Back Stage Magic Day Two: Let the Walking Begin!

Our second day began with a stroll over to Grumman’s Chinese Theatre for a look at the star’s signatures and handprints in the cement. Upon finding John Wayne’s I was very tempted to get a crow bar and reenact an episode of I Love Lucy.

We then crossed the street and had breakfast at the Hollywood Boulevard Disney Soda Shop and Studio Store which is connected to the Disney’s El Capitan Theatre. This is a fun spot with outstanding ice cream. If you order the pin trader’s sundae you get a special pin commemorating your gluttony and yes, I did get one (you can order your sundae with your choice of two flavors—Tour Guide extraordinaire Quinn Shurian highly recommended the peppermint and he did not steer me wrong…peppermint and hot fudge…I could have died right there a happy man).

Ed, the manager and fellow Hoosier from Fort Wayne Indiana, gave us the grand tour and history of the theatre which was built in 1926 by Charles Toberman as a venue for live stage productions. Eventually it was fitted to show moving pictures and Citizen Kane premiered there in 1941. Shortly thereafter the theatre closed for remodeling and reopened as the Hollywood Paramount movie theatre. In 1948 Paramount had to sell the theatre as a result of the Supreme Court decision in the U.S. versus Paramount Pictures, or the “Hollywood Antitrust Case” as it became more popularly known, which forced movie studios to divest of their theatre chains. After that the theatre changed hands many times falling further into disrepair and near obscurity as the Hollywood area deteriorated in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Fortunately in 1989 Disney struck a deal with the Pacific Theatre chain and took over the management of the theatre putting $14 million dollars into its restoration which included the downstairs smoking lounge which is filled with props and costumes from whatever current Disney feature is playing. Disney reopened the refurbished and resplendent El Capitan in 1991 with the premier of “The Rocketeer”

Part of the theatre’s refurbishment was the acquisition of a Mighty Wurlitzer theatre organ salvaged from the Fox Theatre in San Francisco.

This is a massive musical instrument that raises and lowers from the center of the proscenium with pipes small enough to mimic the song of a bird and large enough to shake the theatre with the sound of a natural disaster. We were lucky enough to get a demonstration of the organ and there is nothing quite like the live experience of a powerful theatre organ. The demonstration basically showed that there is very little in terms of sound that the mighty Wurlitzer could not reproduce. One of the Katie's, no not the one from day one's trivia contest, was celebrating a birthday and we serenaded her with the strains of "Happy Birthday" accompanied by the Mighty Wurlitzer. It would be great to see a silent movie like Chaplin’s “City Lights” or Keaton’s “The General” with the accompaniment of the mighty Wurlitzer.

Recommendation: For future tours find a high quality ten to twenty minute clip or collage of scenes accompanied by the El Capitan’s organist.

From the theatre we walked next door to the building housing Jimmy Kimmel Live show. This building is the former Hollywood Masonic temple constructed in 1921.

For those who believe in the conspiracy that the Masons are a secret society bent on ruling the world here’s a tasty tidbit of trivia. The Temple was built by lodge master, Charles E. Toberman; the same Toberman who built the El Capitan and also constructed other Hollywood landmarks like the Hollywood Bowl, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the Roosevelt Hotel and the Max Facto Building. Many vestiges of Hollywood’s glorious past are long gone but these building still stand (although the Max Factor building is now the home to the Hollywood History Museum) and are in use today. Is it coincidence that they are still standing and in use today or is it due to behind-the-scenes Masonic influence? Or is it just that these were really well constructed buildings that have withstood the ravages of time, urban decay, and numerous earthquakes over the past 80 or so years? Maybe this series of questions should be moved down to the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum.

The Hollywood Masonic Temple was the home lodge for many celebrities such as Oliver Hardy, Harold Lloyd, Douglas Fairbanks, W.C. Fields, Cecil B. DeMille, D.W. Griffith, John Wayne, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry.

The tour of the facility was led by Kelly and Chris, from the production staff, who were very well versed in both the functioning of the Jimmy Kimmel production as well as the history of the building, including ghost sightings. The facility including the taping studio is relatively small including all of the production rooms (director’s booth, editing, etc.). The stage area is also very small and very close to the audience.

From the Masonic Temple we took a luxury travel coach to Jim Henson Studios just off Sunset Boulevard.

