The lots and broadcast centers where films, radio and television were made. Most are working facilities; Paramount offers public tours. 9 places, each with a map.
5555 Melrose Ave. · Hollywood
The only major studio still operating in Hollywood proper, Paramount moved to this lot in 1926. Its Bronson Gate, where Gloria Swanson arrives in Sunset Boulevard (1950), is one of the most photographed entrances in the business. Guided studio tours take visitors through backlot streets, soundstages and a century of film history.
1438 N. Gower St. · Hollywood
For half a century this was Columbia Pictures, the studio Harry Cohn built from small-budget Poverty Row beginnings. Frank Capra made It Happened One Night and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington for Columbia while it was based here. Columbia moved out in 1972, and the lot now rents stages to television and film productions.
1416 N. La Brea Ave. · Hollywood
Charlie Chaplin built his own studio here in 1917 and made The Gold Rush, City Lights and Modern Times on the lot. A&M Records took over in 1966, and We Are the World was recorded here in 1985. Today it belongs to the Jim Henson Company; look for Kermit dressed as the Tramp above the gate.
5800 Sunset Blvd. · Hollywood
The Warner brothers built this lot on Sunset in 1919 and produced The Jazz Singer here in 1927, launching the era of talking pictures. The studio later became home to KTLA, the first commercial television station in the western United States. Its colonnaded front building still faces Sunset Boulevard.
1040 N. Las Palmas Ave. · Hollywood
Known for decades as General Service Studios, this lot is where Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball began filming I Love Lucy before a live audience in 1951. Independent producers from Harold Lloyd to Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope worked here over the years. It remains a busy production lot, closed to the public.
6121 Sunset Blvd. · Hollywood
CBS opened this International Style broadcast center in 1938 to bring network radio to Hollywood. Jack Benny and Burns and Allen went out over the air from its studios, and early CBS television followed. Designed by William Lescaze, the restored building now anchors a modern office and residential complex at Sunset and Gower.
7800 Beverly Blvd. · Fairfax District
Opened by CBS in 1952 as one of the first large complexes built for television, this Pereira and Luckman design was home to The Price Is Right, All in the Family and The Carol Burnett Show. Its black-and-white modernist boxes were designed to expand as TV grew, and the site is now being expanded as a studio campus.
4151 Prospect Ave. · Los Feliz
Vitagraph, one of America’s earliest film companies, built this Los Feliz studio in 1915. Warner Bros. bought Vitagraph in 1925 and used the lot as a second studio. ABC later took it over for television, and the soap opera General Hospital has been taped here for decades. The studio is closed to the public.
1041 N. Formosa Ave. · West Hollywood
Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks took over this lot in 1922 and made their silent swashbucklers and dramas here. It later became the Samuel Goldwyn Studio, where Wuthering Heights and Guys and Dolls were filmed, and then Warner Hollywood. Productions still shoot behind its walls on Santa Monica Boulevard, across from the Formosa Cafe.