The story of our sign dates back to 1923. Southern Pacific and Santa Fe railroads were luring people with their cheap fares to California and as the masses rolled in from their chilly climates, Los Angeles emerged from its status as a sleepy town.
In order to accommodate the new influx of people, greedy developers scrambled to make their mark. The publisher of the Los Angeles Times, Harry Chandler, formed an association that was to build a subdivision in Beachwood Canyon above what later became Hollywood.
Borrowing from the promotional methods that the blossoming movie studios were using, practically overnight the huge letters that spelled HOLLYWOODLAND appeared on a mountainside north of town.
The gimmick featured letters covered with sheet metal painted white and was supported by telephone poles, wires, pipes and crossbeams. With the help of 40,000 20-watt bulbs, the sign twinkled at night and cost $21,000.
But the years were not entirely kind to the sign. And the Depression forced Chandler’s real estate venture into bankruptcy. Maintenance of the sign ended and its deterioration began. Termites and weather vanquished the letters. Vandals smashed the bulbs. Then in 1944, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce took over the upkeep of the sign and removed the LAND.
Many legends and lore surround the famous sign. A trend was started in the 1930’s by Peg Entwistle, an English actress who made her way to Hollywood. She had a small role in the film, Thirteen Women, but was otherwise unable to find work. And in September 1932, her body was found at the foot of the Hollywood sign. Apparently, she had dived off one of the letters and in turn “other disillusioned starlets followed her lead, and the Hollywood sign became a notorious signing-off place” (Hollywood Babylon, 168).
Of course many film producers have staged scenes among the letters, perhaps the most notable being the mass panic scene in 1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
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