Home Destinations USA California Los Angeles Sights Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Grauman's Chinese Theatre Review

Read our Los Angeles sights reviews. Or post your own.

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Address: 6925 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA, 90028 | Map It
Phone: 323/464-8111; 323/463-9576 for tours
www.manntheatres.com

Category: Arts/Performance Venues
Location: Hollywood

Write a review

Fodor's Review:

A place that inspires the phrase "only in Hollywood," this fantasy of Chinese pagodas and temples has become a shrine to stardom. Although you have to buy a movie ticket to appreciate the interior trappings, the courtyard is open to the public. Here you'll find those oh-so-famous cement hand- and footprints. This tradition is said to have begun at the theater's opening in 1927, with the premiere of Cecil B. DeMille's King of Kings, when actress Norma Talmadge just happened to step into wet cement. Now more than 160 celebrities have contributed imprints for posterity, including some oddball specimens, such as ones of Whoopi Goldberg's dredlocks and Betty Grable's legs. Recent inductees include the cast and director of Ocean's Thirteen,the Harry Potter kids, and Will Smith.

The main theater itself is worth visiting, if only to see a film in the same seats as hundreds of celebrities who have attended big premieres here. You could also take a tour for $12 that takes you around the theaters and the VIP lounge. If it's movies you want, six more theaters are next to the Hollywood & Highland complex with every modern movie-going comfort. You may have to wade through the crowd of tourists and performance artists on the sidewalk for the front box office, but there's easy access to the upper theaters from the Highland parking garage through the elevators near the Kodak Theater.

Find more sights in Los Angeles »