'Hollywood' Locations: Where Was the Netflix Show Filmed and What Are Its Locations Based On?
Hollywood on Netflix may have received criticism from many for the liberties it took with film history, but it does a good job in bringing to life the Golden Age of Hollywood in terms of its locations. Though Hollywood is a fictional story set at the made-up Ace Studios, a lot of the places that the action of the Netflix show takes place in are based on real locations from Los Angeles, California in the 1940s and 1950s.
However, fans of the show hoping to visit locations like the Golden Tip gas station will be disappointed. Most of the Netflix series was filmed in a studio—the Sunset Gowers Studios in Hollywood.
However, some of the places these locations are based on can actually be visited. One that they cannot see, however, is the real-life gas station that inspired the Golden Tip. This gas station that is a front for a male brothel is based on Scotty's, which was said to have been visited by some of Hollywood's biggest male and female stars in the 1940s and '50s, who came for the gas and stayed for the staff of sex workers who would service much more than their cars.
This gas station could be found at 5777 Hollywood Boulevard, but has since been pulled down and is now a fire station. However, some of the exterior shots of the gas station were filmed on location at a period automotive repair shop in L.A.'s Atwater Village that fans can visit.
You can also visit the studio that inspired Ace Studios. In the early episodes of Hollywood, Jack Castello (played by David Corenswet) can be seen among the throng of people waiting at the studios' gates for work as an actor. Viewers will notice that this gate looks almost identical to the iconic gates of Paramount Studios. This gate can be seen at Hollywood's Melrose Avenue, and is part of the Paramount Studio Tour which gives classic movie fans a taste of the industry's Golden Age (though is currently not running due to the coronavirus).
Speaking to Architectural Digest, the show's set designers revealed the detailed work that went into recreating some iconic locations. To recreate the house of George Cukor, whose real house parties featured a who's-who of gay Hollywood, for example, designer production Matthew Flood Ferguson used multiple sources.
He told the magazine: "For Cukor's house, we found one designed by Paul Williams where we shot the dinner party scenes, and we did two builds for the guest house where Vivien Leigh stays. [Gay actor-turned interior decorator William] Haines also designed interiors for Cukor, so we looked at reference pictures of the house and tried to emulate that world."
Even in building this fake world, they found a number of props from real Hollywood studios from the 1940s and '50s to bring the world to life. The Ace Studios commissary, for example, features real restored chairs from the former Warner Bros. canteen. Ferguson said of these: "I have research pictures from the '40s of Bette Davis and Cary Grant sitting in the exact chairs having their lunch at the studio."
Hollywood is streaming now on Netflix.
