Grauman’s Chinese Theatre - Los Angeles
By Wanda on Feb 24, 2008 in Los Angeles, USA
Yesterday we made a visit to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre - or to be exact, the outside of the theatre which is famous for the foot and hand prints of some of Hollywood’s most famous celebrities.
The theatre is set within a courtyard and is quite sought after for studio premiers in Hollywood. Of course it was packed with tourists all wanting to take plenty of photos of the hand and foot prints. It was also full of touters trying to sell us things including a young man by the name Jamal aka Young Mystro who pushed his CD into our hands - “Just a donation is all I want” were his words as he proceeded to tell us that he was part of a rap duo called Nothin But Heatt and is trying to make it big. We ended up giving him a few dollars for it and had a listen to it later….not too bad… considering neither of us like rap music. He sounded as good as any professional rapper to us.
So back to the theatre…..we spent about half an hour wandering around looking at the hand prints. It is a mix of old and new stars including Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenager, Rock Hudson, Margaret O’Brien, Shirley Temple, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and the list goes on.
It was fun just seeing the sizes of the hand and foot prints - Natalie Wood seemed to have the smallest.
For the movie buff a visit to the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre at 6928 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles is a must.
Sid Grauman’s opened his first Hollywood theatre, The Egyptian Theater, in 1927. Funnily enough Sid built this theatre in 
competition to himself as he also owned the Million Dollar Theater in downtown Los Angeles which at the time was where the movie going public attended movies shown in palatial theatres.
The recent archaeological discoveries in Egypt at that time encouraged the movie going public to check out the lavish Egyptian decorations in the Egyptian theatre.
So how was Sid going to top this achievement?
He decided on a Chinese theme and undertook the building of the Graumann’s Chinese Theatre, sparing on expense. In fact the theatre cost $2 million to build back in those days, imagine what it would cost today.
Sid imported Chinese artefacts from China including sculptured stone Temple Dogs. This magnificent theatre celebrated it’s 80th birthday in 2007.
The opening on May 18, 1927 was a premiere showing of the Cecille B DeMille’s spectacular ‘King of Kings’ with its cast of thousands. Thousands of Los Angelos citizens lined the streets hoping to catch a glimpse of their favourite movie stars and celebrities. The theatre opened for business to the general public on May 19, 1927.
Grauman’s theatre still previews movies from most of the major film companies such as Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Dreamworks, Sony, MGM/UA and New Line etc
Some of the movies that have premiered at Hollywood’s Grauman Theater in the past few years include:
• Ocean’s 13
• Music & Lyrics
• Rocky Balboa
• Pursuit of Happyness
• The Dukes of Hazzard
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• War of the Worlds
• Batman Begins
• Miss Congeniality 2
• Ocean’s 12
• The Aviator
• Cheaper by the Dozen
• X2–X-Men United
• 27 Dresses
The forecourt is a fascinating place that is full of excited tourists trying to find their favourite stars signature, hands and feet prints. There are also a lot of people dressed up as various characters such as Darth Vader, Spiderman, Batman etc, all touting for tourists to have their photo taken with them for a small fee.
We got as swept up in the moment as any other tourist when we spotted the prints of our favourite stars. And when you have found and photographed the stars outside the Chinese Theatre, you can follow the star trail up and down either side of Hollywood boulevarde.
1 Comment(s)
By Chris Moran on Feb 24, 2008 | Reply
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Chris Moran