Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Hollywood Sign

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

The Hollywood sign is an iconic landmark that started out as a real estate billboard. Can you believe it?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The War Within, the Robert Bale's story, is a podcast that unpacks the controversial crimes of an American soldier, anchored by exclusive interviews with the man himself. Maybe I made a mistake, maybe I am wrong, but you have to understand the way it went down. The series aims to answer lingering questions around what happened, one tragic night in Afghanistan. Bale's actions are merely a symptom of a broken army. Listen to the war with it on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Woken to the Shortest stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Hollywood Dave C is not here but he's here in spirit. I was gonna make a tasteless joke, but we'll just end it there.

Yeah, we are talking today about the Hollywood sign, which this year, the year 2023, at which time we're recording, is celebrating its centennial right there, at the top of Mount Lee and Griffith Park in central Los Angeles, central Hollywood Hollywood that iconic sign is turning a hundred That's amazing did not realize it was that old because you don't think of Hollywood that old do you? No do you I

used to think Hollywood was not a place But a mere euphemism for the film industry. It's both. It's both for sure But the whole idea of Hollywood, at least with the sign, was that it was initially constructed and built all the way back in 1923, as essentially a big billboard for a real estate development called Hollywood Land. And the original Hollywood sign originally said Hollywood Land. Yeah. and by the way, thanks to Kate Morgan and howstofworks.com for this one. This is something I talked about in a movie crush episode,

occasionally on the mini episodes, Nolan I would go over, like it just a little bit of Hollywood history. And this was one of them. And it's funny, I mean, I know people, some people may have seen the original Hollywood land sign that said Hollywood land. And kind of thought like, what is that even all about? But that's what it was. It was a real estate company. It was just an advertisement to go

by houses in that development. And it was lit up with light bulbs at the time, about 4,000 of them that blinked all night long, because the Hollywood sign is not lit up at night. You might falsely picture it in your head as something that's lit up in the hills all night. That is not the case. No. And by the way, before we move any further forward, I did an entire episode on the Hollywood

sign and the end of the world with Josh Clark. Did you really? No. Geez. Man, you are getting me. I know. So much lately. Left and right.

And my delivery even drier than usual. No, it's just, it's so earnest and I'm just fallen for it, man. That's how I get you. Because I thought it might have been a part of it. No, I just, I'm so dumb. No, you're not. I'm just that earnest.

You're a connector these days. Thanks. Wish you would have been when we were on our TV show. Hey, hey, sing. I did great, but anyway. No, you did great. So Hollywood Land, it was originally the sign this billboard and the Hollywood Land developers

but I think it's 21 grand to build it, which I believe is in 1923 dollars, which would make it about almost $400,000 today. And despite that price, they just expected it to last about 18 months. But the crazy thing about it is, even though it was built of, essentially plywood, it outlasted the Hollywood land development itself, well into the forties. Yeah, it had gone through a couple of stages of disrepair over the years. In the late 1940s, it was looking pretty rough.

That company, that Hollywood land company was long gone, and it was sort of a thing in the city there. Should we tear this thing down now? Is it kind of dumb to have this old billboard up? And then the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce stepped in and said, you know what? Let's rebuild this thing. Let's drop the land and let's just have a sign that says Hollywood. And it was going strong again for about three decades until the 1970s when it was in very

bad shape once again. Yes. And who of all people stepped in? Well, we'll tell you right after this commercial break. South of you should know. I'm Larsa Pippin from the Real Housewives of Miami. I'm Marcus Jordan, CEO of Trophy Room. We decided to launch this podcast, Separation and Anxiety. We can't live without each other. We can't. And I think we go through Separation and Anxiety when we're not together. We kind of want to share our stories.

We're going to talk about everything and be brutally honest as far as relationships, whether it's your boyfriend, kids, even at work. There's no subject that we won't tackle on this podcast. Telling you everything. Listen to separation and anxiety with Larson Marcus on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey everybody, we know there are a ton of podcasts out there. Well, we have one we would love for you to check out.

