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Gower Street is a street in Los Angeles, California that has played an important role in the ongoing evolution of Hollywood, particularly as the home to several prominent Poverty Row studios during the area's Golden Age. It marks the eastern terminus of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Gower Street begins at the corner of 1st Street (Los Angeles) in the Hancock Park district as a residential street, becomes primarily industrial, and then commercial as it bisects the Hollywood district, becomes residential again north of Franklin Avenue, and terminates in Beachwood Canyon at Beachwood Drive near the Hollywood Sign. Gower Street marks the western boundary of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery just south of Santa Monica Boulevard.
A farmer from Hawaii named John T. Gower brought in the area's first harvesting equipment and built his home near this street before his death in 1880, a time when Hollywood was an independent city. Upon Hollywood's annexation by the city of Los Angeles in 1910, this street was named in his honor.
Many of the original Hollywood movie studios were located on or near Gower Street. The Paramount Pictures lot sits on the corner of Gower Street and Melrose Avenue; further north, the Sunset Gower Studios (formerly the Columbia Pictures lot) sit on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower.
Gower Street was the location of the first motion picture studio built in Hollywood. Nestor Studios, founded by David and William Horsley and operated by Al Christie in 1911, the Christie Studios occupied a building at the northwest corner of Gower Street and Sunset Boulevard. Later, this same location was home to the Columbia Drugstore, famous for a soda fountain, frequented by many young movie stars. The drugstore was also home to an outdoor magazine and newspaper vendor where many celebrities bought their hometown newspapers.
The original Nestor Studios site went through various owners until the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) bought it in 1935. CBS demolished Hollywood's historic first studio, and built a $2 million facility that set the stage for the era of television in Hollywood.
Beginning in the 1930s, Gower Street earned the nickname "Gower Gulch" because of the many extras in Westerns who would dress in their cowboy costumes at home, then walk south to Paramount and RKO studios, which were all located just off Gower Street south of Sunset Boulevard. Today, a strip-mall named "Gower Gulch", built to resemble a Western set, sits on the southwest corner of Sunset and Gower as a reminder of that era. The phrase "Gower Gulch" is painted on an actual chuck wagon that sits on the site of the old "Copper Skillet" coffee shop, where the cowboys used to have their breakfast.
Gower Street became very well known to wartime movie audiences in the film Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943) when Dennis Morgan and Joan Leslie visit "Gower Gulch". They hear Spike Jones and His City Slickers at the movie colony village situated at the northern end of Gower Street in the Hollywood Hills. Although the scene is a set built in the studio, it is a faithful replica of the actual village that stood there built from discarded movie sets.
The street was the subject of a comic song heard in a 1951 Warner Bros. "Daffy Duck" cartoon called "Drip-Along Daffy". The song is called "The Flower of Gower Gulch" and was written by Michael Maltese (1908–1981), though he is uncredited in the actual short.
The street was also featured in the Warren Zevon song "Desperados Under the Eaves", though referred to as "Gower Avenue" to preserve the meter of the song.
The Hollywood Walk of Fame (which runs east to west on Hollywood Boulevard) begins at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Gower Street.
Hollywood is an American neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. Its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the U.S. film industry and the people associated with it. Many of its studios such as Columbia Pictures, Disney, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., and Universal Pictures were founded there; Paramount still has its studios there.
Sunset Boulevard is a boulevard in the central and western part of Los Angeles, California, that stretches from the Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades east to Figueroa Street in Downtown Los Angeles. It is a major thoroughfare in the cities of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, as well as several districts in Los Angeles.
Hollywood and Vine, the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Hollywood, a district of Los Angeles, became known in the 1920s for its concentration of radio and movie-related businesses. The Hollywood Walk of Fame is centered on the intersection.
Universal City is an unincorporated area within the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Approximately 415 acres (1.7 km²) within and around the surrounding area is the property of Universal Pictures, one of the five major film studios in the United States: about 70 percent of the studio's property is inside this unincorporated area, while the remaining 30 percent is within the Los Angeles city limits. Universal City is primarily surrounded by Los Angeles with its northeastern corner touching the city of Burbank, making the unincorporated area a county island.
Gower Gulch is a nickname for the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.
The Nestor Film Company, originally known as the Nestor Motion Picture Company, was an American motion picture production company. It was founded in 1909 as the West Coast production unit of the Centaur Film Company located in Bayonne, New Jersey. While not the first movie studio in Los Angeles, on October 27, 1911, Nestor established the first permanent motion picture studio in Hollywood, California, and produced the first Hollywood films. The company merged with its distributor, the Universal Film Manufacturing Company, on May 20, 1912. Nestor became a brand name Universal used until at least mid-1917.
