Hollywood, more than any other place in the world, represents the excitement and glamour of the film industry . The world’s major film companies have studios in Hollywood and many famous film / movie stars live in its fashionable and expensive Beverly Hills district. But Hollywood is also Tinseltown , where money can buy an expensive lifestyle but the pressure to succeed can ruin lives, as in the case of Marilyn Monroe and River Phoenix . Both the British and Americans have mixed feelings about Hollywood: they are fascinated by the excitement of the film world and by the lives of the stars, but also see Hollywood as a symbol of trashy, commercial culture.
Hollywood is now surrounded by Los Angeles . In 1908, when film companies began moving west from New York, it was a small, unknown community. The companies were attracted to California by its fine weather, which allowed them to film outside for most of the year, but they also wanted to avoid having to pay money to a group of studios led by Thomas Edison which were trying to establish a monopoly. Most of the companies were run by people from Jewish families who had come to America from Europe. By the 1920s, companies such as Universal and United Artists had set up studios around Hollywood. During this period Mary Pickford , Douglas Fairbanks, and John Barrymore became famous in silent films (= films without sound). Mack Sennett , a Canadian, began making comedy films, including those featuring the Keystone Kops , in which Charlie Chaplin and ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle became stars. D W Griffith directed expensive ‘epic’ films like The Birth of a Nation , and William S Hart made westerns popular. Hollywood also created its first sex symbol, Theda Bara (1890–1955).
The 1920s saw big changes. The first film in Technicolor was produced in 1922. Warner Brothers was formed in 1923 and four years later produced Hollywood’s first talkie (= film with spoken words), The Jazz Singer . Huge numbers of Americans were now attracted to the movies . Stars like Pickford and Chaplin reached the height of their fame, and new stars were discovered, such as Rudolph Valentino , Laurel and Hardy and Buster Keaton .
The 1930s and 1940s were Hollywood’s ‘Golden Age’ and films became popular around the world. Hollywood even made successes out of America’s worst times: Prohibition led to the gangster films of Edward G Robinson and James Cagney , and the Great Depression to films like The Grapes of Wrath . World War II featured in successful films like Casablanca . The great Hollywood studios, MGM , Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox , Paramount Pictures and Columbia Pictures , controlled the careers of actors. Famous directors of the time included Orson Welles and John Ford and screen stars included Clark Gable , John Wayne , Katharine Hepburn , Errol Flynn , Henry Fonda , Humphrey Bogart , Lauren Bacall , Bette Davis , Gregory Peck , Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum .
New words were invented to keep up with Hollywood’s development: cliffhanger , tear-jerker , spine-chiller and western describe types of film. Villains became baddies or bad guys . As equipment became more sophisticated more people were needed to manage it. New jobs, still seen on lists of film credits today, included gaffer (= chief electrician) and best boy , his chief assistant.
In the 1950s large numbers of people abandoned the movies in order to watch television. The film industry needed something new to attract them back. This led to the development of Cinerama and 3-D films , which gave the audience the feeling of being part of the action. These proved too expensive but the wide screen of CinemaScope soon became standard throughout the world. The stars of the 1950s, including Marilyn Monroe , Rock Hudson , James Dean and Steve McQueen , also kept the film industry alive.
In the 1960s many companies began making films in other countries where costs were lower, and people said Hollywood would never again be the centre of the film industry. But the skills, equipment and money were still there, and Hollywood became important again in the 1980s. The old studios were bought by new media companies: 20th Century Fox was bought by Rupert Murdoch , and Columbia by the Sony Corporation. New energy came from independent directors and producers like Steven Spielberg , Robert Redford and Martin Scorsese . Rising stars included Meryl Streep , Harrison Ford , Arnold Schwarzenegger , Kevin Costner and Tom Hanks .
Now, more than ever, Hollywood leads the world’s film industry, producing the most expensive and successful films ever made, such as Jurassic Park (1993), Forrest Gump (1994), Independence Day (1996), Titanic (1997), Gladiator (2000) and Troy (2004). Companies like MGM own their own movie theaters in the US and elsewhere. Studios make additional profits from selling films to television companies and from selling videos and DVDs. The Oscars , presented by Hollywood’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , are the most valued prizes in the industry.