A Century Ago Today: The L.A. World’s Fair

100 years ago today (July 2, 1923) was opening day of the American Historical Revue and Motion Picture Exposition, a.k.a. the Los Angeles World’s Fair. The fact that you likely never heard of it is an indication of the fair’s success. I’d heard of the fairs in San Diego and San Francisco in 1915, and the ones in Chicago (1933) and New York (1939), and many before and after those dates, but the Hollywood one fell through the cracks.

It was apparently intended to rehabilitate Hollywood’s image following the many scandals of the early ’20s (the William Desmond Taylor murder, the Arbuckle Trial, the deaths of Olive Thomas and Wallace Reid). People were actually boycotting movies. The twofold mission of the festival was to celebrate movie making and…to commemorate the centennial of the Monroe Doctrine. Which A) yawn, and B) it has nothing to do with Hollywood. In fact, exhibits at the fair like “Montezuma and the Fall of the Aztecs” sound downright depressing. But some of it sounds really cool. In addition to fireworks, parades, pageants, and so forth, much of it sounds like it was similar to today’s Universal Studios theme park, with chances for visitors to experience a behind the scenes glimpse of how movies get made: studio tours, chances to participate in screen tests, and movie shoots, and the like.

Yet no one bought the commemorative coin that had been minted to help underwrite the fair. And less than one-third of the projected one million attendees showed up, and that number had only by attained by massive ticket giveaways. President Warren G. Harding was supposed to attend and that might have boosted ticket sales, but he died a few days before he was supposed to arrive (This, coupled with McKinley’s assassination at the Buffalo World’s Fair in 1901 ought to give pause to any President contemplating a visit to a World’s Fair. Everything goes in threes!).

Anyway the Fair lost millions for its backers and the city. Ironically, instead of taking people’s minds off of the many Hollywood scandals, the Hollywood World’s Fair proved to be just another scandal.