Thursday, February 18, 2010

Chaplin Studios on La Brea in Hollywood

Driving in LA can be a blessing and a curse. The traffic can be so totally fucked on the freeways that you look for alternate routes to the places you want to go. I've been taking a bootleg route to work at the CityWalk, taking La Cienega to La Brea to get me from Redondo Beach into Hollywood. I was stopped at a red light at the corner of Sunset and La Brea and realized that I was at the historic location of the old Charlie Chaplin Studios. I thought quickly, took out my camera and snapped a couple of shots. How cool to think that some of my favorite Chaplin films were shot at this very location. Movies like, "The Kid", "The Gold Rush", "City Lights", "Modern Times", "The Great Dictator" & "Limelight", all shot here at this historic location.

After the Chaplin era, or maybe I should be saying the McCarthy era that forced him to leave this country, pretty much for good, the studio changed hands many times. After being sold by Chaplin in 1953, the property went through several changes in ownership and has served at various times as Kling Studios, the Red Skelton Studios, the shooting location for the "Adventures of Superman" and "Perry Mason" television series, and as the headquarters for A&M Records and is currently home of Jim Henson Productions. Lots of entertainment history hidden out in the open, on the streets of LA.







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