV studio became ABC’s Vine Street Theater, northwest Vine Street and Fountain Avenue.

  Vine Street looking south from Yucca Ave, 1960.

  KFWB crew strike, early ‘60s.

  Number-one rocker in the early ‘60s, KFWB Radio at 6411 Hollywood Boulevard (demolished).

  Recorded music formed the heart of Hollywood’s continuing entertainment business. With the success of the Tijuana Brass, Herb Alpert’s A&M readapted Chaplin’s film studio on La Brea Avenue for sound recording. Plush offices of independent record companies with a freewheeling atmosphere lined Sunset. Liberty, Dot, Imperial, Crystal, and Specialty opened their doors to anyone auditioning original material.

  Capitol Records signed Roy Clark, the Four Freshmen, Lou Rawls, and the Kingston Trio. The record label also discovered the Beach Boys. A Capitol executive lured the Beatles to their first American recording contract in 1963 after Capitol had rejected the group’s first four singles. The group refused to do an American tour until they were number one on the charts. In 1964, holding all five top spots, the Beatles played at the Hollywood Bowl.

  When Warner Brothers sold KFWB, the station moved out of Warners Theater and into a former Blondeau building next door. With its top-forty format, KFWB’s Channel 98 Color Radio became the number one rock-and-roll station in Los Angeles. KMPC at Sunset and Gordon was the number one radio station in Los Angeles.

  Local radio deejays determined what records made it on air. Record-company promo men went station to station, wining and dining disc jockeys, often at Martoni’s on Cahuenga Boulevard.

  Steak restaurants were also popular. Diamond Jim’s in the former Penney’s at McCadden Place served steaks under pictures of Jim and Diamond Lil. Over on La Brea, south of Hollywood Boulevard, Edna Earle’s Fog Cutters offered steaks in rooms so dark that the waiters used flashlights to point out cuts of meat on the menu.

  Pandora’s Box, at Crescent Heights and Sunset Boulevards (demolished).

  During the sixties, teenage waifs invaded Hollywood, creating a crowded hippie scene. Dance clubs and after-hours places with pool tables lined Hollywood Boulevard to cater to them. One participant recalled an upstairs Hollywood Boulevard hole-in-the-wall where she heard the Righteous Brothers sing You Lost That Lovin’ Feeling for the first time.

  Playmates, at Hollywood Boulevard and Wilcox, was the first place in Los Angeles to offer hip-hugging bellbottoms. Frederick’s of Hollywood first offered French bikinis to America. Police arrested a Frederick’s customer for wearing her bikini on a California public beach.

  In his autobiography, The Beat Goes On, Sonny Bono wrote that he first saw Cher at Aldo’s, a restaurant at Hollywood and Cahuenga favored by record promoters. Cher was on a date with someone else. Three weeks later he saw her again out his apartment window at Franklin Avenue and Vine. She had run away from home and was living with her friends. Cher first worked at See’s Candy Store on southeast of Hollywood and Wilcox. Sonny wrote, “In all the years Cher and I were together, there was no more romantic period than these first few months.” He thrilled her with a pawnshop diamond ring he had bought near the Vine Street Brown Derby.

  Sunset Strip, which had suffered decline, became hard to navigate as rock clubs proliferated. Beginning in 1964, local groups like Iron Butterfly, The Love, The Seeds, and Buffalo Springfield made their names in these clubs. Pandora’s Box, a small, square structure on a median island at Sunset and Crescent Heights, featured veteran rhythm and blues singers and black musicians. Its location offered a place to sunbathe during the day and party at night.

  From dusk until dawn, famous faces from the Monkees and the Mamas and the Papas joined the crowds in Hollywood streets and clubs. Elvis Presley liked to hang out at the Velvet Rope, a club later called Club Lingerie at Sunset and Wilcox.

  Northwest corner of Hollywood and Cahuenga Boulevards at night, 1961.

  Martoni’s, 1523 Cahuenga Boulevard, circa 1986 (demolished).

  The local establishment’s distaste for the youth culture brought a police-imposed 10 p.m. curfew for anyone under 18. The curfew caused several skirmishes between police and protestors in 1966. Police closed Pandora’s Box. The structure was razed in 1969. The median island disappeared with it. Local resident Joni Mitchell paid tribute to the intersection that had also lost the Garden of Allah in her album Ladies of the Canyon (i.e., Laurel Canyon). It featured a song about paving paradise and putting up a parking lot.

  Hanging out and lining up at Hullabaloo, 1965.

  Radio station owner Don Fedderson first hosted Saturday Teen Night at his Palladium in 1948. By the ‘60s, the event grew to a full spring weekend. Teenage Fair, 1965.

  Earl Carroll’s Sunset Boulevard showroom became the Hullabaloo in 1965. A giant teen dance hall, it held two thousand people. Carroll’s rotating stage allowed one band to set up while another performed. The Sound Machine, the Mandala, the Peanut Butter Conspiracy, the Factory, Electric Prune, and others made music here. Hullabaloo stayed open until 6:00 a.m., when the police pulled the plug. The clientele then partied in the parking lot and slept on the sidewalk.

  Though the scene had changed radically, the lifespan of a Hollywood nightclub remained the same — short. In 1968, Hullabaloo became the Kaleidoscope for one year. Then, as the Aquarius Theater, it hosted the musical Hair in 1969.

  Hollywood hotels now catered to transients renting on a weekly basis. The St. Francis, the Montecito, and the Regent proved the rule: if the hotel was in central H
ollywood, it had become a flophouse. The Lido on Wilcox Avenue mixed hippies with the down-and-outers. The Eagles used its lobby for their Hotel California album cover. It also inspired Frank Zappa’s Willie the Pimp.

  A few former City of Homes dwellings became crash pads. “Tortilla House” on Las Palmas Avenue, north of Hollywood Boulevard housed one hundred transients at a time. An abandoned Laurel Canyon estate said to have been Houdini’s home served as another hangout. After a fire destroyed it, the caretaker remained in the only room untouched by fire. To get to the bathroom, visitors slid along burned-out walls and floors. The place became a haven for drug addicts and was later demolished.

  The House of Westmore beauty salon closed after thirty years in business. Frank Westmore wrote that the area “had deteriorated, with porno bookshops and souvenir stands sprouting where fine boutiques had flourished.” Both stars and the general public had stopped coming.

  After Mary Grace’s husband Ernest died in 1964, the Janes sisters rarely left their kitchen. Carrie slept in a window seat. Mary Grace made a bed above some cabinets while Mabel slept in a padded chair. In 1967, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce tried to get them to move again, insisting that their land was worth $500,000. The sisters kept the doors bolted and refused to answer. Mary Grace told a reporter, “Mr. Whitley built this house, and he told us it was the best house he’d ever built. There’s nothing wrong with it.”