The stars on the world-famous
Hollywood Walk of Fame
are located on both sides of
Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street.
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is an internationally-recognized Hollywood icon. With about 24 induction ceremonies annually broadcast around the world, the constant reinforcement provided to the public has made the Walk of Fame a top visitor attraction. The Hollywood Walk of Fame is undoubtedly one of the most successful marketing ideas ever produced. Unfortunately, there is a lot of inaccurate information circulating about the history of the Walk. We present this brief history to set the record straight.
The man credited with the idea for creating a Walk of Fame, was E. M. Stuart, who served in 1953 as the volunteer president of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. In that year, according to a Chamber press release he proposed the Walk as a means to “maintain the glory of a community whose name means glamour and excitement in the four corners of the world.” He appointed a committee to begin fleshing out the idea and the architectural firm of Periera and Luckman was employed to develop some specific proposals. Where the original idea came from is not certain; however, the ceiling of the dining room of the historic Hollywood Hotel once had stars painted on the ceiling with the names of celebrities and that may have been a precursor of the idea to place stars in the sidewalks.
It was not until 1955 that the basic tenets of the proposal were agreed upon, and in that year, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce proceeded to secure the necessary signatures to present to the City for further action in the formation of an assessment district. These plans were crystallized and submitted to the Los Angeles City Council in January of 1956. The Council embraced the idea and instructed the Board of Public Works to prepare the engineering specifications and to create the necessary assessment district to pay for the improvements.
As plans progressed, various concepts were reviewed. In February of 1956, a proposed rendering of a star was unveiled that included a caricature of the honoree, with a proposal for brown and blue sidewalks. It was later determined that caricatures would be too difficult to develop and the colors of the sidewalk were changed to black and coral. It is said that Hollywood businessman C.E. Toberman nixed the idea of the brown and blue sidewalks because they did not complement a new building he was erecting on the Boulevard.
The Chamber established the Hollywood Improvement Association to work with the City in pursuing the idea. The man who was selected to chair the effort was Harry Sugarman, a prominent businessman whose family had been film exhibitors and owned one of California’s oldest theatres. He saw the project through to completion.
While the City worked on creation of the assessment district, the Improvement Association moved forward between May 1956 and the fall of 1957 in selecting the honorees to be initially placed in the Walk. Four committees were established to represent the four different aspects of the entertainment industry at that time – motion picture, television, recording and radio. The committees included some of the most prominent names in entertainment. Members of the Motion Picture Selection Committee included Cecil B. DeMille, Samuel Goldwyn, Jesse Lasky, Walt Disney, Hal Roach, Mack Sennett and Walter Lantz, among others. Once the effort began, suggestions began pouring in to the Chamber offices – as many as 150 names a week were submitted.
Meanwhile, the City was finalizing plans for the assessment district. The cost to build the Walk, including new street lighting and street trees, was determined to be $1.25-million. This worked out to $85 per front foot to be paid by the adjacent property owners.