TCL Chinese Theatre

Few sidewalks anywhere carry more star power than the forecourt of the TCL Chinese Theatre, where handprints, footprints, and signatures of hundreds of Hollywood legends are pressed into concrete going back nearly a century. Built by showman Sid Grauman in 1927 as an extravagant fantasy of Chinese architecture, the theater became Hollywood's premiere venue for movie premieres and a physical symbol of the industry's golden age glamour, still drawing tourists and red-carpet events alike.

Showman Sid Grauman, already known for the ornate Egyptian Theatre nearby, commissioned an even more elaborate movie palace inspired loosely by Chinese pagoda architecture, complete with a massive bronze pagoda-style entrance, stone lion-dogs, and imported artifacts. The theater opened on May 18, 1927, with the premiere of Cecil B. DeMille's King of Kings, instantly becoming the most prestigious venue in Hollywood for major film debuts.

The famous forecourt tradition of celebrity handprints and footprints in cement began, according to widely repeated Hollywood lore, when actress Norma Talmadge accidentally stepped in wet cement during construction, though other accounts credit Grauman and actor Douglas Fairbanks with deliberately starting the practice. Whatever its true origin, the ritual quickly became one of Hollywood's most enduring traditions, with hundreds of stars from Marilyn Monroe to modern actors leaving their mark.

The theater changed ownership and names several times over the decades, becoming Mann's Chinese Theatre in the 1970s before reverting to its Chinese Theatre name and later taking on the TCL naming-rights sponsorship in 2013. It has hosted countless movie premieres and awards events over nearly a century and was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, remaining one of the most visited and photographed buildings associated with the American film industry.