7 Fascinating Facts About the Hollywood Sign

The Hollywood sign actually originally started as the Hollywoodland sign. It was built as an advertisement for a housing development in the 1920s. The publisher of the Los Angeles Times at the time, Harry Chandler, wanted to promote the area and all Hollywood had to offer, so he and his partners paid for the sign to go up. It was illuminated by lights that would flash in segments: “HOLLY,” “WOOD,” and “LAND.”

Over two decades, the sign started to seriously deteriorate, so the developers handed it over to the city. In doing this, the city decided to drop “LAND” from the sign and give it a makeover, including removing the lightbulbs. It then became a part of the famed Griffith Park.

As the sign started quite literally crumbling in the 1950s, Hugh Hefner threw a party for some of Hollywood’s elite to raise money to fix it. Celebrities didn’t just donate, they sponsored whole letters. Hefner, for example, purchased the “Y,” singer Andy Williams purchased the “W,” and Alice Cooper bought an “O” for Groucho Marx. According to LAist, “The others who pitched in were: publisher Terrence Donnelly, movie producer Giovanni Mazza, Les Kelley of the Kelley Blue Book, Angels owner Gene Autry, Warner Bros. Records, and businessman Dennis Lidtke. . . . The group are known as the ‘Hollywood Nine.'”

Though there may have been a time when you could get close to the giant letters on Mount Lee, that’s no longer the case. The sign is now guarded by security cameras, a razor-wire fence, motion sensors, and microphones.

In 1973, the Hollywood sign was declared a historical landmark by the city’s Cultural Heritage Board.

If you’ve ever wondered why there are no homes or buildings anywhere near the Hollywood sign, there’s a reason for that. Howard Hughes purchased 138 acres near the sign in 1940 with the intention of building a home. It never happened, but he remained the land owner. His estate ended up selling the land in 2002, and movie studios, actors, and various foundations raised over $12 million to purchase it from the investment firm and keep it as protected park land.

In 2013, Sherwin-Williams repainted the entire Hollywood sign. It took 255 gallons of paint – in the color High Reflective White. Painters stripped off all the previous layers of paint before the refurbishment, and you can see a time-lapse of the project here.