6 Retro Photos From Hollywood’s Golden Age
Spanning from roughly the 1920s to the early ’60s, Hollywood’s golden age begat some of film’s most glamorous stars, classic quotes, and enduring scenes. Indeed, this era of moviemaking from the greater Los Angeles area was a time when the very idea of “Hollywood” as an idealized alternate reality was crystalized in the public consciousness.
While we now know that life wasn’t always so rosy behind the red carpet photo shoots and studio gates, that concept of old, glamorous Hollywood retains a strong emotional pull as a place where dreams were realized. Here’s a look at six photos that capture some of the defining faces, events, and achievements of the era.
King Kong Movie Poster
Promotional posters have been around since the inception of the motion picture industry, with full-color prints noting the leading men, women, and, in this case, creatures to be seen in the project being highlighted. King Kong (1933), of course, was a landmark film of its era, thanks in part to production techniques that included the pioneering usage of stop-motion photography and creation of an original score.
While the movie’s promotional material effectively showcased the terrible power of its titular monster without being particularly groundbreaking, American film posters soon exhibited more innovative styles of collage and minimalism. And unlike the largely anonymous artists of the early 20th century, illustrators such as Bill Gold and Saul Bass enjoyed acclaim for their work in this particular field during the golden age of Hollywood.
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Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy
Audiences have long delighted in the sparks-generating tension of romantic comedies, and no on-screen couple pulled it off better than the golden age duo of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. From their initial pairing starring as co-workers in Woman of the Year (1942) to their final go-round portraying parents in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), Hepburn and Tracy brought out the best in each other across their nine movies together. Their chemistry was rumored to have fueled a real-life romance that lasted from their first movie until Tracy’s death in 1967, with the married actor supposedly refusing to divorce his wife due to his strict Catholic beliefs.
Hattie McDaniel Receives Her Oscar
For better or worse, the films and pageantry of Hollywood have served as a reflection of the ambitions, fears, and prejudices of society throughout the years. This is perhaps best exemplified by the 1940 Academy Awards, which saw Hattie McDaniel become the first Black actor to nab a win, in the Best Supporting Actress category for her performance in Gone With the Wind (1939).
Yet McDaniel was only allowed into that year’s ceremony in the segregated Cocoanut Grove nightclub by way of a special favor from ownership, and even then she was forced to sit in the back of the room, away from the table with her white co-stars Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable. It took two dozen years before Sidney Poitier became the second Black Oscar winner, for his leading role in Lilies of the Field (1963), and an additional 19 years for Louis Gossett Jr. to become the third, for his supporting effort in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982).
Marilyn Monroe’s and Jane Russell’s Handprints
As with the Academy Awards, the imprinting of hands and/or feet in wet cement at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatre serves as a marker of top-tier success in the movie industry. The tradition is said to have sprung from an accident; silent film star Norma Talmadge supposedly stepped in new cement before the opening of what was then Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in 1927, inspiring owner Sid Grauman to make a formality of such activity with the hand and footprints of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in April.
Over the years, a few stars have added a distinct touch to the proceedings: Betty Grable left the imprint of her leg in 1943; George Burns supplied one of his cigars in 1979; and jokester Mel Brooks added a prosthetic sixth finger for a handprint in 2014. Marilyn Monroe even dotted the “i” in her name with an earring during her 1953 dual ceremony with Jane Russell to celebrate the release of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, although it was carved out by an opportunistic thief a few days afterward.
Orson Welles on the Set of Citizen Kane
From George Cukor and John Ford to Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock, Hollywood’s golden age was marked by boldface-name directors who packed the star power to rival that of the era’s A-listers. The same standing briefly applied to Orson Welles, a former stage actor who rocketed to fame with his panic-inducing radio adaptation of War of the Worlds in 1938, before directing one of the all-time cinematic masterpieces with Citizen Kane (1941), as seen in the photo above.
The mercurial Welles soon grew disillusioned with Hollywood, however, and he flitted in and out of the industry’s embrace while continuing to direct and star in signature films including The Lady of Shanghai (1947) and A Touch of Evil (1958). Although he never again reached the towering heights of Citizen Kane, Welles left behind a record as one of the greats of his era thanks to innovative techniques such as extended takes and “deep focus” filming.
MGM Studio Lots
The golden age of Hollywood was ruled by the all-powerful studios where the movie magic was made. From 1930 to 1948, the combination of Hollywood’s “big five” studios — Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and RKO Pictures — and “little three” — Universal Pictures, United Artists, and Columbia — accounted for a whopping 95% of films exhibited in the United States.
MGM, seen above in a photo from around 1945, was perhaps the most prominent of the bunch, and a rundown of its facilities showcases just how much effort went into sustaining the empire. Along with offices for its executives, directors, writers, and various casting, camera, and wardrobe departments, the Culver City-based studio had lots dedicated to indoor and outdoor sets, including a 63 million-gallon artificial lake, as well as vehicle storage, a zoo, and a nursery. However, Hollywood’s bosses lost their iron grip on the industry with the 1948 Supreme Court ruling that forced studios to divest from their movie theater businesses, eventually paving the way for more independent filmmakers and a new era of cinema.
