Historic Hollywood

CHAPTER II
H OLLYWOOD G ROWS INTO A M ODERN T OWN
1911-1920
There is no simple answer, but many various reasons and events that resulted in a quiet,
conservative community becoming the most famous location in the world almost overnight. This
unlikely changeover could be called the first “Hollywood ending,” as it was something that no one
would have believed in the summer of 1911.
The area in and around Los Angeles had seen many companies film or locate their studios there
since the Selig Company’s first use of the area in 1907. Problems with weather (most filming, both
interior and exterior, was done outdoors), limited scenic options, the iron-fisted tactics of the newly
formed monopoly, The Motion Picture Patents Company (created by Thomas Edison) and the
strength of the New York unions resulted in filmmakers looking elsewhere. Better weather and less
regulated working conditions sent some to Florida, especially around Jacksonville, and even Cuba.
But Florida was too flat and Cuba already had Edison and his Patents Trust there.
Southern California had the climate, every imaginable landscape within a two hour drive, little
regulation, was three thousand miles from the Trust, and was a short trip to Mexico if the Trust did
arrive. There was also plenty of real estate and the cost of living was far less than New York, and these
❖
In December 1913 the Jesse L. Lasky
Feature Play Company came to
Hollywood and set up a studio
adjacent to the Stern family horse
barn at Selma Avenue and Vine
Street. The Lasky Company made its
first “Hollywood” feature film there,
The Squaw Man, and in 1916
merged with Famous Players
Company forming Famous
Players-Lasky, a forerunner of
Paramount Pictures.
Chapter II ✦ 9