A stable was built on the Hollywood California estate of Col. Robert Northam(left). The stable was situated at the southeast corner of Selma and Vine Streets and acted as storage for horses, hay, and carriages.
Hollywood, which had been founded in 1886 was incorporated as a City in its own right, outlawing the serving and sale of alcohol, the exhibition of motion pictures, and the herding of over 200 head of sheep down Prospect (later Hollywood) Boulevard.
Hollywood is annexed to the City of Los Angeles to take advantage of the ultilities available. Soon there will be a railway down the center of Hollywood Boulevard, replacing the former tourist-oriented Balloon Line, with a commercial railway linking Los Angeles, Hollywood and Santa Monica among other cities. The light portion below indicates the same area as the 1886 incorporation in comparison to the annexation area.
A stable was built on the Hollywood California estate of Col. Robert Northam(left). The stable was situated at the southeast corner of Selma and Vine Streets and acted as storage for horses, hay, and carriages.
We are convieniently located in the heart of Hollywood.
2100 North Highland Avenue, 90068
Directly across from the Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Heritage Museum is housed in the beautifully restored Lasky-DeMille Barn (c. 1895). The Museum features archival photographs from the silent movie days of motion picture production, movie props, historic documents and other movie related memorabilia. Also featured are historic photos and postcards of the streets, buildings and residences of Hollywood during its heyday.
On December 27, 1956 the Lasky-DeMille Barn was designated a California State Historic Landmark No. 554 representing the birth of the Hollywood motion picture industry. Since 1985 Hollywood Heritage Inc. has funded the preservation, restoration and maintenance of this early Hollywood treasure.
Ample free parking. Adults: $7, Members and children under 12: Free.
The Hollywood Heritage Museum makes a unique and exciting location for wrap parties; book signings, movie premieres, Holiday parties and many other special events. To request rental information sent via email click here.
As the Museum is occasionally closed due to events at the Hollywood Bowl, or other occurrences, you may wish to phone the Museum before your visit to make sure we will be open at (323) 874-2276.
The museum is now open 5 days a week, Wednesday - Sunday
from Noon until 4:00 pm.
Click the door to enter our gift shop
Hollywood Heritage Archives
Hollywood Heritage maintains an extensive archive that preserves documents, photographs and paper ephemera related to the history of Hollywood and the film industry. In addition, we curate a collection of physical objects, including costumes, props, and equipment used in film production.
Our archival holdings include building survey records collected since the 1980s, documenting historic structures throughout Hollywood. While records for some buildings have not survived, the materials do have may include construction, repair and remodeling permits, as well as newspaper clippings, and photographs. Our visual documentation also features local publications and promotional materials produced by Hollywood businesses - brochures, menus, postcards, advertisements, newsletters and event programs - that help illustrate the city's architectural and cultural history.
Among our special collections is a focused archive on the Hollywoodland housing development and its founder, S.H. Woodruff.
Our entertainment industry archives house photographs, programs, and heralds dating back to the earliest days of cinema. We actively loan items from our collection and have contributed to exhibitions at esteemed institutions such as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Autry Museum of the American West, the Jewish Museum in Vienna, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the House of History Museum in Württemburg, Germany.
Below are a few examples of items from our collection and the stories they tell about Hollywood's rich and varied past.
Strongheart to Braveheart: A Hollywood Title Tale
From stage sensation to cinematic mix-ups in the early days of Hollywood
Cecil B. DeMille's older brother William found immediate success with his debut play, Strongheart in 1906. The story centers on a Native American law student, portrayed by Robert Edeson, who rises to fame as college football star. The play resonated strongly with audiences, enjoying a successful run in New York before touring the country. Shown above and at right is the program cover and cast page for a performance at Cincinnati's Grand Opera House, which also featured Harrison Ford and Mary Boland.
Around the same time Cecil B. DeMille, Jesse Lasky and Sam Goldwyn were preparing to shoot The Squaw Man, the stage version of Strongheart was being filmed by theatre empresarios Klaw and Erlanger. Atonio Moreno took on the lead role in this film version of William DeMille's play, with Lionel Barrymore in a supporting role. Released in March of 1914 - just a month after The Squaw Man - the five-reel film failed to make an impact. It was later trimmed to three reels and re-released by Biograph in 1916.
