Also from the LA Conservancy tour in 2001: Pickford was very involved in the design, like, micromanaging the whole thing. The Spanish Gothic style was inspired by her obsession with European castles. High up on the side walls of the auditorium are two huge, dramatic, psychosexual murals by Anthony Heinsbergen, featuring Mary Pickford as a naked angel in chains, threatened by devils with the recognizable faces of evil studio executives on the left, rescued by Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin and other UA figures on flying-horseback to the right. To say these murals are self-aggrandizing is a wild understatement. And the lobby, which looks impossibly lavish, is full of architectural trickery. Most of the materials here are also clever fakes. The marble is painted plaster. The woodwork is shaped and painted plaster. It’s a regular encyclopedia of cheap architectural illusions. According to the docent the original lobby carpet was woven to include stained-glass shadow patterns â€" fake shadows. Pickford loved to point these things out because she knew you could let people in on the joke, and the joke would somehow still work. You know, just like Gene Scott.
Also from the LA Conservancy tour in 2001: Pickford was very involved in the design, like, micromanaging the whole thing. The Spanish Gothic style was inspired by her obsession with European castles. High up on the side walls of the auditorium are two huge, dramatic, psychosexual murals by Anthony Heinsbergen, featuring Mary Pickford as a naked angel in chains, threatened by devils with the recognizable faces of evil studio executives on the left, rescued by Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin and other UA figures on flying-horseback to the right. To say these murals are self-aggrandizing is a wild understatement. And the lobby, which looks impossibly lavish, is full of architectural trickery. Most of the materials here are also clever fakes. The marble is painted plaster. The woodwork is shaped and painted plaster. It’s a regular encyclopedia of cheap architectural illusions. According to the docent the original lobby carpet was woven to include stained-glass shadow patterns â€" fake shadows. Pickford loved to point these things out because she knew you could let people in on the joke, and the joke would somehow still work. You know, just like Gene Scott.