Flood-lights swept the Hollywood Boulevard sky on the night of October 18, 1922, and a strip of red carpet cut through the forecourt of a brand-new theater. The Hollywood Daily Citizen gushed that the lights turned the night into “brilliance brighter than noonday.” Vehicles lined the street. Onlookers packed the walkway. Camera bulbs flashed. The Hollywood Reporter later cited the evening as the inaugural modern movie premiere and red carpet.
The occasion was the opening of the Egyptian Theatre, built by showman Sid Grauman, with Douglas Fairbanks in the silent film Robin Hood. The carpet ran through a forecourt measuring 150 by 45 feet. Gold Derby reported that it was rolled out for Fairbanks, his wife Mary Pickford and their friend and United Artists partner Charlie Chaplin.
A night of speeches
Around 2,000 people filled the house, among them, per the Daily Citizen, “the greatest of the producers, scenarists, directors, actors, and screen technicians.” Tickets cost $5 and sold out before noon on the first day of sales. The Los Angeles Times said Arthur P. Huntingdon, a real-life heir to Robin Hood’s Earldom of Huntingdon, was to be the guest of honor.
The theater had cost $800,000 and was fitted with $5,000 projection equipment. Fred Niblo presided over the ceremony. Los Angeles Mayor George Cryer, Hollywood Chamber of Commerce president George L. Eastman and producer Jesse L. Lasky all made remarks. Cecil B. DeMille handed Grauman a laurel wreath, and Wallace Beery and Sam De Grasse put on their costumes from the film for a live prologue. An orchestra under Jan Stofer played selections from Aida. Victor Schertzinger, who composed the score, then took the podium, and Frederick Burr Scholl played the Wurlitzer organ.
Then Chaplin stood up. The Times reported that he “did that unwonted thing for him, of saying a few words.” According to the Daily Citizen, he kept it to a line: “I pray you that we go on with the picture!”
Eastman understood what the room was witnessing. The night, he said, “marks Hollywood’s advent from the status of a small town to a city of metropolitan importance, where world premieres are shown.”
The film and the fashion
Robin Hood cost just under $1 million, according to Gold Derby, making it one of the most expensive films of the silent era. Its castle was the biggest set ever built for a silent movie, and some scenes used more than 1,200 extras. It grossed $2.5 million and was the top box office draw of the year. At the Egyptian it played until April 8, 1923, and the Times said it had broken every record in California for length of engagement.
The premiere was also a fashion show. “Never, perhaps, has there been such an array of gorgeous feminine attire under one roof,” the Times declared.
Awards ceremonies came later. The Oscars unfurled their first red carpet in 1961 and televised it for the first time in 1964, The Hollywood Reporter noted. By the 1990s, stars and brands were teaming up to bring expensive couture to the biggest events.
Sources
- The Hollywood Red Carpet Movie Premiere Turns 100
- 1922: Hollywood history is made with first movie premiere