In 1921, the rise of a canine film star named "Strongheart" led Cecil B. DeMille to rename his own 1925 adaptation of Strongheart, produced at his Culver City studio. The new version starred Rod La Rocque as the chief's son turned skilled who fights to protect his tribe's land from opportunistic settlers.
The title Braveheart - later made iconic by the 1995 Oscar®-winning film starring Mel Gibson as Scottish hero William Wallace- was chosen for DeMille's reimagined version. Despite the name, Gibson's Wallace was neither a lawyer nor a Native American chief.
Interestingly, two other early DeMille studio films also share titles with later, unrelated movies: Risky Business (with Vera Reynolds and Stand and Deliver (featuring Lupe Vélez and Rod LaRocque). These had nothing in common with Tom Cruise's dance moves or Edward James Olmos inspiring classroom drama.
Robert Edeson, the original star of Strongheart, returned in the 1925 version to play the father of his former character. As for Harrison Ford --the first one, unrelated to the modern-day actor --he became a stock player with the DeMille Studio stock company from 1925 to 1928 after his role in the stage play.
The Squaw Man - More than a First Feature
The Hollywood Heritage Museum has always been a place where stories begin. Not only was it home to the first major film studio in Hollywood, it was also the filming location for The Squaw Man - the very first feature-length movie shot in Hollywood. But beyond cinematic milestones, our museum is also a place where real-life love stories have taken root.
One such story belongs to The Squaw Man's leading man, Dustin Farnum. A veteran of both stage and screen, Farnum clearly had a romantic side - as revealed in a heartfelt letter he once wrote to his co-star and future wife, Winifred Kingston.
Already known for marrying two of his earlier leading ladies (Agnes Muir Johnson and Mary Conwell), Farnum met Kingston - an elegant, gray-eyed actress from London - on the first day of filming. It was Monday, December 29, 1913, just four days after Christmas. The chemistry between the two was immediate, both on-screen and off.
Audiences loved the pairing, and so did Hollywood. The Squaw Man became a major success, launching DeMille's career and setting the stage for Farnum and Kingston to play opposite each other in 12 more films. Their on-screen romance eventually became real, and in 1924 -more than a decade after their first meeting -they were married.
Oscar Wilde once said, "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life." Dustin Farnum and Winifred Kingston proved him right.
The handwritten love letter from Farnum to Kingston, donated to Hollywood Heritage by their granddaughter, is now a part of our collection.
Winifred Kingston, top left, leading lady of "The Squaw Man." Dustin Farnum, celebrated stage actor who starred in both the stage and screen versions of "The Squaw Man" is at right, above. The comic romantic letter regarding a planned dinner is at bottom, with the text printed below.
The Love Letter:
EATABUS - DRINKABUS - BUSTABUS
BLOODSAUSAGE TOWERS
To Her Imperial Majesty, Winifred, Queen of Women, by the grace of God, and her own natural graces.
His Grace, The Lord Viscount Willpickle instructs me, his private quill in chief, to acknowledge her Majesty's most gracious command to give a performance in state with the knife and fork, in company with certain others of Her Majesty's Court.
Further, I am instructed to humbly proffer His Lordship's most profound thanks to Her majesty, and in the same writing to assure Her Majesty of His Lordship's presence at her table on the eleventh day of November, at the hour of seven and one half.
Again, The Lord Viscount instructs me to crave Her Majesty's permission to bring His Lordship's private pepper mill with him, together certain other table requisites - the former request will be regarded, if granted, in the light of an indulgence - the latter is made necessary by reason of His Lordship having on several former occasions cut his mount with the knives provided.
Lastly, His Grace instructs me to assure Her Imperial Majesty of His Lordship's undying devotion, and perfect readiness to, at all times and in all matters serve her slightest whim, and begs that he be permitted to subscribe himself her most humble and devoted servant.
By Special Courier into the hand of
The Lady Stel, Chief Lady in Waiting
to Her Imperial Majesty the Queen 'Winifred'
Sir Albert Nutting (Secretary)
Cordially,
Viscount Willpickle"
1920-1921 Realart Film Corporation Brochure
The Hollywood Heritage Museum is honored to receive donations from visitors, members, sponsors and from individuals who search the internet and other resources looking for an appropriate site to donate treasured artifacts acquired by family members who either participated in the industry or who were dedicated movie goers and kept personal mementos. Such is the case of a recent donation by Mr. Tony Vigue, of Standish, Maine, of an Realart exhibitor brochure. The brochure was in the collection of Mr. Vigue's late mother, a movie fan.
