Grauman's Movie Palaces
The first time young Sid Grauman saw a movie was at the Cinemagraph theatre in San Francisco. He was so intrigued by this new art form that he got a job at the theatre as a jack-of-all-trades. Sid soon realized how profitable the movie business was becoming and decided to try his luck with it. His father agreed to assist him with starting his own movie theatre. Sid named his first venture the Unique and developed a show that was part live-act and part film. The Unique became a great success. Unfortunately, it and Grauman's second theatre - the Lyceum - were both destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.
But even a disaster of that magnitude couldn't stop Sid Grauman. A plan devising in his mind, he bought from a minister a big-top tent and enough pews to seat three thousand people. Only a few days after his theatres had been shaken to their foundations, Grauman was showing movies again. A huge banner proclaimed to moviegoers that there was "nothing to fall on you except canvas." Grauman's canvas theatre - where he showed movies for two years - drew 10,000 people a day.
In 1917, Sid Grauman and his father decided to sell the theatres they had built after the 1906 earthquake and move to Los Angeles. On February 18, 1918, the Graumans' first legendary theatre premiered. Originally an office building, the Million Dollar Theatre had been renovated and redesigned in a gothic/baroque style. The theatre sat 2,345 people and was the largest and most extravagent movie palace on the West Coast. Legends such as Cecil B. deMille, Charlie Chaplin, and Douglas Fairbanks were in attendance opening night. The feature was the William S. Hart film "The Silent Man", which was shown following one of the famous Sid Grauman Prologues. These prologues were live song and dance shows that were built around and reflected the theme and mood of the film about to be shown. People went to Grauman's theatres as much for the Prologues as for the movies themselves. Later on, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. told a Hollywood magazine, "(The prologues) were essentially half the evening's entertainment - the film the second half. The prologue took almost as much time as the film! He used them to set the atmosphere for the feature, and they were too lavish to be believed."
In 1922, the world was buzzing with news of the newly found tomb of the Egyptian pharoah Tutankhamen, nicknamed King Tut. A revival of all things Egyptian swept across America and Hollywood was not immune. Apartment buidings and homes began to be built in the style of Egyptian archeitecture, their interiors decorated in Egyptian-style furnishings. The fashion world was also affected by the Egyptian craze.
Sid Grauman reacted to this mania by building another lavish theatre. In collaboration with Charles E. Toberman, he developed the 1,800 seat Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. The theatre featured an open forecourt that boasted both an elephant statue, - dressed in enough finery to transport pharoahs - and a massive statue of a man with a dog's head that guarded the theatre. Against one wall of the court rested two giant heads atop tall pillars that sat on either side of a large door. The door lead nowhere, but was impressive and mysterious all the same. Exotic plants placed in large planters surrounded a large, tiled fountain on another wall. Egyptian style columns held up the roof of a portico where the ticket windows resided. Furnishings in the theme of the feature movie that was showing were usually set out on the portico to entice pedestrians. On the ceiling of the theatre's auditorium was a beautiful sunburst design. This hid the organ loft - parts of the sunburst were pierced so that the feature film's accompanying music would float to the patrons' ears below. On either side of the movie screen rose two faux Egyptian columns decorated in hieroglyphics. Sadly, these were torn down as technology progressed to make way for a larger, curved screen. The Egyptian Theatre was the first major premiere theatre in Hollywood - its first big premiere was for the adventurous Douglas Fairbanks film Robin Hood in October, 1922.
The last theatre that Sid Grauman operated was the Chinese Theatre, the most famous of all his theatres. Legend has it that construction was being finished the day of its opening - May 18,1927 - and that evening, actress Norma Talmadge accidentally stepped into wet cement. Sid Grauman then immortalized his footprints, inviting Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks to do the same. Thus a Hollywood tradition was born. Grauman is also credited with the idea of rolling out a red carpet and using spotlights at premieres. He is known as "Hollywood's Master Showman" to this day.
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