FILMMAKERS FIGHT TO SAVE HISTORIC HOLLYWOOD STUDIO

  Anyone who cares about the history of Hollywood should join a group of filmmakers who are fighting to save a 90-year old Hollywood studio which developers are planning to demolish.

Allison Anders

   The Lot, the 11-acre sprawl of sound stages and wood-framed offices which once was Pickfair Studios, is a major historical landmark which will all but disappear if developers who want to put up a new five-story office building on the site have their way. The plan has already been approved by the city of West Hollywood.

Mary Pickford

  The Lot was the spot where Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks set up shop in 1928 for United Artists, the studio they formed with Charlie Chaplin and D.W Griffith and where hundreds of classic movies were shot, starting with His Majesty the American in 1919. 
Howard Hughes kept an office there, even though he owned RKO down the street and would spend hours watching movies in the projection room. 
  Film director Allison Anders, who is helping lead a Save Pickfair Studios drive, has so far collected 2,000 signatures from filmmakers and supporters who want to preserve the Lot. “If enough people care about it there will be enough people who will care to protect it,” she says.
 Among the historic buildings scheduled for demolition are the Writers Building, the Fairbanks Building and Editorial Building.   
  “It will really change the character of the studio completely,” says Anders.

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