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MAGAZ INEMAGAZ INEHOLLYWOOD

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Hollywood HighRevisited

The Faces of HollywoodEver feel like you’re being watched?

FALL 2012COMPLIMENTARY

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For decades, they’ve been hiding out in plain sight —laughing at generations of Angelenos and unsuspect-ing tourists. Some are playfully defiant, almost

antagonistic. Others aren’t so jovial, casting a stony gaze uponpassersby in silent yearning. A wizened few seem resignedto their purgatory, eyes glazed over with indi!erence.

"ey are the sculpted faces of Hollywood’s historicbuildings, and they are amongst the most stunning, yetoverlooked, flourishes of architecture in Los Angeles.

The 1920s launched the Golden Age of Hollywood.With the advent of feature-length motion pictures, Hol-lywood Boulevard was the epicenter of glamour. Down-town Los Angeles was where the studios first premieredmovies, but Hollywood was where the moviemakersworked, ate, shopped, and lived. Businessmen and moviemoguls commissioned the finest architects of the day tobuild monuments of opulence designed to appeal to theiroutsized sense of self. Banks, nightclubs, office buildings,theaters – the majority of these buildings lie on a 1.8mile stretch of Hollywood Boulevard, from Western Av-enue to the east, to La Brea Avenue to the west. No onestyle defines these structures. Like Los Angeles itself, ar-chitects of the day borrowed from a dizzying array of

movements – Art Deco, Gothic, Spanish Colonial Re-vival, Classic, Baroque, Rococo, Churriguera, Stream-line Moderne, Moorish, faux Egyptian – sometimescombining several into one. Architectural purists mightfaint in horror at this mongrel mix of styles, but in LosAngeles, they found a place where Old World ruleshappily come to die.

As if to play up this “anything goes” outlook, manyarchitects adorned the facades of their buildings withsculpted faces from the human, animal and other-worldly worlds. Sometimes it might just be one face inrepetition, like the cherubic angel that appears at leastfifty times at 5981 Hollywood Boulevard, or the lonely-looking maiden affixed above the portal at the historicFontenoy apartment building on Whitley Avenue. Onthe other end of the spectrum are the faces at two ofthe boulevard’s oldest movie theaters. El Capitan�sfaces are a divided bunch – an explosion of colorfulfunhouse revelry surrounding the outdoor vestibule,

while its exterior islined by sepia-tonedroyalty types, takingtheir roles as the the-atre’s guardians veryseriously, thank youvery much, quite lit-erally above all thefrivolity on the side-walk below. Anddon’t even get mestarted on the oldWarner HollywoodTheatre, home toover one hundred vis-

ages. This motley menagerie of jesters, actors, plutocrats,dragons, lions, and angels must have seemed like aproposmotifs to help celebrate the West Coast’s first movie the-ater wired for sound. Taken as a whole, the faces of Hol-lywod’s historic buildings form a living outdoor museum.But it’s the effect they have on our field of vision that’seven more profound. The majority of pedestrians alongHollywood Boulevard fix their gaze on the sidewalk and

ABOVE: Romansoldier standswatch at 6423Hollywood Blvd.

RIGHT: PantagesTheatre art decoimage (6233 Hol-lywood Blvd.)features sun rays(or searchlights)

The Faces

of HollywoodEver had the feeling you’re being watched?

by Paul Haddad

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the more than 2,400 stars thatmake up the Hollywood Walkof Fame. The faces force ourgazes upward. Searching themout, we can’t help but admirethe buildings on which they re-side, their craftsmanship andlines, the bewildering clash ofstyles that somehow form suchunifying wholes. And then yourealize—the faces are an invita-tion to a greater consciousness.

!e Hollywood & WesternBuilding is an apt metaphor forHollywood’s historic buildings.It once housed Central Castingand the o"ces of the Hays Code and Cecil B. DeMille.It now has a new lease on life. Others have followed asimilar script. It’s wonderful to see the Equitable Build-ing on the northeast corner of Hollywood & Vine withits o"ces converted to trendy condos become relevantagain. Its array of bizarre faces look to be freshly spit andpolished, ready for thenew millennium.

Which brings us tothe best part about thefaces of Hollywood’sbuildings: they must betaken in by foot.

Most are easily visiblefrom street level just one ortwo stories up. But you’llwant a good set of binocu-lars to take in those thatpreside near the rooftops,like the gargoyles hanging out over the First National Bank,or the pharaohs and eagles glowering from an eighth storyaerie of the Yucca Vine Tower, the highest perch of any por-traits. Speaking of eagles, you may want your walking com-panion to be someone with an eagle-eye, the better to fishout the grotesque portraits hidden in the Churrigueresquefacade of the Owens Building, a “Where’s Waldo?” exercise

set to swirling masonry. I’ve counted at least 48 figures inits facade, but there may well be more. Each building o#ersits own voyage of discovery to the viewer. Sometimes a facewill only emerge upon closer inspection, or when the shad-

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LEFT: A crouching figure at 6253 Hollywood Blvd. bears a striking resemblance to Gollumfrom Lord of the Rings, doesn’t he?

BELOW: An ornate Churrigueresque facade at 6554 Hollywood Blvd. has dozens offigures—animals, masks and aristocrats.

LEFT: Several of these faces jut out beneaththe eves at 6765 Hollywood Blvd.

BELOW: Below: Another discovery at 6331Hollywood Blvd. They're everywhere!

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ows from the sun cut across at just the rightangle, or when your imagination sees thingthat your conscious mind insists isn’t there.

Which begs one last question: Why arethese faces there in the first place? Most ofthem fall into two camps: Either they saysomething about the building’s original pur-pose (movie theatre, performance center,

school,film o!ces), or theyare an inherent part ofthe building’s orna-mental style (Baroque,Gothic, Churriguera).But what of the ran-dom madman on theside of the BaineBuilding? "e bathingbeauty on the JulieLee Apartment Build-

ing? Or the weird chimpanzee head on the Bernard Lug-gage building? We’ll never know all the answers. But that’sokay. After all, it’s considered poor form to go to a museum,stare at a work of art, and ask the artist “what were youthinking?” But when it comes to the portraits themselves,sometimes it’s more fun to leave things to our own in-terpretation, which is probably what the architectswanted in the first place.

With that, get on your walking shoes, gaze up, andsquint hard. "ey’ve been watching us for decades. It’sabout time we return the favor. DH

LEFT: The El Capitan Theatre (6838 Hollywood Blvd.)features some of the most life-like images, enhancedby detail, color and impossible to ignore.

FAR LEFT: First National Bank teams up a humanguard with a lion. Your money’s safe here!

LEFT: This forlorn lady gazes down from the FortenoyApartments (1811 Whitley) like some oversizedcameo.

BELOW & BELOW LEFT:The figures on one of severalpanels on the fire escapes at Hollywood & Western,5500 Hollywood Blvd., are a reference to CentralCasting, whose first location was in this building.

BOTTOM: A God of the Greek or Biblical natureabove an entryway.

Paul Haddad was born in Hollywood and writes aboutall things Los Angeles. He is working on a book editionof the Faces of Hollywood. Earlier this year his book aboutVin Scully and the Los Angeles Dodgers was published bySanta Monica Press. He can be reached via that book’swebsite: www.dodgerglory.com

RIGHT: Dancingpig plays theflute at the Pig ‘n Whistlerestaurant. (SeeDINING)

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