It is called the Pen Pals podcast with Daniel van Kirk and Rory Scoville. We are both stand up comedians, we're actors, we're writers, but now most of all, we are your pen pals. Every single episode we get two letters that we read from our listeners, our new pen pals. It can be about anything going on in their life. And sometimes we're also joined by guests, like Will Ferrell.

I'm gonna bring you up in front of the group. I'm gonna punch you as hard as I can to stomach. Rose Byrne. This is West Hollywood. We keep clay. Judd Apatow. If you use I-D's by Dre, is that considered Andy Maniwak? Conor Brian.

I'm just showing you that my mind is quick if not that funny and Mandy Moore. We're all crossing the line together. Listen to the Pimp House podcast on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Sincerely, your new Pimp House, Daniel Van Kirk, and Rory Skowboy.

You're dead. Hey. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Alright Chuck, who of all people stepped in to save the Hollywood sign from being bold at most? would sign from being bold at was. Josh Clark, creator of Into the World with Josh Clark. Wrong. Oh, I don't know Bob Gucci, only who ran House magazine. Very nice. Or maybe Larry Flint, who ran House. Larry Flint. No, maybe Jim Bob Jones, who ran Club. Now see, is that a real guy?

I don't even know anymore. God, we should do a I won't you know what I want to do an episode of colorability. Okay. No, I don't see. Oh man, you got me. Actually do. Hugh Heffner stepped in obviously Playboy magazine founder and chief, and he raised money by throwing a big party in 1978 at his very famous, some may say infamous, Playboy Mansion. And what he did was, he said, hey, are you a company? Are you a rich person and you want to sponsor a letter and have that thing restored? You can do that for 27 grand. Yeah, he held an auction and invited all of his

famous rich friends. And apparently the guy who sponsored or purchased the O was none other than Alice Cooper. Yeah. And he got the O in honor of Groucho Marx, which I thought was really cool. That's right. Hey, shout out to Nita Strauss.

Oh yeah, Hurricane Nita. Hurricane Nita, I don't know if she's still playing with Alice Cooper, but she was kind enough to invite us to that concert when she came through Atlanta. And it was great. It was really awesome, but Alice Cooper bought one, Warner Brothers Records, or Brother Sponsored One. Gina Tree did, of course, Andy Williams sponsored one,

and it was restored, and it was, they actually didn't restore it, they tore it down and rebuilt it. Yeah. Which was a smart thing, because like you said, that plywood and sheet metal was just not very hardy, so this time it was steel on steel. Yeah, they built it bigger, stronger, and faster. Yeah, and steel on steel was also a record by Megadess, I think, right? I don't know. No. Okay. It's possible. It sounds like it would be a

Megadess record. I'll see now you're afraid to agree with something. No, I'm just, yeah, I'm just going to be wishing you watch you for the rest of our career. So here's another little, a few more little interesting tidbits. There was another threat that came along later because, and this wasn't that long ago, it was in 2010, when it was found out that all that land, I think because it's in Griffith Park on top of Mount Leigh, everyone just figured it's like the city owns it. And that is not true because Howard Hughes actually owned land just to the left of the H. And I'm sure some people knew this, but not many did

until years later when someone was like, hey, we're gonna sell this land and develop it. And the city went, you can't develop next to the H. They said, yeah, we can. Have you ever heard of capitalism suckers? And the Los Angeles City Council went to the H? They said, yeah, we can. Have you ever heard of capitalism suckers? And the Los Angeles City Council went to the dictionary, and they're like, oh my God. And apparently the developer bought that parcel

for $1.67 million in 2002, and put it up eight years later for $22 million, which is quite an inflated price. But they knew that the city was going to scramble to do, to put it together. And you said that it was owned by Howard Hughes. He bought it so he could build a mansion for his fiance at the time, Ginger Rogers, but she refused to move up there because she said that basically this guy's office nut and he will hold me prisoner up there. So I'm not even going to go up there. And it just kind of like fell into disuse and was forgotten and became part of the Hues estate.

