12/3/2022 0 Comments Death of a starlet![]() Incredibly, you can even buy a piece of the original Hollywoodland sign from 1923, Maltin reveals. “There’s a spot where you can get a perfect shot of the Hollywood sign over your shoulder on a non-muggy day,’’ he says. He says the best place to see the Hollywood sign - and to take a selfie with it in the background - is on the elevated walkway of the Hollywood and Highland shopping center. Maltin says the closest he’s ever gotten to the sign was during one of his very early assignments as a correspondent for “Entertainment Tonight’’ in the 1980s, “standing on a very scary piece of curbing below the sign.’’ People are fed up with visitors, even well-intentioned ones.’’ Hugh Hefner (pictured in 1977) and nine other donors donated over $27,000 apiece to help renovate the sign in 1977. Maltin says that lately homeowners in neighboring Beachwood Canyon have been complaining about “an epidemic of small Hollywood tour vans that can snake in and out of the narrow streets. Even so, in 2012, a deranged man managed to leave his boyfriend’s decapitated head in a plastic bag on a hiking trail below the sign. Today, the City of Los Angeles Parks Department maintains strict security - including barbed-wire barriers - around the sign to keep out vandals, drunken revelers and would-be suicides. “He came to the rescue again a few years ago when they needed to raise money to save the land around the sign. “Hugh Hefner has spent his life in love with Hollywood,’’ says Maltin. Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy magazine, led a campaign in which nine donors - including singer Alice Cooper, cowboy actor Gene Autry and Hefner himself - donated $27,777.77 apiece for new steel letters (45 instead of 50 feet high) set on a concrete foundation that sprawls the length of two football fields. (The sign has long since been illuminated by spotlights at night.)īy 1977, it was clear the deteriorating sign needed to be completely replaced. 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. #Death of a starlet movie#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. Starlet "Ray" Ward, please click here to visit our Sympathy Store.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. ![]() To send a flower arrangement to the family of Memorials may be made to Myers Funeral Home P.O. Family and friends will assemble Friday, April, 9, 2021 at Lighthouse Church Cemetery for an 11:00 a.m. ![]() Jimmy Tallent and Layspeakers Tim Yates and Sandra Tallent officiating. Funeral service will be held at 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., on Thursday, April, 8, 2021 at Myers Funeral Home. The family will receive friends from 5:00 p.m. He is survived by his wife of 48 years, Glinda Ward daughter Cyntheia Ward sons, Steven and Chris Ward brother and sister-in-law, Roy and Eva Ward sister-in-law, Imogene Ward seven grandchildren and several nieces and nephews. He was an avid hunter and fisherman and a very loving husband, father and grandfather. Ray served his country proudly for 29 years in the Army National Guard. He was a devoted Christian and dedicated member of Lighthouse Christian Fellowship Church for many years. He was preceded in death by his father and mother, General Grant and Della May Ward daughter, Sarina Marie Roberts sisters, Shirley Clark and JoAnn McMaster and brother Lawrence Ward. Starlet “Ray” Ward, age 65, of Madisonville, was carried to his heavenly home by angels on Monday, Apat UT Medical Center. ![]()
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