Once the home of what was allegedly the country's largest Presbyterian church, Hollywood started life as a temperance colony in 1887, intended to provide a sober, God-fearing alternative to raunchy downtown LA, eight miles away by rough country road. The film industry was drawn here from the east coast by the guaranteed sunshine, low taxes, cheap labor and diverse assortment of natural locations, and as a way of dodging Thomas Edison's restrictive motion picture patents. Nearby Silver Lake was the first (temporary) location for the movie business; the first permanent studio opened in Hollywood in 1911, and within three years the place was packed with filmmakers such as Cecil B. DeMille, who shared his barn-converted office space with a horse (now reincarnated as the Hollywood Heritage Museum, 2100 N Highland Ave; Sat & Sun 10am-3.30pm; $4; ).

The industry expanded fast, and eager new arrivals soon swamped the original small-scaled community. Once movie-making had proved itself to be a financially secure business - with the success of D.W. Griffith's racist epic The Birth of a Nation in 1914 - film production became conglomerated and highly specialized. Small companies either went bust or were incorporated into big studios. Hollywood's enduring success is in making slick, pleasurable movies that sell - from the hard-bitten film noir of the 1940s to the uncommon creativity of filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola and Quentin Tarantino to the mindless shoot-'em-ups and teenage sex comedies of today.

Hollywood

• Hollywood
• A brief history of Hollywood

Explore Hollywood

• Central Hollywood
• Griffith Park
• Hollywood Hills

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