The 20th Century Fox of the Future

Growing up in a pleasant corner of L.A. called Beverlywood (no, I had nothing to do with that), I was quietly thrilled by the proximity of a famous movie studio. Yes, 20^th Century Fox was about a mile from my home. It was exciting to drive west on Pico Boulevard and see the gates through which celebrities entered, along with huge posters for such coming attractions as Cleopatra, The Sound of Music, and Star Wars. In later years,  my husband- to-be, along with members of my family, took part in the mammoth parade down a fake New York street that was intended to be the high point of 1969’s Hello, Dolly!

 Of course, time marches on. Starting in 1963, much of Fox’s rambling backlot was sold to developers, resulting in the building of hotels, condo towers, and a high-end shopping mall known collectively as Century City. (Such brand-new boulevards as Avenue of the Stars played into the movie-star motif.)  Then, after a series of ownership changes, most of the studio (including its intellectual property) was purchased by Disney in 2019. Today the complex is known as 20^th Century Studios: it houses Fox productions, maker of The Simpsons as well as other television favorites, and is also used as rental space for additional TV and movie projects.

 Unlike such storied Hollywood properties as Universal Studios, Fox has never been known for public outreach. Touring the lot is generally not an option, unless you have specific business on the premises. But today that’s starting to  change. A project called Fox Future is being organized to preserve and enhance the remains of one of Hollywood’s oldest studios, and the first to commit itself wholly to the production of sound films. Among the plans: the resurrection of the Fox Research Library, which—like most of the old studio libraries—had been shamefully allowed to disperse over the decades.

 In tandem with Fox Future, the heroic L.A. Conservancy devoted itself on a rain-splashed recent Sunday (yes, it does rain in  SoCal) to educational tours of the lot. We glimpsed the commissary once visited by Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev (who there learned with dismay that his planned visit to Disneyland had been cancelled out of security concerns)), and were allowed inside a famous scoring stage. We gawked at giant murals commemorating the studio’s greatest hits, like Gene Wilder and Teri Garr romping through Young Frankenstein as well as Marilyn Monroe flirting with Tom Ewell in The Seven Year Itch. Perhaps most charming were the earliest buildings on the lot, from the days when Hollywood studios pampered their über-famous contract players with private cottages tailored to their individual tastes. Still standing in the so-called Artist’s and Writer’s Village are several cozy but elaborately outfitted bungalows now used as office space but once dedicated to some of the studio’s brightest stars. Will Rogers’s once-upon-a-time bungalow still has its American Southwest flair. Next door  is what originally was meant to look like a wee Irish cottage. It was apparently built for the popular Irish tenor, John McCormack, who made several films in the early 1930s. Eventually, it became the

home-away-from-home of one of Fox’s biggest Depression-era stars, Shirley Temple. Here’s one of my very favorite factoids from a tour docent: little Shirley was such a worldwide favorite that she frequently received gifts from overseas fans. One admirer in Australia sent a brace of live kangaroos. Soon they were hopping all over the lot, but ended  up being corralled  in an historic lily pond near the studio’s original main building. (You can’t make this stuff up!)