135 Days 'til Oscar: Remember the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion?
Friday, October 10, 2014 at 8:00AM 
Occasionally while typing about the Oscars I accidentally type in the Shrine or the Kodak and especially "The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion" when I mean The Dolby Theater. It's an honest mistake since the Oscars are a bonafide institution and one tends to associate locations with events. The Dolby Theater, the "permanent" home now for Oscar (whatever permanent means considering things such as contracts, name changes, and rights battles for broadcast and whatnot) was once the Kodak Theater and for the last dozen years that's where the Oscars have been held. But until the new millenium, I associated the event with the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. That music hall hosted the Oscars the longest from Oliver! (1968) through Shakespeare in Love (1998) though it should be noted that the Shrine auditorium stepped in as substitute for six years during that three decade stretch.
I've never actually been to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion but for a young movie mad boy in the suburbs of Detroit in the Eighties, 135 North Grand Avenue was the most important address in the world, way cooler than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I still think of it as way more glamorous than the Dolby... but maybe that's because I've been to the Dolby and though it looks great on TV it's inside a shopping mall. Perhaps that's appropriate for a golden idol that's really only gold-plated.
Previously on our countdown that's really just begun...
138 Days - Average Best Picture Length
170 Days - Best Actor Trivia
182 Days - What did Pickford & Fairbanks start?!
Reader Comments (14)
Nat--Was there a logical, "It would make sense to a three year old." reason for moving the ceremony from the Chandler? I've always felt the DC was a more elegant and impressive space and the approach was certainly better.
The Dorothy Chandler is beautiful. It's an opera house, so of course it's meant to be pretty. A lot of things get filmed inside it since it has that Mad Men-era look. You should stop by next time you're in LA to check it out and Disney Hall right across the street. Also across from those buildings is my favorite mid-century modern building in LA, the DWP building.
Henry-It was a lot about seating capacity. The Dorothy Chandler can only seat 2,000 whereas the Dolby Theater seats 3,400. The Academy also wanted a permanent home.
Imagine the Oscars being held at Lincoln Center, in the Metropolitan Opera House, to get an approximate sense of the Music Center and the Dorothy Chandler. (But you also have to imagine Lincoln Center being located in the City Hall area.) Since my husband is an opera fan and does community outreach work for LA Opera, that building is a big part of his life, and I tend to take it for granted...except that my connection to it, as as Oscar fan, goes way back. Especially since I attended one of the last ceremonies held there as part of a winning team.
Henry: The Kodak (now Dolby) was designed with the Oscars in mind and seats 800 more people than the DCP. And there are no longer any scheduling issues. But I'm not a fan of the venue or the area.
Thank you Raul and Paul. The move does make sense in those terms. But no matter how they try to dress it up, it still looks like a multiplex in a strip mall. Couldn't they have given it its own entrance away from the Gaps & Forever 21s? Imagine how elegant and exciting the entrance to DC would be now with the Disney Hall in the background.
^^^Exactly.
I think having the Oscars at Disney Hall would make my gay head explode. :-)
And since we're talking nostalgia and buildings, I kind of recall that it was held at the Santa Monica Civic Center for a few years. Did I just imagine it or is that true? That would be closer to the stars, but quite far away from LA or Hollywood.
Dave, it was held at SMCA during the Bob Hope years.
Yikes, am I that old?!
well...i won an award at the dorothy candler pavillion!!! for a a print ad. I didn't really care about the award - what i thought was so dazzling was where I won it. When they called my name & company (we didn't go up to accept)...i had visions of cary grant getting his honorary award there, george c scott declining his award....Liza....Faye....Jack....Diane....Charlie Chaplin...Harpo Marx....quite a great moment. The ad? Movie related. We ran the old movie Jaws III. The Ad Headline was: Jaws III / People 0.
Sasheen Littlefeather. Whatever happened to her?
Damn it. I'm thinking Brando. I get all those decliners confused.
"135 North Grand Avenue was the most important address in the world, way cooler than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."
I couldn't agree more with that statement Nathaniel! I went to LA this summer with the gay men's chorus for a concert at Walt Disney Hall, and made SURE to take the Music Center tour of all four theaters. Seriously, nothing could compare to seeing those modernist pillars set against that opaque glass in the distance. My facebook status was "HISTORY" as I recall.
I literally had my hands on every surface of the building hoping I could capture some of that residual Oscar history. The inside is like a sixties jewelbox: gold mosiac pillars and mirrors reflecting the chandliers which seem to be everywhere, avocado green carpeting, and brass railings leading up the grand staircase(s). We got to sit in the balcony as a show did their tech rehearsal and all I kept thinking was "Barbara won her first Oscar here..".
So to surmise, you should definitely make the trip out here when you can. It may be some dated theater in need of some major rehab, and nothing too special to the locals, but for those of us who love film and Oscar history, it's a necessary pilgrimage.
Re Raul: The DCP actually has 3,197 seats; not that big a difference from Dolby in that regard.
@ Joel V: The seating numbers all over the place: I've seen anything from 2,600 to 3,200 reported for the DCP, and usually 3,400 for the Dolby. Weird.