Why Alice Cooper saved the Hollywood sign

The sign also began to achieve some unwelcome notoriety: its association with the death of aspiring Hollywood star Peg Entwistle linked it to the darker side of Tinseltown’s allure. The 24-year-old Welsh-born actress had left a successful Broadway career to move to LA with dreams of becoming a film star. But after struggling to find success, on the night of 16 September 1932 Entwistle climbed a maintenance ladder to the top of the letter H and jumped to her death.

As the sign continued to rust and deteriorate, in 1944 the real estate company decided to donate it to the city, along with the remaining 425 acres of undeveloped land, for a token price of $1. By this time, a severe storm had already knocked down the letter H and many residents had come to regard the dilapidated sign as something of an eyesore. In 1949, a decision was reached to tear the whole thing down, but the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce managed to get the decision reversed on the proviso that they footed the bill to refurbish the crumbling sign and replace the missing letter. They shortened it, removing the LAND part, and a cultural icon was born.

But by the mid-1970s, through a combination of neglect, weather damage and vandalism, the now 50-year-old sign was falling apart again. By the time the BBC’s Bob Harris came to interview Cooper in 1978, a severe storm had further disfigured it, breaking off part of the first O and sending a second O tumbling down the side of Mount Lee, leaving the sign to read HuLLYWO D.

“Nobody will take the responsibility for restoring it or anything,” Cooper told the BBC. “The poor old thing is up there, dear to our hearts, and dying right in front of us. And I figured it would cost say $40,000 or $50,000 to restore. So I suggested that we would go and do a concert somewhere and just give them all the money,” he said.

It would turn out that to bring the sign back to its former glory would cost considerably more than that. After compiling a structural report, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce found that repairing the sign was impossible. It would need to be completely replaced. And to ensure it could withstand the winds on Mount Lee, the new steel letters would need to be supported by steel columns sunken into a concrete foundation. The price tag for this project would be $250,000.

A “Save the Sign” campaign was launched in May 1978, and the following month Hugh Hefner, founder of the international adult magazine Playboy, hosted a star-studded fundraiser at his mansion to raise money for the new sign. Cooper was the first person to sponsor a letter. “We figured it was $27,000 a piece, and I figured that would spark other people,” he said.

The rocker paid for the final O, which he dedicated to his friend, the comedian and film star Groucho Marx, who had died the previous year. “And Andy Williams [the US singer known for his version of the song Moon River] donated a letter, and Warner Brothers of course did, and Gene Autry [famous as ‘the Singing Cowboy’] and some really neat people did,” said Cooper. “We more or less kicked it off, and I still believe that everybody in the world owes Hollywood a dollar at least for all the entertainment that comes out of Hollywood – and if we can’t take care of it, the ones that live here, that’s kind of silly.”