A roaring Los Angeles story: When Southern California became the movie capital of the world, Hollywood Boulevard wasn’t the only attraction filling up with enthusiasts from around the globe. Several miles east of the bright lights lay another entertainment phenomenon unique to the region: a working farm filled with African lions. Gay’s Lion Farm offered visitors a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to gaze upon dozens of full-grown lions roaming fenced enclosures, roar kingdoms like kings above the distant cityscape, and witness the spectacle of their trainers feeding these ferocious animals nearly a ton of raw meat every single day.

Julia Boynton Green was born into an old American family that valued education and independence. She was born on May 25, 1861, in Byron, New York. Her family history included Nathanael Greene, a general of the Continental Army known for his intelligence and leadership during the American Revolutionary War’s Southern Campaign. Like her famous relative, Julia Boynton Green led a remarkable life full of quiet accomplishment.

On Thursday, January 21, 1988, Cybill Shepherd stood on Hollywood Boulevard at one of the highest points of her television fame and watched her name become part of the pavement. Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, placed at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in front of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, honored her work in television and, more immediately, the remarkable career revival created by ABC’s Moonlighting. I was there.

Hollywood has always been a place of monuments, both real and imagined. Some are cast in bronze, stone, and concrete. Others remain sketches, proposals and dreams. One of the most intriguing of the latter was an ambitious plan during the 1980s to erect an enormous memorial to James Dean inside Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery—today Hollywood Forever.

The summer movie season is officially behind us, and the first weekend of September brings a surprisingly varied trio of new wide releases. There is a fact-based crime thriller pairing Mark Wahlberg with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, an unapologetically bloody science-fiction action movie from director Adam Wingard, and a much quieter relationship drama starring Dakota Fanning. Here are the three major films opening nationwide on Friday, September 4.

Few critics have ever achieved what Jonathan Gold did: he altered the way the city saw itself. Although he wrote about food, he also dealt with neighborhoods, immigration, culture, class, memory, and the people who are responsible for making Los Angeles what it is. When he died in 2018, Gold had become one of the city's most distinctive voices and the first restaurant critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for criticism.

First National Pictures was not set up as a movie studio but as a form of rebellion. In the 1910s Adolph Zukor managed to make Paramount one of the most powerful players in the motion-picture industry. Among the tactics he used was 'block booking.' This meant that cinema owners who wanted to show a popular film starring someone like Mary Pickford also had to agree to show a set of less desirable films. The exhibitors became more and more resentful about being told which films they had to show, but since stars such as Pickford attracted large audiences, refusing Zukor could have been a bad business move. In the end, some theatre owners decided that they had had enough.

Long before Hollywood scandals arrived with publicists, attorneys and carefully worded statements, trouble at a movie star’s home could be wonderfully uncomplicated. Someone called the police, a patrolman arrived, and the next morning the newspapers told everybody what happened.

It could hardly have been a more appropriate time and place for the screening of Rudolph Valentino's last film. On August 23, 2026—precisely one hundred years after his death—the Los Angeles premiere of the Cohen Film Collection's careful restoration of The Son of the Sheik took place at the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever. Earlier that same afternoon, fans had assembled in the Cathedral Mausoleum for the 99th Annual Rudolph Valentino Memorial Service. A few hours later, Valentino appeared once more on screen: young, athletic, and still able to command a room, as he had a century after his death.

Long before Hollywood and Vine became one of the most famous intersections in the world, the southeast corner looked nothing like the urban crossroads we know today. Hollywood was still a semi-rural community of orchards, scattered houses, and dusty roads, and Hollywood Boulevard was still called Prospect Avenue. The land at the southeast corner of Prospect and Weyse Avenue—later Vine Street—had once been part of a lemon grove owned by Hollywood pioneer Daeida Beveridge.

The final weekend of August offers moviegoers an unusually varied assortment of choices, from Ridley Scott’s latest post-apocalyptic epic and the long-rescued Coyote vs. Acme to romantic comedy, Korean zombies, offbeat horror and several acclaimed international films expanding into additional theaters. Some of these pictures have already opened in limited engagements and are widening their runs this weekend, while others make their U.S. theatrical debuts on Friday, August 28. Here are some of the more interesting choices vying for your movie-going dollar.

The well-known British actor Tim Curry, with his deep voice, sharp sense of humour and extravagant theatrical style, was one of the most unique performers of his time, and he has died at the age of eighty. According to his long-time manager Marcia Hurwitz, Curry passed away peacefully at his home in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles on August 25, 2026.