The Millennium Biltmore Hotel: Birthplace of the Oscar

Why is it significant?

Step through the grand portal of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel on Grand Avenue and gaze down the long, cathedral-like vaulted Galleria.

Key Facts

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Step through the grand portal of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel on Grand Avenue and gaze down the long, cathedral-like vaulted Galleria. With its hand-painted frescoed ceilings by Italian artist Giovanni Smeraldi, carved travertine fountains, and crystal chandeliers, this eleven-hundred-room palace was the largest luxury hotel west of Chicago when it opened in October nineteen twenty-three.

In May nineteen twenty-seven, thirty-six Hollywood heavyweights, including studio boss Louis B. Mayer, Mary Pickford, and Cecil B. DeMille, gathered for an elegant dinner in the hotel's Crystal Ballroom. During that very banquet, they officially founded the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. MGM art director Cedric Gibbons famously sketched the first design for the Oscar statuette onto a linen Biltmore banquet napkin!

The hotel hosted eight Academy Awards ceremonies during the golden age of cinema, and was the permanent West Coast residence of the Beatles during their nineteen sixty-four American tour, with police using helicopters to land the Fab Four on the roof.

Head north past City Hall toward the historic plaza of Olvera Street.