Zelda Roland
Zelda Roland is a writer and PhD Candidate at Yale, where she studies film, art history, and Los Angeles.
Hollywood's struggles with diversity long predate #OscarsSoWhite.
Why did the film industry choose to locate in L.A.? Thank the weather – as well as the city's open-shop, anti-union labor policies.
When Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared into the Pacific in 1926, Los Angeles grieved. Five weeks later, the larger-than-life evangelist resurfaced in an Arizona border town.
Real cowboys waiting to be hired as Hollywood extras once hung out at the site of the Western-themed strip mall.
After the film industry came to Los Angeles, Lummis advised several producers and directors. He called them “the most conscienceless pirates” he'd ever met.
MGM and other Hollywood studios helped defeat Upton Sinclair's 1934 "End Poverty in California" campaign for governor.
Thirty miles in radius, the Hollywood Studio Zone grants the film industry a specific geography within the L.A. metropolis. (And yes, that's how TMZ got its name.)