Hollywood

Hollywood (/ˈhɒliwʊd/ HOL-ee-wuud) is a neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. The neighborhood is notable for its place as the home of the U.S. film industry, including several of its historic studios. Its name has come to be a metonym for the motion picture industry of the United States. Hollywood is also a highly ethnically diverse, densely populated, economically diverse neighborhood and retail business district.

Hollywood was a small community in 1870 and was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. It officially merged with the city of Los Angeles in 1910, and soon thereafter a prominent film industry began to emerge, eventually becoming the most recognizable film industry in the world.

History

Early history and development

In 1853, one adobe hut stood in Nopalera (Nopal field), named for the Mexican Nopal cactus indigenous to the area. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished. The area was known as the Cahuenga Valley, after the pass in the Santa Monica Mountains immediately to the north.

Fred Astaire

Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz; May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) was an American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer, musician, and television presenter.

His stage and subsequent film and television careers spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films and several award-winning television specials and issued numerous recordings. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of Old Hollywood by the American Film Institute. As a dancer, he is best remembered for his sense of rhythm, his legendary perfectionism, and as the dancing partner and on-screen romantic interest of Ginger Rogers, with whom he co-starred in a series of ten Hollywood musicals which transformed the genre.

Gene Kelly, another major innovator in filmed dance, said that "the history of dance on film begins with Astaire." Beyond film and television, many noted dancers and choreographers, including Rudolf Nureyev, Sammy Davis, Jr., Michael Jackson, Gregory Hines, Mikhail Baryshnikov, George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Madhuri Dixit, also acknowledged his importance and influence. Astaire ranks as the fifth greatest male star of Classic Hollywood cinema in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars.

Judy Garland

Judy Garland (June 10, 1922 – June 22, 1969), born Frances Ethel Gumm, was an American singer, actress, and vaudevillian. She was renowned for her contralto vocals and attained international stardom which continued throughout a career that spanned more than 40 years as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist, and on concert stages. Respected for her versatility, she received a Juvenile Academy Award and won a Golden Globe Award as well as a Special Tony Award. She was the first woman to win a Grammy for Album of the Year.

Garland was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the remake of A Star Is Born and for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg. She remains the youngest recipient (at 39 years of age) of the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in the motion picture industry.

After appearing in vaudeville with her two older sisters, Garland was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. There, she made more than two dozen films, including nine with Mickey Rooney, and 1939's The Wizard of Oz. After 15 years, she was released from the studio and then gained new success through record-breaking concert appearances, including a return to acting, beginning with critically acclaimed performances.

Gene Kelly

Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly (August 23, 1912 – February 2, 1996) was an American-Irish dancer, actor, singer, film director, producer and choreographer. He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style, his good looks, and the likeable characters that he played on screen.

Best known today for his performances in films such as An American in Paris (1951), Anchors Aweigh (1945), and Singin' in the Rain (1952), he was a dominant force in musical films until they fell out of fashion in the late 1950s. His many innovations transformed the Hollywood musical and he is credited with almost single-handedly making the ballet form commercially acceptable to film audiences. Kelly received an Academy Honorary Award in 1952 for his career achievements. He later received lifetime achievement awards in the Kennedy Center Honors (1982), and from the Screen Actors Guild and American Film Institute. In 1999, the American Film Institute also numbered him 15th in their Greatest Male Stars of Classic Hollywood cinema list.

The Late Late Show

The Late Late Show, with its title often shortened to The Late Late, is an Irish chat show. It is the world's second longest-running chat show, after the American The Tonight Show. Perceived as the official flagship television programme of Ireland's public service broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), it is regarded as an Irish television institution (even abroad) and is broadcast live across two hours plus in front of a studio audience on Friday nights between September and May at 21.30.

Having maintained the same name and format continuously, The Late Late Show was first broadcast on Friday, 6 July 1962 at 23.20 and in colour from 1976. Originating as temporary summer filler for a niche Saturday night audience (airing at 23.30), it later moved to its current home on Friday night schedules. The format has remained largely the same throughout—dialogue, comic sketches, musical performances, discourse on topical issues. It has influenced attitudes of the populace towards approval or disapproval of its chosen topics, directed social change and helped shape Irish societal norms. It averages 650,000 viewers per episode and has consistently achieved RTÉ's highest ratings.