For three decades, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was the principal home of the Academy Awards, with 25 ceremonies—including every show from 1969 to 1987—taking place in the opulent, 3,156-seat auditorium. The building witnessed many landmark Hollywood moments. Under the Pavilion’s roof, Midnight Cowboy (USA, 1969), The French Connection (USA, 1971), The Godfather (USA, 1972), Rocky (USA, 1976), and Schindler’s List (USA, 1993) won their Oscars for Best Picture. Many screen legends also received their Honorary Oscars here, including Charles Chaplin, Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda, Lillian Gish, Cary Grant, Laurence Olivier, Mary Pickford, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Jean Renoir, and Orson Welles.
Images: (left) Exterior of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion during rehearsals for the 66th Academy Awards, 1994. Courtesy of Academy Awards show photographs, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, photo: Long Photography; (right) Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Photo by Joshua White, JWPictures/©Academy Museum Foundation
The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion is perhaps best known as the home of the Academy Awards. The Pavilion’s first Oscars ceremony, held in 1969, was also the first to be broadcast internationally, and the total of 25 shows hosted there makes it the most used venue in Academy Awards history.
The Pavilion has a rich history in the arts beyond the Oscars, however. It is one of four buildings that comprise downtown Los Angeles’s Music Center, officially known as the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County. The Pavilion’s namesake, Dorothy Buffum Chandler, was part of two of the city’s leading families: her father, department store magnate Charles Abel Buffum, was the mayor of Los Angeles from 1921 to 1924, and both her husband Norman and her son Otis served as publishers of the Los Angeles Times.
Dorothy Chandler was also a civic figure in her own right. She had a particular interest in the arts and led a decade-long effort to build a permanent home for the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra that would lead to the Pavilion’s construction. She staged her first fundraiser for the project in 1955, a benefit concert featuring Dinah Shore, Danny Kaye, and Jack Benny performing at the Ambassador Hotel. The $33.5 million complex was dedicated on December 6, 1964, as “A Living Memorial to Peace.”
For decades, the Pavilion was home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Los Angeles Master Chorale. Currently, it is home to the Los Angeles Opera and Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center. Part of the original agreement with the county was that the Pavilion would be open for free to the public one day a year, resulting in the annual LA County Holiday Celebration, which has now been running for over 60 years.