How the Hollywood Sign Is Celebrating Its Centennial
The Hollywood Sign is ready for its close-up: The iconic monument, set in the Santa Monica Mountains overlooking the city of Los Angeles, celebrates its 100th year in 2023 after quite a facelift. This past October, 10 workers spent more than three weeks applying 400 gallons of white paint while perched on ladders on the slope on Mount Lee, where the sign stands.
It is thought December 8, 2023, will mark the actual 100th birthday of the world-famous sign, because on that date in 1923, 4,000 light bulbs first illuminated the 45-foot-high white letters in stages—from “Holly” to “Wood ” to “Land” and then the entire Hollywoodland— aiming to lure people living in Downtown LA to a new housing development of the same name.
“The sign was finalized by turning on the lightbulbs on December 8 in 1923,” says Hollywood Sign Trust Chair, Jeff Zarrinnam, a Hollywood native who still lives within sight of the sign. “But the letters were standing during 1923 and we are celebrating all year long.”
The sign’s rise-and-fall (and rise again) history is the kind of drama Hollywood, the industry, loves. When the boom years of the Roaring Twenties turned into the bust of the Great Depression, the development fell flat and the sign into eventual disrepair. By 1946, after a storm toppled the H, the LA Parks and Recreation department stepped in, ready to raze it. Thankfully, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce took over and in a stroke of genius during renovations in 1949, the last four letters were removed and the sign’s allure changed completely.
“Over the years it has transformed from a marketing ploy to a monument,” says Zarrinnam. “The sign represents everything that has gone on in Hollywood, right from The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind and all the movies that came after."
“It’s a beacon, it draws people,” he adds. “There’s an emotional response to it. It’s not just nine letters up there.”
In 1973, those nine letters gained National Landmark status, but that didn’t prevent the indignity of the third O falling down Mount Lee in the late 1970s, and arsonists also setting fire to the second L. Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner and rocker Alice Cooper were among donors who funded construction of a new sign, built the same size as the old one, but with structural improvements so it might this time stand the test of time.
The sign has done that and more: it has become a movie star itself, portrayed as fictitious victim in movies like Earthquake, Superman," and The Day After Tomorrow. The Trust is petitioning for the sign to have its own star on Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame, alongside all the greats who have worked within its metaphorical shadow.
The Trust’s citywide centennial plans throughout the birthday year include building a quarter scale sign to be placed and moved around the city (for those selfie moments!); a partnership with the Walt Disney Company, which also celebrates its centennial in 2023; a film festival at the Egyptian Theatre showing films starring the sign; and a birthday street party on Hollywood Boulevard in December. On a practical note, 2023 plans include star studded galas to raise funds for the sign’s maintenance and for a planned visitor center.
Like the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, or the Space Needle, the Hollywood Sign is an instantly recognizable city monument and a beacon for both those who work in the hardscrabble movie and entertainment industry and, thinks Zarrinnam, for people from everywhere who visit the city.
“It’s a lure: it signifies hopes and dreams, and inspires people,” he says. “I call it the great motivator. You see that sign and think, OK, let’s go!”
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