7 Fascinating Facts About the Hollywood Sign

As the sign started quite literally crumbling in the 1950s, Hugh Hefner threw a party for some of Hollywood's elite to raise money to fix it. Celebrities didn't just donate, they sponsored whole letters. Hefner, for example, purchased the "Y," singer Andy Williams purchased the "W," and Alice Cooper bought an "O" for Groucho Marx. According to LAist, "The others who pitched in were: publisher Terrence Donnelly, movie producer Giovanni Mazza, Les Kelley of the Kelley Blue Book, Angels owner Gene Autry, Warner Bros. Records, and businessman Dennis Lidtke. . . . The group are known as the 'Hollywood Nine.'"