David Horsley was an English pioneer of the film industry. He founded the Centaur Film Company and its West Coast branch, the Nestor Film Company, which established the first film studio in Hollywood in 1911.
Hollywood Boulevard is a major east–west street in Los Angeles, California. It begins in the west as a winding residential street at Sunset Plaza Drive in the Hollywood Hills West district. After crossing Laurel Canyon Boulevard, it proceeds due east as a major thoroughfare through Hollywood, Little Armenia and Thai Town to Vermont Avenue. It then runs southeast to its eastern terminus at Sunset Boulevard in the Los Feliz district. Parts of the boulevard are popular tourist destinations, primarily the fifteen blocks between La Brea Avenue east to Gower Street where the Hollywood Walk of Fame is primarily located.
Christie Film Company was an American pioneer motion picture company founded in Hollywood, California by Al Christie and Charles Christie, two brothers from London, Ontario, Canada. It made comedies.
Hollywood/Vine is an underground rapid transit station on the B Line of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. It is located under below the iconic Hollywood and Vine intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, after which the station is named, in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Hollywood.
CBS Columbia Square was the home of CBS's Los Angeles radio and television operations from 1938 until 2007. Located at 6121 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, the building housed the CBS Radio Network's West Coast facilities, as well as CBS's original Los Angeles radio stations, KNX and KCBS-FM. KNXT-TV, Channel 2 moved into the complex in 1960, and the CBS Television Network's West Coast operations were based there until it moved to the larger CBS Television City in November 1952. After its purchase by CBS in 2002, KCAL-TV moved to the Square from studios adjacent to CBS's corporate sibling Paramount Pictures. Between 2004 and 2007 all of these operations moved to other facilities in the Los Angeles area.
The Independent Moving Pictures Company (IMP) was a motion picture studio and production company founded in 1909 by Carl Laemmle. The company was based in New York City, with production facilities in Fort Lee, New Jersey. In 1912, IMP merged with several other production companies to form Universal Film Manufacturing Company, later re-named Universal Pictures Company with Laemmle as president.
Drip-Along Daffy is a 1951 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoon short, directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese. The cartoon was released on November 17, 1951, and stars Daffy Duck and Porky Pig.
Laurel Canyon Boulevard is a major street in the city of Los Angeles. It starts off at Polk Street in Sylmar in the northern San Fernando Valley near the junction of the San Diego and the Golden State (I-5)) freeways. Laurel Canyon Boulevard bypasses the city of San Fernando to the west, running parallel to I-5 in the vicinity of Pacoima and Arleta. The portion through Sun Valley passes through rock quarries and a great deal of open space.
Franklin Avenue is a street in Los Angeles. It is the northernmost thoroughfare in Hollywood, north of Hollywood Boulevard, and the southern border of the Hollywood Hills. It is the center of the stylish neighborhood of Franklin Village.
Schwab's Pharmacy was a drugstore located at 8024 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California, and was a popular hangout for movie actors and movie industry dealmakers from the 1930s through the 1950s.
Sunset Gower Studios is a 14-acre (57,000 m2) television and movie studio at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street in Hollywood, California. Established in 1912, it continues today as Hollywood's largest independent studio and an active facility for television and film production on its twelve soundstages.
The Centaur Film Company was an American motion picture production company founded in 1907 in Bayonne, New Jersey, by William and David Horsley. It was the first independent motion picture production company in the United States. In 1909 the company added a West Coast production unit, the Nestor Film Company, which established the first permanent film studio in Hollywood, California, in 1911. The company was absorbed by the Universal Film Manufacturing Company in 1912.
The Warner Bros. Ranch is located at 411 North Hollywood Way in Burbank, California and was formerly called the Columbia Ranch. It was the backdrop for many Columbia Pictures films and Screen Gems/Columbia Pictures Television shows, including Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show, Dennis the Menace, Hazel, Bewitched, Gidget, I Dream of Jeannie, The Monkees, The Flying Nun, Here Come the Brides, The Partridge Family, The Hathaways, The Waltons, Lost Horizon, High Noon, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Were Never Lovelier, Lethal Weapon, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, WandaVision, The Wild One, The Wrecking Crew and Autumn Leaves. Only the front facades of the houses and buildings were built; the interiors were always shot at other locations or studios. The streets were constructed and arranged to allow shooting at multiple angles to create the illusion of a much larger area, though the lot only spans about six city blocks.
Jerome Bonaparte "Blackjack" Ward was an American cowboy and Western actor who appeared in over 160 films from 1927 to 1946.