Hollywood Behind the Lens

“Los Angeles is a city that runs from its own past” explains historian and Bison Archives owner Marc Wanamaker. Many of Hollywood’s legendary sets and props, mansions, theaters, restaurants, nightclubs, hotels, and even the studios and the films they produced are now either gone or have been redeveloped, repurposed, or remade beyond recognition. Even more disarmingly, the physical ephemera associated with such items is often MIA as well. Photographs, files, maps, documents, menus, production paperwork, records, manuscripts, everything from matchbooks to movie magazines and entire movie backlots have now been lost in the backwash of dubious progress, short-sighted corporate mindsets, and civic indifference. Fortunately, for the last fifty years, in the very epicenter of Hollywood, thanks to Wanamaker, there has existed a haven where over 70,000 of these items, physically or photographically, have been collected and protected. These artifacts tell the story of Hollywood’s glorious past, as well as its uncertain future as the hub of filmmaking in America.

Marc Wanamaker is a world-class expert and consultant in film history who has worked in many facets of film production, exhibition, and research for several decades. He holds degrees in theater arts, music, and history. He has extensive administration experience with the American Film Institute and is a published historian, lecturer, and teacher who taught film history at UCLA Extension for five years.

Steven Bingen is an author, archivist, lecturer and Hollywood insider who has written or contributed to dozens of books, articles, and documentaries regarding popular culture, film history, and in particular, Hollywood's physical past. He lives in Los Angeles.