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1927
A movie palace built in 18 months, opened in May 1927
Sid Grauman built the theater over 18 months, beginning in January 1926. At the groundbreaking on the evening of January 5, 1926, Norma Talmadge and Anna May Wong turned the first spadeful of earth with a gold-plated shovel, and Wong also put the first rivet into the structure. It opened on May 18, 1927, with the premiere of Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings.
Footprints
Nobody agrees how the footprints in the cement began
The forecourt holds concrete blocks with the signatures, footprints and handprints of film personalities from the 1920s to now. The theater's official account says that Norma Talmadge started the tradition when she accidentally stepped into wet concrete. Grauman said it was pure accident that he stepped in it himself. Jean Klossner, who made the hard concrete, became known as "Mr. Footprint" and ran the ceremonies from 1927 through 1957.
Premieres
Star Wars had its debut here in 1977
The theater has been home to many premieres, including the 1977 debut of Star Wars, and it hosted the 1944, 1945 and 1946 Academy Awards ceremonies. Among its features are the concrete blocks in the forecourt that carry the marks of popular film personalities.
Names
Three names in one century, and a giant screen in 2013
It was named Grauman's Chinese Theatre at first. It was renamed Mann's Chinese Theatre in 1973 and went back to its original name in 2001. In 2013 the Chinese company TCL bought the naming rights, and the same year the theater worked with IMAX to become a custom-designed IMAX theater, seating 932, with one of the largest movie screens in North America.
Day 1, midday
It comes after Hollywood Walk of Fame. Then Griffith Park.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.