Wrecking ball aimed at Hollywood studio

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif., March 26 (UPI) -- West Hollywood studio buildings once owned by screen icons Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks are to be demolished within weeks, local officials say.

Known alternately throughout the years as the Pickford-Fairbanks Studio, the United Artists Studio, Samuel Goldwyn Studio, the Warner Hollywood Studio and now simply "The Lot," the property includes the Pickford Building, the Goldwyn Building, Writers Building, Fairbanks Building and Editorial Building.

West Hollywood planning officials told the Los Angeles Times the property's latest owner, CIM Group, plans to destroy the buildings where Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Clark Gable and Marlon Brando once worked to make way for six-story, glass-and-steel structures, which will include new sound-stages.

"A lot of people have a lot of affection for the place," Doug Haines, a film editor who worked on movies there for two decades, told the newspaper. "You really had a sense of history when you worked there. Another glass building -- that certainly says 'Old Hollywood,' doesn't it?"

The Times said the property, though beloved, is not protected by landmark status.