“AND THAT’S SHOW BIZ” A HOLLYWOOD ICON TURNS 100

hen we jumped at the chance to marry overlooking the Hollywood sign back in the day, our Angeleno guests thought we were eccentric. Had we really chosen our inconvenient venue—a friend’s tiny cottage on a narrow lane buried within the neighborhood’s most convoluted hills and canyons—just because of the view from the rickety deck?

Yes, we had. We starstruck British expats were now proud Angelenos ourselves, at least for the next decade, and to us, the sign was a symbol of the promised land to which we had made our personal gold rush. Though back then, it was a neglected, almost unloved relic of cinema’s golden age. It had only recently escaped the wrecking ball thanks to a massive fundraising effort by Hugh Hefner, Alice Cooper, and other celebs who felt it deserved to be preserved for posterity.

Fast-forward forty years, and what started as nothing more ambitious than a temporary property billboard is finally getting the attention it deserves. The Hollywood landmark, now an icon for LA itself, is celebrating its centenary and moving from its hidden status as the province of serious hikers and climbers to a new era of accessibility soon to be endowed with a purpose-built visitors’ center to tell its incredible story.

The centenary marks a sea change, not just in the move from dilapidation to restoration with 250 gallons of white paint every decade, but in attitude. In 1932, the sign became a symbol of industry shame as well as fame when actress Peg Entwhistle, propelled by professional disappointment, leaped forty feet to her death from atop the H.

From that time, the danger of the precarious location led to a move to deter visitors, but now they are actively welcomed to get up close and personal with the sign: tour leaders shepherd walkers around the base and supervise the tougher hikes up to the pinnacle behind the giant letters. Meanwhile, the history of the sign will be writ large in a new exhibit at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which boasts a view of the sign from its panoramic rooftop terrace. “It’s such a symbol of how the city developed along with the movie industry itself,” says curator Dara Jaffe.

Indeed, when it went up unannounced one hundred years ago, the illuminated billboard was a rare spectacle in an era that predated the neon signs of Las Vegas by twenty years. The string of 43-foot-tall, 30-foot-wide letters was programmed to switch on in progression, spelling out “HOLLY…WOOD…LAND” in electric lights as dusk fell over La-La Land.

The final syllable was still standing when the city took over responsibility for the sign, which fell into dereliction after the property company that put it up to promote their suburban homes went under in the Depression. But the “LAND” was removed five years later by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce when they saw an opportunity for neighborhood branding in the sign that had lost its fateful H by then. They restored the H in a deal that reduced maintenance by killing the lightbulbs and shortening the letter count. It was far from a permanent solution. By the time my other half and I arrived in LA—attracted by the superficial glamour of the Hollywood lifestyle