Chamber to Paint Tinseltown Red for 100th Birthday

Hollywood is approaching a banner year in 1987.

Paramount Studios will be 75 years old. So will Western Costume Co., the largest costume supplier for the film industry. Mann’s Chinese Theater will be 60, and KTLA-TV, the first television station in the West, turns 40.

It will also be Tinseltown’s 100th anniversary and Hollywood’s Chamber of Commerce is planning a year of events to celebrate the centennial.

“There are two words in the English language you don’t have to translate,” chamber President Bill Welsh said. “One is OK and the other is Hollywood . I think the world will want to celebrate with us.”

Welsh said that although most of the events are planned for next June, the centennial celebration will begin with the annual Hollywood Christmas Parade on Nov. 30.

Hollywood’s birthday, however, is Feb. 1, a century after Harvey Wilcox took a subdivision map of what is now Hollywood to the Los Angeles County recorder’s office so he could sell off pieces of the property.

Wilcox’s wife dubbed the land “Hollywood” after a private estate of the same name outside of Chicago, Welsh said.

A star bearing the name of the late Natalie Wood will be unveiled on the Walk of Fame on Feb. 1 and a time capsule, with instructions to open it in 2087, will be sealed and placed somewhere, possibly at the Hollywood Branch library, Welsh said.

But the celebration will really begin in June, when the chamber expects to put on a street dance at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine. Producer Jerry Weintraub is planning “a major entertainment night” at the Hollywood Bowl and the record producers of three of Hollywood’s major recording studios are planning another, Welsh said.

Composer Lalo Schifrin is scheduled to conduct a 100-piece orchestra in a concert at the Universal Amphitheater featuring movie themes.