Exhibitor's programs in the silent - early sound period, were beautifully printed and illustrated books, often with lavish illustrations, informing exhibitors of upcoming or in-progress films that were available to them for booking at their theatres. This was a device to attract booking for films before they were released and hopefully, to place a particular distribution company's product ahead of its competitors.
This brochure was published in 1920 for the upcoming 1920-1921 season by the Realart Pictures Corporation, established by Adolph Zukor in 1918. Zukor had earlier founded the Artcraft Pictures Corporation. Both companies were established to separate distribution of specific productions in order to enable the studio to charge a higher rental price for these films.
The beginning of this practice is attributed to Mary Pickford. Miss Pickford is said to have monitored both the attendance and the rental fees for her latest film "Rags". She noted that the attendance at her film was far greater than the Famous Players film that followed it at that same theatre and that despite the clearly greater popularity of her film, there was only $200 difference in rental fees for her film than the less well-attennded film. Adolph Zukor's solution was to create Artcraft Pictures as a separate production and distribution film and in doing so would allow him to disassociate the Pickford production from the other Famous Players productions then being distributed by the Paramount Distributing Company, which was not yet part of any studio. The ploy worked and exhibitors who were compelled to rent all of Famous Players film production would now pay a higher price for the "special" Mary Pickford films. Zukor then duplicated the process, founding the Realart Picture Corporation, which produced and released films primarily starring Mary Miles Minter, being gtoomed by the now amalgamated Famous Players-Lasky Pictures Corporation as the "new" Mary Pickford following Pickford's departure from FPL to start her own company United Artists.
Director William Desmond Taylor is mentioned on the first page of the brochure, having directed four Pickford features. Following that are full page tinted photos of the performers in Realat films beginning with Mary Miles Minter and followed by pages for Alice Brady, Justine Johnstone, William Desmond Taylor, Constance Binney, Wanda Hawley, and Bebe Daniels.
Realart had distribution offices in 21 cities and was perceived as an independent production company, although Zukor and Jesse Lasky were both majority stockholders in the corporation. When an anti-trust suit was filed against Zukor and Lasky, it was revealed that Artcraft and Realart were controlled by Famous Players - Lasky as a device to charge higher rental fees for specific films. At that point, the films of both companies were added to Paramount distributing, which had become part of the Famous Players-Lasky Company in 1917.
Zukor and Lasky were found in violation of antitrust regulations and were ordered to cease and desist block and blind bidding (renting large number of films as a single unit in a "take it or leave it manner" and forcing exhibitors to bid on unseen films). They were required to file a report of compliance, which they failed to do. A subsequent suit named all the major studios in violation of antitrust laws. They found shelter in the establishment of business protection policies during the depression and then were able to delay compliance even longer due to World War II. Not until 1947 was compliance with the lawsuits completed when the studios sold off their theatres and ceased block-booking practices.
It has been suggested that Realart was used as a "testing" studio for young, attractive actresses, with Taylor as a director who could help enhance and increase their popularity in film with his skills. When William Desmond Taylor was shot in 1922, the scandal surrouding his death also helped bring about the end of the career of Mary Miles Minter and the Realart company. Additional scandals involving Paramount stars Wallace Reid and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle occupied Paramount's studio management redirected the studio's attention to the threat of federal censorship. Avoiding this possibility became the studio's primary focus instead of flawed booking practices.
In 1947, another distribution company with the Realart name was formed to distribute older films, as well as newer films and select new films, especially those of the Universal Pictures Corporation.
IMAGES: Pages from the Realart Pictures Corporation. top and center above left, William Desmond Taylor, director, portrait and text. Above left Mary Miles Minter, portrait and text, and Bebe Daniels, portrait and text. Several years after Taylor's passing, Minter retired from films, while Bebe Daniels went on to success in sound films, radio, and television.
Original newspaper clippings and documentation of historic buildings in Hollywood are in our archive. Pictured here is the Janes House, the oldest residence remaining on Hollywood Boulevard.