The Hollywood sign is getting a makeover befitting its status as a Tinseltown icon, per the AP. After a pressure-wash and some rust removal, workers this week began using 250 gallons of primer and white paint to spruce up the sign ahead of its centennial next year. The entire renovation effort is expected to take up to eight weeks. Originally built in 1923, the sign read "Hollywoodland" to promote a property development, and the Guardian notes it was originally intended to only stand for 18 months.
But after decades of neglect, the original sign was replaced in 1978 with a new one that simply reads "Hollywood." The Guardian cites a 2017 Vanity Fair article that talks about that transition, during which the hills went sign-less for three months. It reports Hugh Hefner threw a benefit party at the Playboy Mansion at the time and auctioned off the original letters for $35,000 a pop. "It's now representing not only the place of Hollywood, but it signifies the entertainment industry, and LA is the entertainment capital of the world," Jeff Zarrinnam with the Hollywood Sign Trust said Monday. The 45-foot-tall sign in the Hollywood Hills above Los Angeles is repainted every decade. (More Hollywood sign stories.)
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