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Lost LA
The Origin of the Universal Studios Hollywood Studio Tour
When Universal City was founded in 1915, the general public was invited to go to Universal Studios to see for themselves how movies were made, essentially creating the first studio tour. As Jeff Pirtle, director of NBC Universal Archives and Collections, tells it, they sat on grandstands constructed atop celebrity dressing rooms and, this being the silent era, were encouraged to cheer and boo for the movie heroes and villains. When the talkies came, the public was uninvited, until exec Lew Wasserman invited them back in the sixties.
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