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MARIAN GIBBONS
Fighting for Historical Hollywood
 It is hard to say no to Marian Gibbons,
and she knows it. Equally beautiful, smart
and charming, she often gets her way. And
when she fixes her magnetic blue eyes on
you, it’s difficult to believe she is 85.
No wonder she beguiled movers and
shakers of Hollywood to create Hollywood
Heritage, Inc, the historical preservation
organization.
As a child during the
Great Depression, she
grew up in the picture
book town of Hudson,
Ohio. She married Jim
Gibbons, had two
children, and took in a
niece and nephew
because of family
illness. “They were both
near my children’s age
and we had this
wonderful family”, she
says.
During WWII she got
a job for Goodyear Tire
and Rubber Co.
inspecting gas masks.
Later, while living in a suburb of
Milwaukee, historic preservation and the
arts factored into their lives. Together they
built a theater for the Elm Grove Players.
After the war, her husband started a
business offering manufacturer’s
representatives to companies without their
own sales force. He was quite successful,
traveled often, and when they came to Los
Angeles for an extended stay, Marian was
captivated by Hollywood’s appeal, not to
mention the weather.
She made it her goal to live here one
day. Eventually, in the late 70’s, Gibbons
followed her daughter, an NBC news
anchor, to Los Angeles. “I was appalled at
how Hollywood had changed (from earlier
visits). The city was just in shambles. I felt
duty-bound to help fix the situation.”
Gibbons soon went to the Hollywood
Chamber of Commerce, offering her
services as a volunteer to help clean up
Hollywood. They declined, saying they
don’t work with volunteers. She asked to
be directed to the Historical Society,
assuming they would use volunteers, but
she found there wasn’t one. I said, “You
will soon have one because I will start one.
Then everyone wondered why they hadn’t
done it before,” Gibbons said.
From her experience, she knew that if
you don’t know any politicians, you aren’t
going to get anything done. Luckily, a
neighbor introduced me to John Anson
Ford, through whom I met Tom Bradley,
Seniors In Action
around 1980. The mayor asked me what
he could do and I said answer the phone
when I call.
One day as protesters gathered on Vine
Street around a little ramshackle building
already up on moving blocks, Gibbons
happened to be driving by. Their signs
and banners implored anyone to ‘Save the
1913 Studio’, an important part of
Hollywood history.
The barn was where
“The Squaw Man”, the
biggest stage show of its
day, was made for
$13,000 by Cecil B.
DeMille, Samuel
Goldwyn and Jess
Lasky, three New York
entrepreneurs. The
flick went on to make
$200,000 and out of
this grew Paramount
Studios.
Its significance
registered with
Gibbons, and she
answered the
protestors prayers when she called Tom
Bradley and said, “We have to save this.
It’s how Hollywood started.” Of course
he didn’t say no.
She had met and enlisted the
enthusiasm of Frances Offenhauser, a
restoration architect, who soon asked
Gibbons to meet her in the parking lot
across from the Hollywood Bowl.
She had paced the size of the barn,
marking the corners with trashcans. The
barn would fit there without even
diminishing the parking.
Offenhauser planned to move the
barn at 3 a.m. when the streets could be
closed and wires removed. But Gibbons’
idea was to make the eleven o’clock
news.
With Bradley’s help, what is now the
Lasky-DeMille Barn trundled through
Hollywood, followed by a doubledecker
bus carrying workers,
volunteers, balloons and a band. The
hoopla festooned the media and
Gibbons has since appeared on every
network morning show on behalf of
Hollywood Heritage.
The society she began 25 years ago as
a one-woman effort is now a respected
community organization, still fighting to
keep Hollywood landmarks vital.
Gibbons, a working actor, moved to
Studio City last year. She is completing a
memoir, takes a Saturday morning
comedy/improv class at CBS Studio
Center and she even goes on auditions.
Although, she did not get the part of a
corpse on Six Feet Under when she
auditioned . They said she looked too
young.
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