I'm not sure how it was rediscovered and put up for sale, but when the City of Los Angeles was basically presented with either losing the land just to the left of the big H in Hollywood or coughing up 22 million dollars, they really went and tried to raise that money and they couldn't quite do it. But luckily someone stepped in. Who was it, Chuck? Bob Gucci-Honey? No. That would have been great if it was Gucci on that second go-around.

Sure. But it was Hugh Hefner again. Yeah. I think he felt like, you know, I did this one, so I probably looked like I healed if I didn't do it the second time. Or he could have been like, I'm tapped out. I helped you once. Yeah, he's like, the internet has killed my Newtie magazine business.

But I don't even think he auctioned off letters this time. I think he just stepped in and kind of made them whole, right? Yeah, I think he made up the difference like you're saying. Yeah, so the sign is safe again, including the land around it. And there's a book that was written by an author named Casey Schreiner, called Discovering Griffith Park, Colin, a local's guide, and House works to talk to Casey Schreiner and he said that you can get all sorts of really good views of the Hollywood sign. In fact, there's 14 of them that he describes in detail where to go to get a good view, but

one of them is not up at the Hollywood sign, which if you stop and think about it makes total sense, but a lot of people don't realize that the trail ends behind the Hollywood sign, so it's not a very good place to see the sign. No, it's not. Nora is standing right under it if you can even manage that. Yeah, because it's really big, right? Yeah, it's a health-huller. Do we even know that?

I'm saying... I mean, I'm sure some people know that, but... Yeah, they're about 50 feet, I think. That's tall. Yeah, you want to get a little distance. If you're going north on Gower, you get a nice, you sort of bisect it, great view. If you're just driving through Hollywood,

and I could see it outside of my apartment window, had a great view of the Hollywood Hills and the Griffith Park Observatory in that sign. Hey, you're from your room in the Playboy Mansion? From my house. I lived under the grotto, which is weird. It was awesome. 450 bucks a month, which was quite a steal, and had a great view, and it was just a great

little place that I miss so much. I love that apartment, but we should finish probably by talking about Peg Intwinsel, who was featured on movie crush. A lot of people know this, but there was a young starlet, who, I guess not a starlet, starlet to be, that leapt off the H in the Hollywood sign to plunge to her death, named Peg Intwinsel. And this was in, oh, geez, I couldn't even, what year was this? 1932. I talked a lot about it in the end of the world with

Thomas Clark. Oh, not this time. She was 24 years old and, you know, as the story goes, she was, went to Hollywood to make it big and had trouble doing that. And so took her own life. Yeah, and this wasn't like she went out to Hollywood and like a month or six months or you know, whatever later she failed at it. Like she was she really tried it. She had a bit part in a movie. She was in a lot of plays. Apparently, Betty Davis, a very young Betty Davis saw a play that Pegantwistle was in and told her mother she wanted to grow up to be like Pegantwistle. So she really kept that and finally was just like, I can't do this anymore.

She did. It was at least back then that the letters were 50 feet tall and they believe that she got to the top of the age by using a ladder that a workman had left behind. Very sad. I do want to end with a funnier note though, because there's this great story about Betty Davis. I'm not sure if it's true or not, but she reportedly was asked one time what the best way

and aspiring starlet could get into Hollywood and she said, take fountain, which is a great East West running street through Hollywood. And it was always a great sort of cut through because most people stick to those main streets like Sunset and San Amanaka and Hollywood Boulevard, but if you took fountain, you could get there quicker. Well, since we're talking so much about LA, I just want to shout out Mining Yumi's friends out there, Duck and Truth. So hello. Are those real people or are you going to fool me again? They are real people. I'll introduce you to them someday. They're great.

Okay. Duck. I look forward to meeting you and truth. Don't forget truth, quest and truth. Yeah. If you want, and by the way, Chuck, hippie Rob was real too. I know, but a doubt if he's in LA. No. There's no tone where he is. I almost ended this one like a regular episode, but instead, Shokal I have to do is say, short stuff is out.

Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.