As Josh posted yesterday, we will be going to the TCM Film Festival in Hollywood.  The festival begins Thursday night, April 22nd, and runs through Sunday, April 25.

The event will be held in three places – Grauman’s Chinese Theater, the Egyptian Theater, and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

As a ramp up to the festival, I’ll be bringing you a brief history on each of these historic venues.

Today, let’s visit the Egyptian Theater.

In the early 1920′s, residents of Hollywood went to the movies in downtown Los Angeles.  There were no movie palaces in Hollywood.  The Egyptian was the first of it’s kind.

The Egyptian Theater was built by Charles Toberman (a real estate developer responsible for many other Hollywood landmarks) and Sid Grauman.  Grauman had built other movie palaces in various other cities but none as prestigious as the Egyptian.  The first design for the Egyptian wasn’t going to be Egyptian at all but Spanish.  With the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, the country was obsessed with anything Egyptian so the design was changed.

The theater opened in October of 1922.  The first film to play at The Egyptian was Douglas Fairbanks’ Robin Hood.

The owner/manager, Sid Grauman was not merely a manager, he was a showman.  He staged hundreds of stage shows (called prologues) that played before the movies that were shown in his theaters.  The prologue for Robin Hood cost $250,000 and had 50 actors and dancers.  Myrna Loy (The Thin Man, The Best Years of Our Lives) was discovered while performing in one of Grauman’s prologues.

Grauman was friends with many Hollywood stars, producers, directors, and studio chiefs.  It was this connection that made it possible for him to operate his theaters without being a part of a theater chain.  The studios happily let their films be played at his theaters.

In 1924, Grauman sold the Egyptian to Fox Studios.  He remained on as manager until 1927.  The theater was still called Grauman’s Egyptian Theater for years after that even though he had nothing to do with it.

I’ve seen one film at the Egyptian and I can honestly say, it is an exquisite movie palace.  I’m looking forward to seeing more films there this weekend.  With so much of old Hollywood gone, we are all very fortunate that the Egyptian has survived all these years.

Tomorrow, we’ll briefly look at the history of Grauman’s most famous theater, the Chinese Theater.