Hollywood's most famous movie exhibitor opened his first theater in the Yukon in the late 1890s, and went on to operate theaters in San Francisco both before and after the earthquake of 1904. By 1915, he had several theaters in northern California and one in New York. The first film at his first Los Angeles theater, the Million Dollar, was THE SILENT MAN (1918), starring William S. Hart. He founded two more theaters in Los Angeles, the Rialto and the Metropolitan, before they were acquired by Paramount in 1924. His first theater on Hollywood Boulevard, the Egyptian, opened on Oct. 18, 1922, with the premiere of ROBIN HOOD, starring Douglas Fairbanks. (Contributing to the revitalization of the City of Hollywood, the American Cinematheque has restored/renovated the historically significant 1922 Egyptian Theatre and it is now the American Cinematheque's permanent home, as well as a major Hollywood landmark and state-of-the-art showcase theater.) Grauman's second and more famous Hollywood theater, the Chinese, opened on May 19, 1927, with the premiere of Cecil B. De Mille's KING OF KINGS. It became de rigeur for movie stars to leave their handprints and footprints in cement in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater. In the 1970s, the Mann Theatres Corporation took over the Chinese and renamed it Mann's Chinese Theater.  Special Award 1948: To a "Master showman, who raised the standard of exhibition of motion pictures." Winner presented a Statuette. 1 Honorary Award

Exterior of the restored Grauman's Egyptian Architect's rendering of the Chinese (1926) Hand- and footprints in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese.