Sunset Gower Studios
Encyclopedia
Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades...
and Gower Street
Gower Street (Hollywood)
Gower Street is a street in Los Angeles, California that has played an important role in the ongoing evolution of Hollywood, particularly as the home to several prominent Poverty Row studios during the area's Golden Age...
in Hollywood, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. It continues today as Hollywood's largest independent studio and an active facility for television and film production on its twelve soundstages.
The studios were originally founded by Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
Studios movie mogul Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn was the American president and production director of Columbia Pictures.-Career:Cohn was born to a working-class German-Jewish family in New York City. In later years, he appears to have disparaged his heritage...
in 1921 in the Poverty Row
Poverty Row
Poverty Row is a slang term used in Hollywood from the late silent period through the mid-fifties to refer to a variety of small and mostly short-lived B movie studios...
area of Hollywood. Poverty Row was the area bounded by Sunset Boulevard on the North, Gower Street on the West, and Beachwood Drive on the East.
Poverty Row was a collection of small warehouses and vest pocket offices where the independent film makers gathered to buy “short ends” of film from the major studios, in order to create their “great American dreams”. On January 10, 1924 Columbia Pictures Corporation was born. By 1929 the familiar image of the lady with the torch was beginning to make an impact on the Hollywood scene.
The Sunset Gower Studios lot, the home of such classics as Frank Capra
Frank Capra
Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...
’s It Happened One Night
It Happened One Night
It Happened One Night is a 1934 American romantic comedy film with elements of screwball comedy directed by Frank Capra, in which a pampered socialite tries to get out from under her father's thumb, and falls in love with a roguish reporter . The plot was based on the story Night Bus by Samuel...
in 1934, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a 1939 American drama film starring Jean Arthur and James Stewart about one man's effect on American politics. It was directed by Frank Capra and written by Sidney Buchman, based on Lewis R. Foster's unpublished story. Mr...
in 1939, Funny Girl
Funny Girl (film)
Funny Girl is a 1968 romantic musical film directed by William Wyler. The screenplay by Isobel Lennart was adapted from her book for the stage musical of the same title...
and The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny is a 1952 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Herman Wouk. The novel grew out of Wouk's personal experiences aboard a destroyer-minesweeper in the Pacific in World War II and deals with, among other things, the moral and ethical decisions made at sea by the captains of ships...
, has continued to host productions of top new films such as The Good Shepherd
The Good Shepherd (film)
The Good Shepherd is a 2006 spy film directed by Robert De Niro and starring Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie, with an extensive supporting cast. Although it is a fictional film loosely based on real events, it is advertised as telling the untold story of the birth of counter-intelligence in the...
and The Good German
The Good German
The Good German is a 2006 feature film adaptation of the novel by Joseph Kanon. It was directed by Steven Soderbergh, and stars George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, and Tobey Maguire...
. Television programs which have occupied several sound stages include Heroes
Heroes (TV series)
Heroes is an American science fiction television drama series created by Tim Kring that appeared on NBC for four seasons from September 25, 2006 through February 8, 2010. The series tells the stories of ordinary people who discover superhuman abilities, and how these abilities take effect in the...
, Dexter
Dexter (TV series)
Dexter is an American television drama series, which debuted on Showtime on October 1, 2006. The sixth season premiered on October 2, 2011. The series centers on Dexter Morgan , a bloodstain pattern analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department who moonlights as a serial killer...
, NewsRadio
NewsRadio
NewsRadio is an American television situation comedy that aired on NBC from 1995 to 1999. The series was created by executive producer Paul Simms, and was filmed in front of a studio audience at CBS Studio Center and Sunset Gower Studios...
, The Amanda Show
The Amanda Show
The Amanda Show is an American live-action sketch comedy and variety show that aired on Nickelodeon from November 6, 1999 to September 21, 2002. It starred Amanda Bynes, Drake Bell, and Nancy Sullivan, along with several performing artists who came and left at different points, such as John Kassir,...
, Deal or No Deal
Deal or No Deal
Deal or No Deal is the name of several closely related television game shows, the first of which was the Dutch Miljoenenjacht produced by Dutch producer Endemol. It is played with up to 26 cases with certain sums of money...
, Six Feet Under, JAG
JAG (TV series)
JAG is an American adventure/legal drama television show that was produced by Belisarius Productions, in association with Paramount Network Television and, for the first season only, NBC Productions...
, Married... with Children
Married... with Children
Married... with Children is an American surrealistic sitcom that aired for 11 seasons that featured a dysfunctional family living in Chicago, Illinois. The show, notable for being the first prime time television series to air on Fox, ran from April 5, 1987, to June 9, 1997. The series was created...
, Soap
Soap (TV series)
Soap is an American sitcom that originally ran on ABC from 1977 to 1981.The show was created as a parody of daytime soap operas, presented as a weekly half-hour prime time comedy. Similar to a soap opera, the show's story was presented in a serial format and included melodramatic plot elements such...
, I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie is a 1960s American sitcom with a fantasy premise. The show starred Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie, and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries...
, Bewitched
Bewitched
Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York and Dick Sargent , Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban...
, and the first four seasons of The Golden Girls
The Golden Girls
The Golden Girls is an American sitcom created by Susan Harris, which originally aired on NBC from September 14, 1985, to May 9, 1992. Starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, the show centers on four older women sharing a home in Miami, Florida...
.
In 1958 at age 66, Harry Cohn died. His memorial service was held on stages 12 and 14 at the studios. (There is no stage 13
Triskaidekaphobia
Triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number ; it is a superstition and related to a specific fear of Friday the 13th, called paraskevidekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia.The term was first used by Isador Coriat in Abnormal...
).
Without the guidance of the Cohn Brothers, Columbia Pictures Corporation was not the profit-making company it once was. Between 1970 and 1972, Columbia moved from the 14 acres (56,656 m²) lot, and joined forces with Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
in Burbank
Burbank, California
Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, north of downtown Los Angeles. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340....
. Its “back lot” on which all the great Columbia westerns were made on Hollywood Way in Burbank became the property of Warner Bros.
Columbia Pictures Corporation, renamed Columbia Pictures Industries, Incorporated, became a film entity without real estate. A large list of successful films were produced during this time, and in 1982 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. was sold to Coca Cola in a cash and stock deal valued between $700 and $800 million.
The lot, in the meantime, sat fallow. In 1977 the property was purchased by the Pick Vanoff Company for $6.2 million. The name was changed to Sunset Gower Studios and the lot became a rental facility for independent film companies. It was also used in the seventies as a music rehearsal facility catering to such music greats as Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
, Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
, Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
, and Olivia Newton John. For a time stages 12 and 14 became indoor tennis courts.
In November 2004, Sunset Gower Studios was purchased by GI Partners
GI Partners
GI Partners L.P. is a private equity firm based in Menlo Park, California and London, England.- Description :...
for an estimated $105 million, and in 2006 began construction on a six-story building for Technicolor SA.
In August 2007, Sunset Gower Studios was bought by Hudson Capital. The Technicolor building opened its doors in 2008. Since 2007, the studio has been undergoing both interior and exterior improvements on the lot. Sunset Gower Studios is now working closely with its sister company Sunset Bronson Studios that's located just a couple of blocks west, formerly owned by Tribune Broadcasting.