BY THE SUPERFICIAL GLAMOUR OF THE HOLLYWOOD LIFESTYLE”

we had read about as children in the pages of Photoplay—the sign was becoming derelict again, with part of the D and one of the O’s falling down a mountain and a deliberately set fire burning one of the L’s.

Luckily for our future wedding ambitions, several celebrities agreed to stump up nearly $28,000 apiece to replace the half-century-old ruin, whose surviving letters were auctioned off for $35,000 each, at a total cost of $250,000. They included Alice Cooper, who dedicated one of the O’s to his old pal Groucho Marx; Andy Williams, who sponsored the new W; and performing cowboy Gene Autry, who pledged allegiance to one of the L’s. It’s not recorded whether locals were traumatized by the sight of hills devoid of their neighborhood landmark for three months before a bigger, better, much more stable sign was installed in 1978.

Between then and now, celebrity stunts rather than criminal acts and natural disasters (happily, no more recorded suicides) have made headlines around the sign. Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh was famously photographed flying over it in 1998, and a mountain lion prowling beneath the giant letters was captured by a photographer for National Geographic in 2013. It seems hardly surprising in a city that has led the boom in marijuana sales that it has twice been vandalized to read “Hollyweed,” marking the two phases of changes in legislation, while its brief iteration as “Holywood” was intended as an homage to Pope John Paul II making a rare visit to the City of Angels, with the second L restored to its proper prominence after he left town.

Now an institution regularly inspected, shored up, and repainted, the Hollywood sign has its own trust planning a visitors’ center, though no date has yet been announced for breaking ground. But you don’t need a ticket—only a decent GPS—to find Innsdale Drive, from where an easy trail leads around the Lake Hollywood reservoir into the old Hollywoodland estate, offering excellent close-up views of the sign from beneath the base. While tour guides are unnecessary, they are a great source of Hollywood lore and will take you into the estate and past some of the fine homes the sign was put up to promote, ensuring you don’t miss the unmarked entry back onto the trail.

In November, a new exhibit bearing the name of the original billboard— Hollywoodland—will open at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Yet although the sign will be documented along with other landmarks from LA’s golden age, the show’s title is a misnomer. The focus of the exhibit is actually the Jewish refugee founders of the movie industry who were marginalized by society one hundred years ago, despite the prosperity they brought to their adopted home, and then overlooked again by the museum, which failed to pay them tribute when it opened in 2021. How fitting—they were the stars of the show who never got invited to the premiere, like the sign that symbolized their success was left to languish unloved for half a century. Now both the men and the giant letters that have come to represent all they achieved will get their full due in what has been declared the first and only permanent exhibition in the museum, as an apology for the original unjust exclusion.

Hollywoodland is finally a show that will run and run.