![]() There was talk about tearing down what was becoming an eyesore, but there was such a public outcry that the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce agreed to pay for repairing the sign - provided the LAND part was removed and they didn’t have to replace all those light bulbs. Nine years later, actress Peg Entwistle jumped to her death from the “H.” Everett CollectionĮventually, the sign began succumbing to neglect - a truck knocked down the H in 1940. The original sign - 50-foot-tall letters constructed of wood and sheet metal high atop Mount Lee - contained thousands of light bulbs that flashed on and off: HOLLY WOOD LAND.īy 1932 it had become so identified with the movie industry that an unsuccessful and despondent starlet named Peg Entwistle climbed to the top of the H and leapt to her death. “It was only going to be up for a year and a half - as long as it took to sell all the plots of land and build homes.’’ The original “Hollywoodland” sign (pictured in 1924) was erected in 1923 as an advertisement for a real estate development. “They didn’t consider it a permanent structure,’’ says film historian Leonard Maltin, who appears on a Sunday episode of Discovery Family’s “Secrets of America’s Favorite Places’’ devoted to the Hollywood Boulevard area. The Hollywood sign is one of America’s most iconic landmarks - but it started out in 1923 as a temporary billboard for a mountaintop real estate development called Hollywoodland.
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