Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2000 census, the city had a population of 38,816. The community is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also has a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. The mayor is D. Scott Malsin.

Since the 1920s, Culver City has been a significant center for motion picture and later television production, in part because it was the home of MGM Studios. It also was the headquarters for the Hughes Aircraft Company from 1932 to 1985. National Public Radio West and Sony Pictures Entertainment now have headquarters in the city.

History

Culver City was founded by Harry Culver in 1913, and the city was incorporated on September 20 1917. The first film studio in Culver City was built by Thomas Ince in 1918. In the 1920s, silent film comedy producer Hal Roach and Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) built studios there. During Prohibition, speakeasies and nightclubs such as the Cotton Club lined Washington Boulevard.

Heart of screenland

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Home to Sony Pictures Studios (originally MGM Studios), Culver Studios, and the former Hal Roach Studios, hundreds of movies have been produced on the lots of Culver City's studios. These include The Wizard of Oz, The Thin Man, Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane, Rebecca, the Tarzan series, and the original King Kong. More recent films made in Culver City include Grease, Raging Bull, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, City Slickers, Air Force One, Wag the Dog, and Contact. Television shows made on Culver City sets have included Las Vegas, Mad About You, Lassie, Batman, Arrested Development, The Andy Griffith Show, Jeopardy!, and the night version Wheel of Fortune.

John Travolta's "Stranded at the Drive-In" sequence in Grease was filmed at the Studio Drive-In on the corner of Jefferson and Sepulveda. It served as a set for many other films, including Pee-wee's Big Adventure. The theater was closed in 1993 and was demolished in 1998; it is now a housing subdivision featuring large homes on small lots, as well as being home to the Kayne-ERAS center, a school and community center for the disabled and mentally challenged.

The history of the town is beginning to be recognized. The Aviator, a film about Howard Hughes, featured several mentions of Culver City in connection with Hughes. The Hughes Aircraft Company plant had a Culver City mailing address but was actually in the adjacent Los Angeles neighborhood of Westchester at a site now called Playa Vista. Scenes from Bewitched (2005) with Nicole Kidman and Will Farrell were also filmed in the Culver City streets as well as the liquor store scene in Superbad. The 2005 film, Fun with Dick and Jane, starring Jim Carrey was filmed there.