Paramount Studios

In September my husband surprised me with a tour of the Paramount studio in Hollywood. Paramount Pictures turned 100 years old this year, and the tour encompassed aspects from every decade of that century. I am still blown away by the fact that I stood where Billy Wilder stood, where the horse head scene from "The Godfather" was filmed, where Cecil B. DeMille parted the sea in "The Ten Commandments"...


These first photographs were taken in 2008. How wonderful to have been able to go on the tour and check something off "the list" that we've wanted to do for so long!

The following photographs were taken the day of the tour. In no way do these even begin to scratch the surface of the experience we had, as the sound stages and back lots where filming was taking place was off limits to photography. 

The Hollywood sign is fittingly visible from the studio.

"Citizen Kane" (1941) was shot here. 

Joan Crawford's dressing room entrance.

The iconic water tower and "Ten Commandments" sized backdrop.

The Bronson gate. One of the last stops on the tour, and perhaps the one I was most looking forward to.

The Bronson gate is quintessential Paramount, for us it was exciting because of it's place in one of our favorite films, 1950s "Sunset Blvd.". Here is a still from the film, things are a little different 60+ years later but to stand there and look up at the gates is transcendent.

Billy Wilder's "Sunset Blvd." (1950)

For more information about Paramount tours click here.

All photographs © Monika Seitz Vega, 2008-2014.