Entertainment Industry
The Hollywood Sign is such an iconic structure that it never needs an introduction or description to first-time visitors who are guests. They know it well, having seen it untold times in movies, TV shows and news pieces. They’ve almost certainly seen a picture of it many times too. Interestingly if you next ask them…
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The Sunset Strip is one of the most famous streets in Los Angeles – and that’s saying something, bearing in mind that Hollywood Boulevard and the Walk of Fame are just a few miles to the east. First gaining prominence in the 1920’s, when speakeasies and gambling joints began to appear along its length, the…
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When we mention the Broadway Los Angeles Theater District on our tours, visitors from outside Southern California can get confused. Don’t we mean Broadway New York? Their confusion only increases when we tell them that the area in downtown actually has the largest number of historic theaters in the U.S. It does perhaps seem incredible…
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The San Fernando Valley is, in many ways, underrated. Sure, it has some big attractions, such as Universal Studios, but it’s often derided as a suburban sprawl that’s generally way hotter than the rest of Los Angeles and much less interesting. It’s not seen as having either the cultural might of Hollywood, nor the theme park riches…
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When the TCL Chinese Theatre opened in 1927 it was known as Sid Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and some older Angelenos still call it such. Directly opposite, across the Walk of Fame, is the El Capitan Theatre, now owned by Disney, but when it opened in 1926 it was a Broadway style theatre that was part-owned…
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The performing arts building at 1735 Vine Street, now known as the Avalon, has been singularly successful over the course of its nearly hundred-year-old life. When the Hollywood Playhouse opened in the 1920’s most theaters being erected in Los Angeles were being designed for moving pictures, meaning a smaller stage area was needed. The developers…
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The name of Beverly Hills is synonymous with Los Angeles and the movie-star lifestyle. There probably isn’t a single visitor to Southern California who hasn’t heard of this small city, nestled on the slopes of the Santa Monica mountains, in the LA suburbs. It forms one of the four pillars of the city’s praetorian glamor…
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In 1890 Victor Ponet, a Belgian businessman and diplomat, bought 240 acres of the old Rancho La Brea. His new estate consisted mostly of poinsettia fields and was just west of a small village that was only just becoming known as Hollywood. Eventually, in 1904, Ponet had a six-hundred foot long dirt road cleared to…
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In the end, everything is a gag. Charles Chaplin Charles Spencer Chaplin, or ‘Charlie’ for short, is one of the most influential figures from the early days of Hollywood and one of the entertainment industry’s first, and greatest, superstars. Not only do his pioneering silent films endure the test of time, with six of his…
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There is something very LA about Film Noir. In the same way that the novels of Charles Dickens recreate the feel of Victorian London, Film Noir perfectly captures the aesthetic and feel of 1940’s Los Angeles. The different aspects of the city, from beautiful sunny beaches to a downtown concrete jungle, made a perfect setting for these dark stories, as the paranoid protagonist falls into…
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