Sidney Grauman, the greatest American showman.

Sidney Grauman (1879–1950) was the son of David and Rosa Grauman, Jewish th­eatrical per­formers on show circuits. In the 1898 Klond­ike Gold Rush, David took his teenage son Sid with him to Alaska. Grauman was one of 200 Jews who called the Dawson City area home during the Gold Rush.

They didn't find any gold, but they made an income by entertaining miners. In the Yukon young Sid learned that peop­le would willingly pay well for enter­tain­ment. So the men began organising events like boxing mat­ches. It was also in the Yukon that Sid saw his first mot­­ion picture. David thought of buil­d­ing a theatre there, but he had to leave.

Charlie Chaplin, Sidney Grauman, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks

Jun 1920, Wiki

His parents settled in San Francisco, Sid joining them in 1900. With the money the two men earned during the Gold Rush, David & Sid­ney decided to open a vaudeville theatre near San Fran­c­isco. Their first venture was the Unique Th­ea­t­re in San Jose. Opening in Feb 1903, it pre­s­ented films, amateur nights and vaud­e­ville acts feat­uring performers like Al Jolson, Fatty Arbuckle and Sophie Tucker.

Alas in early 1906, the Graumans lost their lease of the Unique Th­eatre. And San Francisco's 1906 earthquake des­troy­ed the Lyceum Theatre. Sid saved only one of the theat­re’s mov­ie pro­­jectors from the ruins, and got a tent and pews from a preach­er from a destroyed church, setting up on the site where the Un­ique once stood. The family won a commend­ation from San Fran­cisco for help­ing boost morale.

They operated their tent theatre for 2 years; by that time David Grau­man had opened the New National Theat­re. They soon expanded their sites, opening the art nouveau master-piece Im­perial, and the Emp­r­ess in San Francisco, and branching out further to Northern Calif cities.

They soon added motion pictures to the vaud­­­e­ville shows at the Lyceum Theatre. And they es­tab­lished the N.W Vaud­eville Co which st­ret­ched from San Fran­cisco to Port­land Or, bringing quality live entert­ain­ment at fair prices to the N.W

Crowds waiting outside the Egyptian Theatre, 

Los Angeles, 1922. Wiki 

With the erection of the Chinese Theatre in 1927 in Los Angeles, Sid’s last theatre was designed like a Chin­ese pagoda/religious building. At the premiere, there were crowds eager to glimpse both the stars arriv­ing and the splendid building. The fit­t­ings were imported from China, and the Chin­ese artisans were brought in to create sculptural works, or­ig­inally in the thea­t­re’s forecourt. The space to build the theatre upon was large, which allowed for an elaborate forecourt, spacious lobbies, an auditorium with seating all on one level, and a stage 12.2m deep!

Chinese Theatre, Los Angeles

opened 1927. Front entrance above; auditorium below 

The Chinese Th­eatre’s forecourt still has c100 celebrity hand and foot­prints in cem­ent. The tradit­ion began by accident, while the finishing touches were being done. Was Mary Pickford the actress who step­­ped in the wet cement? Sid wanted to have a permanent record of stars, so he invited sel­ected film personalities to add their prints. 4+ million tourists visit the Chinese Theatre yearly.

 

Grauman’s bus­iness partners in the Chinese Theatre venture were Mary Pick­ford, Douglas Fairbanks & Howard Schenck. 2 years after open­ing, he sold his share of the theatre to Fox West Coast Theatres, but stayed Managing Director for life!

David Grauman tried to expand his theatre business in New York and the East Coast, where he was unsuccessful. So David had to accept an offer from his partner to buy him out in 1905. By 1917, the Graumans decided they’d relocate to Los Angeles and build theatres there. They app­roach­ed Adolph Zukor, own­er-founder of Paramount Pictures, regarding a bus­iness deal. Zukor agreed to buy the San Francisco theatres from the Graumans and ass­isted them financing their L.A theatre bus­in­esses.

Sid Grauman became a close friend to Hollywood's stars, especially Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Sw­an­son, Dorothy & Lillian Gish, William S Hart, Mabel Normand, Marion Dav­ies, Cecil B DeMille, DW Grif­fith. His many discoveries inc­luded Fatty Arbuckle, Al Jol­son, Jackie Coogan, Charlie Chaplin and Myrna Loy.

Sid Grauman (left) with film producer Irving Thalberg & wife actress Norma Shearer

1932, Wiki 

By 1918, the first of the Grauman Los Angeles movie palaces was open for business: Million Dollar Theatre. Then Grauman tried some non-entertainment ventures, forming eg the Black Hills Exploration Corp­oration in a gold min­ing effort in Sth Dakota. He had convinced other enter­t­ainers and movie company executives to join him in invest­ing in the company, but the project was unsuccessful.

In 1921, David Grauman died suddenly in L.A. Sid moved to Los Angeles where he built and operated movie theatres that bore his name over the marquees. The Egypt­ian Theatre was in Hollywood Bvd L.A, home of the first Holly­wood film premiere: Robin Hood star­ring Douglas Fair­banks.

Grauman loved the new motion picture industry. He won an hon­or­ary Ac­ademy Award in 1949 for raising the standard for film exhib­it­ion, one of the few non-actors to win. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood Blvd and was one of the orig­in­al founders of the Ac­ademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He creat­ed the movie prol­og­ue, a stage show that he developed to precede his first-run sil­ent films. Note how he bl­ended his prologues with live actors and sym­phony orches­tras, en­han­cing the “silents”. His sumptuous movie pal­aces had elaborate st­ag­ing, and astonishing publicity popul­arised his events. He also invented the red-carpet premiere for silent films.

Always single, Sid lived for decades at Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel. He spent his last 6 months at Cedars Sinai Medical Centre L.A, only re­turning at night to the hospital to sleep. In Mar 1950 Grau­man died of a cor­on­ary occlusion. His funeral was attend­ed by 1,000+ Holly­wood stars, many of whom Grauman had celebrated in the Chin­ese Theat­re’s cem­ent. He was int­er­­red at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery Cal. 

Grauman showed Red Skelton
where to leave his prints, 1942