The Hollywood Sign: Fantasy and Reality of an American Icon by Leo Braudy (review)

What comes to mind when you think of the Hollywood sign? It could be the glow of our highest aspirations or the darkness of our deepest fears. Some of us have seen it in person, standing below and looking up at it in its metaphoric allure atop Mount Lee. Those who have not had the pleasure likely know it when they see it on television or in advertisements. One of the most recognizable icons on the globe, the Hollywood sign represents much more than the mountain it stands on. Understanding the importance of this billboard turned international icon, famed scholar Leo Braudy explores the sign's many meanings in The Hollywood Sign: Fantasy and Reality of an American Icon. The book provides the parallel histories of the American film industry and the sign's accidental birth as an icon of the industry it watches over.

Erected in 1923 and reading "Hollywoodland," the sign was built to be an advertisement for the property sitting below it. For about a decade the sign had no association with the film industry since most studios were outside the city limits of Hollywood (Braudy paints a picture of the film industry at this time, explaining where each studio was). Before the sign represented a mixture of reality and fantasy like it does today, European filmmakers had portrayed the idea of fame and self-creation in their movies prior to working in Hollywood. The industry's growing notoriety eventually began to yield a dark side, such as the allegation of rape and murder against Fatty Arbuckle as well as the unsolved murder of William Desmond Taylor, director and former president of the Motion Picture Directors Association. Because of the contrasting images of the industry, Braudy appropriately refers to Hollywood as having a Jekyll and Hyde personality from its early days.

By the 1920s, people were already flocking to Los Angeles to become famous, thanks to early gossip writers already pumping for celebrity obsession. After Shirley Temple made it big, the town was also filled with stage parents peddling their youngsters like candy. Braudy specifically notes that "young women, often considered by the locals to be little better than prostitutes, had surged into town looking for jobs and fun in this freer and easier world" (63). What the Hollywood sign would come to represent had already been set in motion. Notably, the sign did not always sit so quietly on the mountain as it does today; it originally was lit by more than four thousand bulbs that flashed, "Holly," "Wood," and "Land," before finally illuminating the whole "Hollywoodland." Although the sign can still today be faintly seen at night from the glow of the city reflecting off the white letters, it must have been impossible to miss when lit by electric lights meant to draw attention to the marketed property below.

It was not until 1932 that the sign became notoriously linked with the film industry, when a young actress, Peg Entwistle, supposedly jumped to her death from the "H." Since her death, Entwistle has been seen as the first high-profile starlet, and her story is now a metaphor for the failed attempts at fame that occur continuously in Hollywood. Although the simple story of her demise has been widely accepted, Braudy raises interesting doubt about its truthfulness. Entwistle was certainly on her way to success in Hollywood and had previously had a promising career on Broadway, which makes it seem unlikely that she killed herself over her career. The traditional story of her demise based on a failed acting career may just be a matter of gossip columnists "printing the legend" instead of the fact. Braudy says that "whatever her motivations, she may have been the first to perceive the sign symbolically" (96).

By the late 1930s, artists from within the industry were criticizing the idea and myth of Hollywood (a fantastical quest for fame and wealth) that the sign would come to represent. Songs...