37 Things You Didn’t Know About Hollywood

Celebrities have to pay $30,000 for their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. They must sign a form stating that they want a star and that they will attend the unveiling of it. Celebrities Julia Roberts, Clint Eastwood, Denzel Washington, and Al Pacino still don't have a star.

2. Many American movie villains have British accents, specifically Queen's English because Americans associate that accent with high intellect and low morals.

3. In the 1920s, the Hollywood sign used to be lit by thousands of light bulbs and the guy who changed the burnt ones lived in a little cabin near the sign.

4. During a test preview for Apollo 13, an audience member said he disliked the movie because it had a “typical Hollywood ending” and that the crew would never have survived. The movie was based on real events.

5. Only one species of frog goes "Ribbit", but it has become a national and global cliche because that frog resides in Hollywood and was used for sound effects.

TMZ gets its name from the ‘Thirty Mile Zone’ around Hollywood which is considered ‘local’ and is all about union rules and money.

7. Legendary Hollywood producer Hal Roach would employ someone called a "Wildie" who was either an insane person or a drunk to sit in his writers' room and spout crazy ideas whenever they had writer's block.

8. Hollywood Accounting is a creative accounting process used to hide film profits. Some of the highest-grossing films of all time have actually registered 'net loss' and 'no profit' on paper using this process (including Return of the Jedi; Forrest Gump; Lord of the Rings Trilogy; Harry Potter).

9. In 1958, filmmaker William Castle came up with one of the most famous movie marketing stunts of all time. Upon purchasing a ticket to the Movie “Macabre” you were also given a $1,000 life insurance policy. If you died of fright during the film, the film promised to pay out to your heirs.

10. In the Breaking Bad episode “Ozymandias”, the show's producers secured special permission from the Hollywood guilds to delay the credits (which would normally appear after the main title sequence) until 19 minutes into the episode, in order to preserve the impact of the beginning scene.

Alice Cooper formed a celebrity "drinking club" in the 1970s called the Hollywood Vampires. You could only join the club if you could out-drink all members, which included Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, Micky Dolenz, Harry Nilsson, John Belushi, and John Lennon.

12. The Temple of Doom led to the creation of the PG-13 rating. Spielberg wrote to the MPAA specifically asking for a rating between PG and R.

13. Warner Bros canceled Home Alone because they didn't want to spend $14.7 million on it. 21st Century Fox continued the production and the film grossed $476 million worldwide.

14. During the Pre-Code Era of Hollywood movies were not systematically censored by an oversight group. Along with featuring stronger female characters, these films examined female subject matters that would not be revisited until decades later in US films.

15. Unlike Hollywood told us, removing a bullet from a gunshot wound is one of the worst things to do after getting shot. Doctors often leave the bullet or shrapnel inside the body if they don't pose an immediate threat.

Hollywood briefly experimented with an interactive movie format akin to "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. Back to the Future co-writer Bob Gale wrote a film and directed a film called "Mr. Payback" in which audience members were able to choose what happened next. The results were disastrous.

17. "Attack of the Clones" (2002) was the first Hollywood movie shot entirely on HD digital cameras

18. An '&' between two writers for a movie (e.g. "Quentin Tarantino & Woody Allen") means the writers worked together on the script as a team, while an 'and' ("Quentin Tarantino and Woody Allen") means they worked on the same script independently.

19. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Walt Disney Studios was taken over and converted by the U.S. Army into an anti-aircraft base in fear that Japanese bombers would soon reach Los Angeles. It remained the only time a Hollywood studio came under military occupation in history.

20. In the 2012 remake of Red Dawn, the invading army was originally written as being China. In post-production, all references to China were changed to North Korea, as the studio wanted access to the Chinese market. The film was still never released in China.

The Hollywood Walk of Fame star for Muhammad Ali is the only one that's placed on a wall and not the ground because Ali "did not want the name of Muhammad to be stepped on."

22. "The Deer Hunter" in 1978 was the first film to use Oscars as a marketing tool. Being too depressing for the box office, it did screenings for film critics and Academy members. It gained nine nominations and won Best Picture, and then that was used to make it a commercial success.

23. Disney was planning on making a short film featuring Mickey Mouse as Christopher Colombus discovering America. It got canceled because the animation team was unsure how to animate the native people Mickey would have to encounter in a non-offensive way.

24. The Hollywood sign originally said “Hollywoodland” and was erected in 1923 to advertise a segregated housing development in the hills above the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. It was only designed to be up for about 18 months. By 1978, it had started to deteriorate after years of neglect and was saved twice by the creator of Playboy.

25. The light atop a Hollywood record company (Capitol Records Building) building has been quietly blinking-out messages in Morse code since first being turned on in 1956, by Morse’s own granddaughter. The default message it blinks out is just one word, but it once revealed an album release date: “Katy Perry. Prism. October 22, 2013.”