The Making of Hollywood and Its Global Stars

By the ULTIMATE Los Angeles Editorial Team

From a barn on Vine Street to the world’s dream factory

Film companies came west in the 1910s for the sunshine and the endless scenery. In 1914 Cecil B. DeMille shot The Squaw Man from a rented barn at Selma and Vine, usually called the first feature made in Hollywood. The barn survives today as the Hollywood Heritage Museum.

Sound arrived with The Jazz Singer in 1927, and the great studios, MGM, Paramount, Warner Bros., Fox and Universal, built a star system that ruled the world’s screens. The Academy gave its first awards at the Hollywood Roosevelt in 1929. In the 1970s a new generation, from Coppola to Spielberg, made The Godfather, Jaws and Star Wars, and the modern blockbuster was born.

Must-watch films about Hollywood and Los Angeles

To understand Hollywood, start with the films it made about itself and its city.

• Sunset Boulevard (1950): Billy Wilder’s dark tale of a forgotten silent star, with Gloria Swanson.
• Singin’ in the Rain (1952): Gene Kelly’s joyful musical about Hollywood’s leap from silents to sound.
• Chinatown (1974): Roman Polanski’s noir of water, money and secrets in 1930s Los Angeles, with Jack Nicholson.
• Mulholland Drive (2001): David Lynch’s haunting dream of an actress arriving in Hollywood.
• La La Land (2016): Damien Chazelle’s musical love letter to the city, with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.

The stars

Hollywood invented the film star, and its legends are still known everywhere.

• Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977): the Little Tramp, and the most famous face of the silent age.
• Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962): the star of Some Like It Hot and Hollywood’s enduring icon.
• Marlon Brando (1924–2004): the actor who changed screen acting, from On the Waterfront to The Godfather.
• Meryl Streep: the most nominated actor in Oscar history, with 21 nominations.
• Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese: the directors of Jaws and Schindler’s List, and Taxi Driver and Goodfellas.

Where to watch in Los Angeles

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, opened in 2021 in a Renzo Piano sphere beside the restored 1939 May Company building, tells the story of film and screens classics. On Hollywood Boulevard, the TCL Chinese Theatre, opened as Grauman’s in 1927, keeps the stars’ handprints in its forecourt, and the 1922 Egyptian Theatre shows repertory programmes with the American Cinematheque.

Our advice: see a premiere-size film at the Chinese Theatre, then spend a morning at the Academy Museum.

Academy Museum of Motion Pictures →   TCL Chinese Theatre →   The Hollywood Museum →   Film schools in Los Angeles →

Hidden on the silver screen: famous films shot in Los Angeles

The city plays itself, and every other city, in thousands of films. A few of its best-loved scenes:

• Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Griffith Observatory: James Dean’s knife fight, remembered by a bust of Dean on the lawn.
• Blade Runner (1982), the Bradbury Building: the 1893 atrium downtown became Ridley Scott’s future Los Angeles.
• Pretty Woman (1990), Rodeo Drive and the Beverly Wilshire: Julia Roberts’s famous shopping scene.
• La La Land (2016), Griffith Observatory and Angels Flight: the dance among the stars and the ride on the little funicular.

Hollywood, built by the world

Hollywood was built by newcomers. Carl Laemmle, from Laupheim in Germany, founded Universal, and Samuel Goldwyn was born in Warsaw. Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock came from London, Billy Wilder grew up in Vienna and Greta Garbo came from Stockholm. Every country in our network has sent its stars here: read their stories in our cinema long reads.

Questions and answers