Τimes of the Sign

The Hollywood sign began its life, fittingly enough, as a flashy billboard no more permanent than a film set. In the 100 years since. it has been rebuilt, rebranded, and reborn as a beacon for aspiring stars from around the world and a reminder of just how few dreams of fame and fortune come true.

- By Mark Seal

You are surrounded by 45-foot-tall white letters, so close you cannot discern what they say.

Fourteen hundred feet above the city of dreams, you can see the sweep of the metropolis, from the hills to the sea, and within it the cauldron of struggle and strife that is Los Angeles. But the eyes down below are staring at you, for you are atop the town’s most famous monument, the ultimate symbol of fame, fortune, and the fantasy of moviemaking worldwide.

You are standing atop the Hollywood sign.

You are not supposed to be here.

Normally, you would be chased away, fined, and possibly even arrested. For the sign may be the only monument in the world that keeps visitors out instead of welcoming them in. Getting to the sign is almost as tough as breaking into Hollywood, and almost as treacherous: a vertical climb that requires nerves, tenacity, and, like everything in this town, connections.

But to understand its significance and its story, you have to start, like everyone who has gazed upon it and dreamed of stardom, not at the top, but at the bottom.

Those who know how to get to the sign don’t tell; and those who tell don’t know.

“We don’t particularly promote this,” Diana Wright says of the drive she’s about to take you on. Wright is on the team that handles PR for the Hollywood Sign Trust, an organization of nine men and women, some appointed by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. The trust’s mission, she says, is “to preserve and promote the Hollywood sign as a symbol of hopes and dreams and international filmmaking.”