Hollywood Tower Apartments

Hollywood Tower Apartments, also known simply as Hollywood Tower, is a historic apartment building at 6200 Franklin Avenue in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Originally named La Belle Tour, it was designed by the architectural firm Cramer & Wise and completed in 1929 as an upscale apartment hotel intended particularly for people working in the rapidly expanding motion-picture industry. The eight-storey reinforced-concrete building was designed in a French Renaissance and Chateauesque style, with two wings meeting beneath a prominent central tower, steeply pitched roofs, dormer windows and rooftop gardens overlooking Hollywood. The original apartment hotel offered unusually extensive services, including maids, cooks, butlers, childcare, laundry and valet services, as well as a subterranean garage. Management later changed the name to Hollywood Tower and added the large neon “HOLLYWOOD TOWER” sign that remains one of the building’s most recognisable features. Construction of the Hollywood Freeway immediately south of the property during the 1950s removed part of its original grounds but made the tower even more conspicuous to motorists travelling through Hollywood. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

Hollywood Tower Apartments has appeared in Devil’s Cargo (1948), Barnaby Jones (1973), Midnight Madness (1980), Falcon Crest (1981), Body Double (1984), Freeway (1988) and The Nice Guys (2016). The building has represented private apartments, a fictional hotel and a New York apartment interior, while Midnight Madness uses it particularly extensively as the home and headquarters of Leon, the organiser of the film’s all-night scavenger hunt through Los Angeles.

In Devil’s Cargo (1948), Hollywood Tower Apartments represents the home of Margo Delgado, played by Rochelle Hudson. Private detective Michael Waring, better known as the Falcon and played by John Calvert, becomes involved after Margo’s husband Ramon confesses to killing Bruce “Lucky” Conroy, a man he believes has been having an affair with his wife. Intrigued by the case, Michael goes to Margo’s apartment at Hollywood Tower while pretending to be an insurance adjuster. Margo quickly realises that his story is false and insists that she and Conroy were merely friends and that her husband’s jealousy has distorted the situation. The real Hollywood Tower exterior establishes Margo’s residence and is prominently identifiable by the building and its name, making Devil’s Cargo one of its earliest known film appearances.

In Barnaby Jones (1973), Hollywood Tower Apartments appears in “Divorce – Murderer’s Style”, episode 7 of season 2. The episode follows Barnaby Jones, played by Buddy Ebsen, as he investigates the murder of Linda Cort, whose death initially appears to have resulted from a robbery. His investigation gradually exposes a scheme involving Linda’s husband Charlie Cort, a hired killer and subsequent blackmail. Hollywood Tower is transformed into the fictional Grant Hotel for the climactic portion of the episode. The building therefore appears not as an apartment residence but as a hotel, with the final action of Barnaby’s investigation taking place there.

In Midnight Madness (1980), Hollywood Tower Apartments is the home of graduate student Leon, played by Alan Solomon, and serves as “Game Control” for the Great All-Nighter. Early in the film, Adam Larson and the other prospective team captains are summoned to Leon’s apartment, where he explains his plan for an elaborate overnight scavenger hunt across Los Angeles and instructs each of them to assemble a team. When the competition begins on Friday evening, all five teams gather outside Hollywood Tower, where Leon and his assistants Candy and Sunshine explain the rules and distribute the first clue. The contestants then race away from the building in their colour-coded vehicles to begin deciphering “See the stars”. Throughout the night, Leon remains at his apartment monitoring the teams on a large map while receiving their telephone calls from the various clue locations. His increasingly irritated landlady Mrs. Grimhaus repeatedly complains about the noise and threatens to evict him, while other residents gradually become fascinated by the game and begin helping him. The real Hollywood Tower is used extensively for the exterior scenes, including the gathering of the teams and the area beside the building where their vehicles depart, while the interior of Leon’s elaborate Game Control apartment was created separately on a studio set.

In Falcon Crest (1981), Hollywood Tower Apartments is used for interior scenes in “In His Father’s House”, the first episode of the series. The building represents the inside of the New York apartment building where Robert Harris lives in Apartment 702. The production disguises the location by using stock footage of an actual apartment building on East 84th Street in Manhattan for the exterior establishing shot, while the scenes inside the building were filmed at Hollywood Tower in Los Angeles. The combination creates a fictional New York location assembled from material filmed on opposite sides of the United States. The production even dressed the mailboxes inside Hollywood Tower with fictional residents’ names, several of which were references to members of the Falcon Crest production staff.

In Body Double (1984), Hollywood Tower Apartments appears shortly after struggling actor Jake Scully, played by Craig Wasson, loses both his acting job and his home. After his claustrophobia prevents him from completing a scene in a low-budget horror film, Jake returns home unexpectedly and discovers his girlfriend with another man. Because the apartment belongs to her, he is forced to leave and temporarily sleeps on a friend’s couch at Hollywood Tower. The exterior establishes this short-lived accommodation, and filming also took place inside a real apartment in the building. Jake’s stay there is brief, as he soon meets fellow actor Sam Bouchard, who offers him a house-sitting arrangement at an extraordinary modern house in the Hollywood Hills. That house, where the central voyeuristic murder plot develops, was filmed at John Lautner’s Chemosphere and should not be confused with Hollywood Tower.

In Freeway (1988), Hollywood Tower Apartments represents the home of registered nurse Sarah “Sunny” Harper, played by Darlanne Fluegel. Sunny becomes obsessed with proving that a series of shootings on Los Angeles freeways are connected after her husband is murdered while they are driving. The building is used in establishing shots of Sunny’s apartment, while views from the property towards the neighbouring Hollywood Freeway are also incorporated into the film. The location is particularly appropriate to the story because the 101 freeway runs immediately behind Hollywood Tower, placing Sunny’s home visually alongside the network of roads on which the killer operates.

In The Nice Guys (2016), Hollywood Tower Apartments appears briefly as part of the film’s recreation of Los Angeles in 1977. Private investigator Holland March, played by Ryan Gosling, is sitting in traffic when he begins speculating about Los Angeles air pollution and wonders whether birds might be unable to breathe. During the sequence, Hollywood Tower can be clearly seen beside the freeway. The building does not represent the home or workplace of any character and is not entered during the film; instead, its surviving 1920s architecture and distinctive tower become part of the period Los Angeles streetscape surrounding March.

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