Historic Hollywood

put in effect to prevent more from moving in.
This pushed studios to outlying areas such as
Culver City and the San Fernando Valley where
they were welcomed. Thus Hollywood avoided
being entirely overrun by the movies that by
1915 considered the community its own
backlot, using its streets, sidewalks, parks, and
buildings whenever needed.
As an additional signature to the end of one
era, Hollywood most famous citizen, artist Paul
de Longpre died on June 29, 1911. Less than
four months later, David Horsley arrived and
the genteel Hollywood and its then growing
tourist industry would soon have a new reason
to attract visitors.
The emerging popularity of the movies and
the development of the feature film from 1912
to 1914 coincided with its move here. Feature
films needed more locations, especially scenic
exteriors, and Hollywood and environs
provided them. Also, the Trust had opposed
feature films, finding them too expensive and
thinking no one could sit through a one-hour
movie. The independents, now led by D. W.
Griffith, Adolph Zukor, Cecil B. DeMille, Carl
Laemmle, and by 1915, William Fox, pushed
for feature films. This would eventually help
lead to the collapse of the Trust. As World War I
shut down the burgeoning feature film
productions of Europe, Hollywood grew in
stature and importance. By 1919 over 80% of
the world’s movies came from Hollywood and
the surrounding areas.
Hollywood itself was slow to view its success.
There was no movie theater there until 1911
when The Idyl Hour opened, though it was not
much more than a converted storefront with
folding chairs at 6525 Hollywood Boulevard (a
streetcar ride to downtown Los Angeles reached
the center of the city’s theater district). Finally in
1913 a real movie theater arrived with the
opening of the Hollywood Theater on
Hollywood Boulevard at Highland Avenue.
During those two years Hollywood began to
learn to live with its growing fame and the
rapidly evolving industry that was becoming
synonymous with it.
By 1913 the Pacific Electric streetcars
connected the Hollywood rail lines through
Cahuenga Pass and North Hollywood. There
were a half a dozen communities that
surrounded the Hollywood area separated
by rural fields and residential communities.
Seven miles to the east was the once-small
pueblo of Los Angeles that had grown to a
population of 100,000, while Hollywood
had grown to a population of 4,000 by 1909.
It was also in 1913 that Cecil B. DeMille and the
Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company would
arrive in Hollywood to make their first feature
length film, The Squaw Man. At this time there
were several film studios in Hollywood and
one of them was leasing studio space to film
companies at the southeast corner of Selma
and Vine Street. The Revier Studio was
subleasing from the Jacob Stern family who
owned the property at the time. The studio
consisted of a horse barn and open stages
attached for film production. A laboratory and
other facilities were built around the barn that
❖
The Spanish Colonial/Moorish-Style
house located on the southeast corner
of Orange and Franklin Avenue
became a Hollywood landmark when it
was built in 1904. In the mid-teens
Conway Tearle moved here becoming
one of the first film stars to live in
Hollywood proper. Still a landmark,
the house has been the home of the
American Society of Cinematographers
since 1937.
Chapter II ✦ 13