The Hollywood Sign Is Still Standing, Despite What You May Have Heard

Since Tuesday morning, multiple fires have ravaged Los Angeles—resulting in at least five deaths, displacing more than 100,000 LA residents, and destroying more than 1,000 homes as well as entire neighborhoods in the Pacific Palisades. On Wednesday night around 6 p.m., a new fire, the Sunset fire, broke out near popular hiking destination Runyon Canyon in the Hollywood Hills, prompting an evacuation order for all Hollywood neighborhoods. The Sunset fire also nearly took out one of America’s most beloved and iconic landmarks: the Hollywood Sign.

Standing approximately fourteen hundred feet above the city, with letters 45 feet tall and more than 30 feet wide, the Hollywood Sign is emblematic of both the City of Angels and the American dream. The sign was originally built in the silent film era, a little over 100 years ago in 1923— designed by architect Thomas Fisk Groff and engineered by Cornelius A. Van Dam. Initially, it read “HOLLYWOODLAND” in an effort promote a new housing development in the Hollywood Hills, and was only intended to remain up for a 18 months. But as the entertainment industry began to explode, the sign remained standing on the southern side of Mount Lee in Griffith Park, a testament to the golden age of Hollywood.

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While it’s often viewed as a beacon of hope and opportunity, the Hollywood Sign has also been marked by tragedy. In 1932, twenty-four-year old silent film actress Peg Entwistle leapt to her death after climbing a workman’s ladder to the top of the H, leaving a suicide note in her purse. “I’m afraid I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago it would have saved a lot of pain,” the note read. After her death, Entwistle became colloquially known as “the Hollywood Sign Girl,” a tragic example of the dark underbelly of fame. In 1944, the deteriorating sign was donated to the city of Los Angeles, and in April 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce removed the “LAND.” Over the next 30 years, the shortened sign fell into disrepair and was going to be torn down. That is, until Playboy scion Hugh Hefner spearheaded a public campaign to raise $250,000 needed for its restoration in 1978.

Originally made of wood and sheet metal, during its 1978 restoration, the landmark was rebuilt using corrugated steel mounted on a steel frame—making it far less flammable in the process. Hefner even auctioned off letters from the old sign for $27,000 per letter. Alice Cooper, the godfather of rock and roll, took home an O; singer Andy Williams went home with the W; and Hefner himself went home with the Y.

This would not be the only time Hefner saved the Hollywood Sign. In 2010, Hefner donated $900,000 to the Trust for Public Land, a conservationist group that was $1 million short of the $12.5 million they had to raise to save the Hollywood Sign and the surrounding area from developers who intended to build luxury properties on Mount Lee. “It would have been a real shame after having restored it if it wound up sold,” Hefner told People a few days after his donation. “It’s become something iconic and represents not only the town but represents Hollywood dreams, and I think that’s something worth preserving.”

His efforts have not been in vain. This past summer, the Hollywood Sign was featured prominently during the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics. The dual O’s in “WOOD” were transformed to create the bottom level of the 5 ring Olympic symbol, a nod to the fact that Los Angeles is set to host the Olympic Games in 2028. The sign has been featured in countless projects over the last century, and has even been destroyed in films like Superman The Movie (1978), Independence Day (1996), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), and San Andreas (2015).

But it has never been destroyed in real life. During the most recent blaze, rumors swirled on the internet that the Hollywood Sign had caught fire, with images circulating on social media of the sign ablaze. But those reports are false, and the images circulating of the sign on fire are fake and AI generated. According to the Independent, the Hollywood sign remained mostly unscathed by the fire, which would have needed to cross over a freeway to reach the sign. Per the Independent, the lights that illuminated the sign were impacted by the Sunset fire, affecting its visibility—but the actual sign remains intact.

On Wednesday night, the Sunset fire was mostly contained, in part due to a precise helicopter water drop that extinguished most of the blaze. On Thursday morning at 7:30 a.m., the evacuation order for most Hollywood neighborhoods was lifted, with the exception of the area North of Franklin Ave from Camino Palmero St (East border) to North Sierra Bonita Ave. (West border). So, for now, at least, the Hollywood Sign remains standing—peering over the destruction wreaking havoc over the city it represents.