50 Interesting Facts about Hollywood

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.

27. 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.

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

29. 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.

30. 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.

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.

32. 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."

33. "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.

34. 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.

35. 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.

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.”

37. As early as 1915 an African-American film industry ran parallel to the Hollywood mainstream, catering to the community's segregated filmgoers. 'Race movies' had their own Black-owned studios, directors, and popular stars - though the majority of these early film reels are lost or damaged today.

38. In United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. the United States Supreme Court ruled Hollywood's Big Five could no longer own movie theaters, thus breaking up their oligopoly. Before its ruling, Hollywood studios controlled the filming, producing, printing and distribution of their movies.

39. Robert Zemeckis was so frustrated with the cliffhanger ending of The Empire Strikes Back that he purposely put the trailer and release date for Back to the Future 3 at the end of Back to the Future 2 so that the audience would know that the story would be completed in six months.

40. In the 40s and 50s, a man calling himself Prince Michael Romanoff, supposedly a member of the Russian royal family, ran a restaurant popular with Hollywood stars. Almost everyone knew he was a fake, but they just played along.

The 1931 Hollywood the English-language film “Dracula” was filmed by day, and the Spanish-language film “Drácula” was filmed using the same set by night. Director of Drácula based his shots on what he felt worked in the “day” film and critics praised Drácula far more than Dracula.

42. The movie 'Salt of the Earth' is based on a true story of a 15 month-long strike. It was blacklisted by Hollywood because its writer, the director and the producer were alleged members of the Communist party and its actress, Rosaura Revueltas, was deported for being in this movie.

43. "Hollywood" became "Holywood" briefly, when Pope John Paul II made a visit to the USA in September 1987.

44. Despite 'The Boondock Saints' being considered one of the hottest scripts in Hollywood, it was only released in 5 theaters and for a duration of just one week. The main reason for the limited distribution was the massacre at Columbine High School.

45. In most Hollywood movies any scene involving an animal is monitored by the Humane Society to ensure no animals are actually harmed in the making of the film.

Screenwriter Robert Towne so hated the finished Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan that he pulled his name off the film and credited his dog as writer. The dog, P.H. Vazak, ended up with an Oscar nomination.

47. Glorifying China in a Hollywood movie will increase its chance to enter the yearly quota (out of 34) to enter Chinese theaters.

48. The first film made in Hollywood was 'In Old California' (1910) and it was just 17 minutes long.

49. There is a cemetery in Hollywood called Forever Cemetery where many stars have been buried, including Mel Blanc, whose gravestone has “That’s All Folks” written on it.

50. The film "Charade" (1963) entered public domain as soon as it released due to an error by the distribuitor, who forgot to add the copyright symbol in the credits, voiding their rights to the film.