The history of Hollywood

Turcu Mihnea -12 I

• Summary:
-The Name “Hollywood”
-The starting years for Hollywood
-Hollywood between 1922-1948
-Golden Age between 1940-1940
-Second World War
-TV series era
-Hollywood stars
• Hollywood is a district in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., situated west-
northeast of Downtown. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the
historical center of movie studios and stars, the word "Hollywood" is often
used as a metonym for the American film and television industry

• Accounts of the name, Hollywood, coming from imported English holly

then growing in the area are incorrect. The name in fact was coined by
Daeida Wilcox (1861–1914) who travelled by train to her old home in the
east. On the train, Mrs. Wilcox met a woman who described her summer
home in Ohio named after a settlement of Dutch immigrants from Zwolle
called "Hollywood”. Daeida was so elated with the name that she
"borrowed" it for her ranch in the Cahuenga Valley; when she returned
home she prevailed on her husband to name their property Hollywood.
• With the combination of film
editing and the telling of
narrative stories, Porter
produced one of the most
important and influential films
of the time to reveal the
possibility of fictional stories
on film. The film was the one-
reel, 14-scene, approximately
10-minute long
The Great Train Robbery (1903
)
- it was based on a real-life
train heist and was a loose
adaptation of a popular stage
production.
• The first nickelodeon, a small storefront theater
or dance hall converted to view films, was
opened in Pittsburgh by Harry Davis in June of
1905, showing The Great Train Robbery. Urban,
foreign-born, working-class, immigrant audiences
loved the cheap form of entertainment and were
the predominent cinema-goers. One-reel shorts,
silent films, melodramas, comedies, or novelty
pieces were usually accompanied with piano
playing, sing-along songs, illustrated lectures,
other kinds of 'magic lantern' slide shows, skits,
penny arcades, or vaudeville-type acts
• As film production increased,
cinema owner William Fox was one
of the first (in 1904) to form a
distribution company (a regional
rental exchange), that bought shorts
and then rented them to exhibitors
at lower rates. The Warner brothers
(Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack)
opened their first theatre, the
Cascade, in New Castle,
Pennsylvania in 1903, and then in
1904 founded the Pittsburgh-based
Duquesne Amusement & Supply
Company (the precursor to Warner
Bros. Pictures) to distribute films.
 Hollywood between 1922-1948

• In 1923, The Hollywoodland Real Estate Group

unleashed one of history's brashest and longest-lived
promotions. In the course of that event, a Sign was
born .Hollywood Sign is a famous landmark in the
Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, spelling out
the name of the area in 50-foot[1] (15.2 m) high white
letters. It was created as an advertisement in 1923
• In 1925-26, America technologically
revolutionized the entire industry, with
the formation of the Vitaphone
Company (a subsidiary created by
Warner Bros. and Western Electric).
Warner Bros. launched sound and
talking pictures, with Bell Telephone
Laboratory researchers, by developing a
revolutionary synchronized sound
system called Vitaphone (a short-lived
sound-on-disc process developed in
1925 that quickly became obsolete by
1931)
 3. Hollywood between 1948-1992

• Hollywood, with characteristic resilience, made the

transition to TV. On January 22, 1947, the first commercial
TV station west of the Mississippi River, KTLA, began
operating in Hollywood. In December of that year, the
first Hollywood movie production was made for TV, The
Public Prosecutor. And in the 1950s, music recording
studios and offices began moving into Hollywood. Other
businesses, however, continued to migrate to different
parts of the Los Angeles area, primarily to Burbank. Much
of the movie industry remained in Hollywood, although
the district's outward appearance changed.
• After 1939, things began to change. Antitrust lawsuits broke up
the studios' control of film distribution. Many people felt the
stars had too much power. To make matters worse, the Hays
Commission, a self-regulatory body of the film industry, was
set up in the late 1940s to control the moral content of
Hollywood movies. Many stars found themselves blacklisted
(put on a list of people not to be hired) on moral grounds.
• Hollywood experienced the flight of film power centers in the
turbulent 60s. By 1970, Paramount was the only major studio
left in town. Many other studios went bankrupt after the
difficult years of blacklisting and television dominance. But
movies weren't the only game around. The Sign -- well, it
didn't take a Weatherman to show what the elements had
done. In 1973, the Cultural Heritage Board gave the Sign
landmark status, but it was still in need of tender loving care.
• In 1985, the Hollywood Boulevard commercial
and entertainment district was officially listed
in the National Register of Historic Places
protecting the neighborhood's important
buildings and seeing to it that the significance
of Hollywood's past would always be a part of
its future
 New millennium
• In a spellbinding display of lights and megawatt
special effects, the nine 45-foot letters of the
Hollywood Sign were lit, one by one, as Los Angeles
counted down to the New Millennium. Standing
beside event host Jay Leno, then-Mayor Richard
Riordan "flipped the switch" at the 15 seconds
before midnight, illuminating the 450-foot-long Sign
in a dance of swirling hues and cinematic lightning
effects that was visible throughout Hollywood and
beyond