The studio was built in 1917 by silent movie legend Charlie Chaplin and his older brother, Sidney. Chaplin worked for a number of the major silent movie studios but in 1919 he, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and legendary director D.W Griffith broke away and formed United Artists so that they could gain more creative control of the picture as well as more control over the distribution process. UA was never meant to be run like a regular movie studio; each of the principal partners had their own production facility and had agreed to produce 5 films per year apiece. However, as the quality and running time of motion pictures began to increase it became more and more difficult for UA’s five partners to crank out a collective 20 feature films a year. They began to bring in other independent film makers to augment their work. One of the “Producing Partners” (as opposed to the Principal or Owning Partners) was none other than the subject of our tour, Walt Disney. In fact, in 1941 Pickford and Chaplin founded the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers along with Walt Disney, Orson Welles, Samuel Goldwyn, David O. Selznick, Hal Roach, and many others in order to fight the large studios who were buying up theatre chains in order to insure a market for their pictures and make it more difficult for the independent producers to find venues for their films.

In 1942, they filed an antitrust suit against Paramount's Theatres. It was the first antitrust suit brought by producers against the studio theatre system alleging monopoly and restraint of trade. This led to the 1948 Supreme Court Decision against Paramount Pictures which caused them to have to sell the El Capitan theatre which Disney then bought in 1989. And thus we have the great circle of life in Hollywood.

Being a student of Hollywood history being in this historic studio was quite a thrill. We were allowed to visit the creature shop and see both how the creatures are designed, created, and operated. There were quite a few old friends scattered about the room. One piece of daunting trivia that we learned is that the hair on all of their realistic animal creatures are applied one hair at a time in order to obtain the ultimate in realism. This seems like an almost impossible task. While we were allowed to take photos of the outside, common areas of the facility we were restricted from taking any photos in most of the inside areas of the studio.

Recommendation: Allow the tour to take pictures in the creature shop. During our visit all we saw were older creatures, nothing of a new, top secret nature. Also, the tour could have contained more information about Chaplin. I would have loved to have seen the inside of his office. I realize that Brian Henson was using it that day, but I think it would have been great to have gotten five minutes of his time to meet our group.

From Henson Studios we headed east across Sunset Boulevard toward Griffith Park. Sunset Boulevard is a treasure trove of early Hollywood history as most of the silent movie studios had facilities somewhere on or just off Sunset. For instance, on the south side of Sunset at Gower was the original home to the Christie-Nestor studios built in 1911. Directly across the street was the home to the Independent Moving Picture Company led by Carl Laemmle who later founded the Universal Film Manufacturing Company in 1912. In 1914 Laemmle bought the 230 acre Nestor Ranch in the San Fernando Valley, just north of Hollywood, christened it Universal City home to Universal Studios. Anyway, back at Sunset and Gower both Christie-Nestor and IMP made a lot of early westerns and the corner eventually became known as Gower Gulch as it was frequently populated with cowboys looking for work as an extra. After the cattle drive was over and the stock safely taken to market most of the hired hands were not needed on the ranch until the following spring. Therefore they eventually matriculated to the corner of Gower and Sunset hoping to be snatched up by someone casting a western. All that is left to commemorate this parcel of early Hollywood history is the Gower Gulch strip mall featuring a restaurant that serves Japanese and Thai cuisine.

In 1921 Columbia Studios bought a 17 acre stretch of land that started at the Southeast Corner of Sunset and Gower and ran east just past Western Avenue. This section of Hollywood today is bordered on the west by Tribune Entertainment which fortunately used many of the old Columbia buildings and bordered on the east by a CVS Drug Store. Back to the Tour: Soon we arrived at the Griffith Park home of the L.A. Steamers and the subject of our tour, the Carrolwood- Pacific Railroad Company. Any student of Disney History knows that Walt Disney had a lifelong love of trains probably spurred on by an Uncle who was a train engineer. He built a reduced sized railroad around his residence and the original plans for Mickey Mouse Park which later turned into Disneyland always contained a train running the perimeter of the property. After Lillian Disney’s death the new owners of Disney’s home intended to raze the barn which had been Walt’s train workshop. His daughter rescued the structure and the memorabilia inside and moved to the LA Steamers site at Griffith Park.

The barn and reduced sized trains are now run by a very well educated and well spoken group of volunteers who all have Disney employment in their backgrounds and Disney Spirit coursing through their veins. This was a group of enthusiastic people who loved Walt, loved the trains, and loved imparting their knowledge. I greatly enjoyed this stop on the tour.
From there it was back to the hotel for an evening on our own.
See you on day three!