Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall

The ten Academy Award ceremonies held at the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Center span seven decades, making this USC-adjacent venue the longest-tenured Oscars site, if not the most frequently used—that honor currently goes to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The first Oscar ceremony held at the Shrine—officially called the Al Malaikah Shriners Ancients Arabic Order Nobles of Mystic Shrine—took place in 1947, and the last in 2001, with intervening stops in 1948, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1995, 1997, 1998, and 2000.

When the Shrine Auditorium opened in 1926, the $2.5 million construction ($34 million in today’s dollars) was billed as the world’s largest and most opulent theater. Its iconic chandelier weighed four tons, and the auditorium could seat 6,500 people. Its adjacent ballroom could hold 6,000 revelers, making it an ideal location for the Academy Governors Ball when the time came. The auditorium’s stage can also allegedly fit 1,000 performers. It was certainly wide and deep enough to accommodate a captive King Kong in the 1933 version of the film—or at least the cast and crew filming the beast. Since then, it has held multiple USC indoor sports, fitting entire courts on the stage for home games over the years.

The Academy Awards had to first grow into the landmark venue before the ceremony could outgrow it. Many of the 6,500 seats were empty for the 1948 ceremony, and half an hour into the proceedings, an exterior speaker announced that 550 good balcony seats were still available. By the end of the 1990s, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences could easily fill the aging venue. Still, the demands of producing a global television event introduced other challenges. A 2001 Variety article describes “miles of heavy-duty electrical and fiber-optic cable running all over the place—especially tricky with high heels and evening gowns.” After hopscotching between the Shrine and downtown Los Angeles’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Academy Awards moved to their bespoke, forever home at the Dolby Theatre in 2002.

Shriners International, the all-male fraternal organization which built and still owns the structure, was founded in New York City in 1871 as a club-within-a-club for Scottish Rite Masons. The organization is at once mysterious and ubiquitous—at its peak in 1979, it boasted 940,000 members. The Shriners are, in their own words, dedicated to philanthropy, “wholesome companionship, clean fun, and a welcome escape from the worry…and the drab routine of our daily lives.” The group’s signature hat, a fez, and other vaguely North African “signs, tokens, and costumes” are marks of what the organization terms “pageantry” with no real relationship to the region. The auditorium’s Moorish Revival architecture follows suit, with many arches, onion-shaped domes, and decorative patterns with no particular religious origin. As they say themselves, the Order of Shriners International is an American institution.

Though perhaps best regarded for its network of 22 children’s hospitals, the Shriners are also an institution with deep roots in American entertainment. One of the Shriners’ cofounders—William Jermyn Conlin, or “William J. Florence,” as he was known on stage—was an actor. Shrine members with Hollywood ties also included Gene Autry, Mel Blanc, Ernest Borgnine, Glenn Ford, Kris Kristofferson, Harold Lloyd, Tom Mix, Roy Rogers, Red Skelton, Danny Thomas, Jack Warner, John Wayne, and other notables.

Although the Oscar ceremony has moved on, its ten-time home remains a hub for creative recognition and celebration. The Shrine Auditorium has hosted everything from the American Music Awards to the Grammys, the Primetime Emmys, SAG Awards, and the awards shows for BET, MTV, and VH1.