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| The Egyptian as it appeared during its heyday in the 1920s. |
In 1922, Hollywood proper consisted of a village and several movie studios that had just sprouted from an unending sea of orange groves. Hollywood Boulevard amounted to a quaint row of shops and houses, with no suggestion of glamour whatsoever. Then Sid Grauman, the wild-haired showman who had built the opulent Million Dollar Theater in downtown Los Angeles, decided to construct a movie palace as a premiere showcase on Hollywood Boulevard. Architects Mendel Myer and Phillip Holler designed it in the style of ancient Egypt, with a slight touch of Jazz Age decor. This cinema came complete with an ochre-colored exterior, huge columns a la Karnak, a magnificent auditorium with a sunburst ceiling 50 feet overhead, walls stenciled with Egyptian murals, a great scarab above the screen, a lobby replete with statues of ancient gods and pharaohs, and two colossal heads of Ramses that kept vigilant watch over a 140'–long forecourt.
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| The revived theater, a glittering jewel on Hollywood Boulevard. |
Hail, the arrival of Grauman's Egyptian Theater!
The Egyptian was the first great step toward making Hollywood a Mecca for movie lovers. Four years later, its success prompted Grauman to erect the Chinese Theater a few blocks west. These playhouses and their glitzy premieres helped make Hollywood Boulevard as famous as Times Square. Since the Fifties, however, this Tinseltown street has become badly tarnished — almost a testimony to its malignant moniker "the boulevard of broken dreams" — and the Egyptian's deterioration reflected this downhill trend. The 1994 Northridge earthquake delivered a coup de grace that seemingly finished off the theater for good — until now.
In 1999, the Egyptian has undergone a glorious resurrection, and it now stands as a shining symbol of the motion picture industry's historic roots. The property is now owned by the American Cinematheque, a non-profit film exhibition and cultural organization founded in 1984. The entire complex has been renovated to the tune of $14.2 million by the Santa Monica-based architectural firm of Hodgetts & Fung.
The odeum retains many of the original's salient features, including ceiling restorations, murals, the scarab-dominated proscenium and a fancy, palm-lined forecourt. The auditorium's back end has been shortened by 25 feet to afford a more spacious lobby, but its audience capacity remains at 650. Seating is arranged within a framework of black acoustical panels that stand open to reveal the original walls. When the screening begins, these panels close and improve viewing and acoustics. Also incorporated is a 68-seat screening room and a restaurant with a roof terrace.
The gala opening, held on December 4, 1998, featured a newly restored print of Cecil B. DeMille's 1923 version of The Ten Commandments, which premiered at the Egyptian some 75 years before — on the exact same date. Hugo Riesenfeld's original score was performed live by a 16-piece orchestra conducted by Gillian Anderson.
"The Egyptian Theater is a physical embodiment of what the Cinematheque is all about," said Barbara Zicka Smith, director of the organization. "We are committed to showing films from the past and showcasing the talent of the future. So the theater — with its 1922 shell, into which we have dropped a futuristic box — is the perfect symbol, much more so than a new building ever could have been."
—George Turner
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