TCL Chinese Theatre

Hollywood & Highland Center

6801 Hollywood Blvd

Hollywood, CA 90028, United States

TCL Chinese Theatre (formerly Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and Mann's Chinese Theatre) is a movie theater on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California. The theater was renamed in January 2013 when the TCL Corporation, a Chinese electronics company, purchased the naming rights for over $5 million.


The original Chinese Theatre was commissioned following the success of the nearby Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, which opened in 1922. Built over 18 months, from January 1926 by a partnership headed by Sid Grauman, the theater opened May 18, 1927, with the premiere of Cecil B. DeMille's film The King of Kings. It has since been home to many premieres, including the 1977 launch of George Lucas's Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, as well as birthday parties, corporate junkets and three Academy Awards ceremonies. Among the theater's most distinctive features are the concrete blocks set in the forecourt, which bear the signatures, footprints, and handprints of popular motion picture personalities from the 1920s to the present day.

Footprints
There are nearly 200 Hollywood celebrity handprints, footprints, and autographs in the concrete of the theater's forecourt.
Variations of this honored tradition are imprints of the eyeglasses of Harold Lloyd, the cigar of Groucho Marx, the magic wands of Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, the facial profile of John Barrymore (reflecting his nickname "The Great Profile"), the legs of Betty Grable, the fist of John Wayne, the knees of Al Jolson, the ice skating blades of Sonja Henie, and the noses of Jimmy Durante and Bob Hope.

Western stars William S. Hart and Roy Rogers left imprints of their guns. The hoofprints of "Tony", the horse of Tom Mix, "Champion", the horse of Gene Autry, and "Trigger", the horse of Rogers, were left in the concrete beside the prints of the stars who rode them in the movies.

Since 2011, there has been a surge of concrete ceremonies, many of which have been paid for by movie studios for publicity reasons. One of the theater's current owners, Donald Kushner, acknowledged this and referred to them as mock ceremonies. This influx has been a matter of concern for film buffs and historians, as well as misleading for fans. However, despite the increase of cement blocks, the ones placed within the forecourt are still chosen by a special committee who selects celebrities based on their contributions to Hollywood cinema. The other blocks are placed on the walls of the Grauman Ballroom, located inside the Chinese 6 Theatres within the Hollywood & Highland Center.