Grauman's Chinese Theater

In Hollywood, we visited Grauman's Chinese Theater, also known as Mann's Chinese Theater.  It is a movie theater that has hosted many movie premiere through out the years and still does today.  The Chinese theater was commissioned to be built after the success of Grauman's Egyption theater which had opened in 1922 and was one of the first "showplace" theaters.  Grauman's Chinese Theater took 18 months to be built and open in May 1927.  The first movie premiere in Grauman's Chinese Theater was directed by Cecil B deMille.  It was "The King of Kings".  The theater has some distinctive features being concrete blocks set in the forecourt of the theater which bear the signatures, footprints and handprints of popular motion picture personalities from the 1920's to present day.  There are several accounts on how this tradition began but the first person to have their block was actress Norma Talmadge who was a huge star of silent pictures.  Jean Klossner, the construction foreman of the theater was second.  There are nearly 200 Hollywood celebrity handprints, footprints and autographs in the concrete at the theater's forecourt. There are also other items that were imprinted along with the signatures; the glasses of Harold Lloyd, the cigar of Groucho Marx, the magic wand from the Harry Potter movies, Betty Grable's leg, John Wayne's fist, Al Jolson's knees, Sonja Henie's Ice Skating Blades, the nose's of Jimmy Durante and Bob Hope, the guns of William S Hart and Roy Rogers and three horses hoffprints, Tony (Tom Mix's horse), Champion (Gene Audrey's horse) and Trigger (Roy Roger's horse).   The theater itself is guarded by two huge Ming Heaven Dogs on both sides of the entrance and a laying dragon above the door.  In the 1970's the theater was sold to Ted Mann (his wife was Rhonda Fleming) and the theater changed it's name to the Mann's Chinese Theater.  In early 2001 the theater was bought, in partneship, by Warner Brothes and Parimont.  They changed the theater back to it's original name and today it still runs first run feature films and  hosts movie premieres. 
It was fun to look at all the stars honored in cement at the theater's forecourt.  We compared fooprints and handprints with our own and could not believe how small some of them were compared to ours.  Several of the personalities of the stars could be seen on what was imprinted or written on their concrete block.  You can also tour the theater and see a movie.  We had a great time at Grauman's Chinese Theater.