The Egyptian Revival style building on the west side of Highland has been a Hollywood landmark since it opened July 4, 1929, a fitting date for the building which was commissioned in 1919 by World War I veterans and has been home to the American Legion Post 43 since then. The site includes an art deco speakeasy once frequented by Charlton Heston, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Gene Autry, Ronald Reagan, Micky Rooney, Stan Lee and others, and a large meeting room that hosted dances and meetings.
Post 43 embarked on a $6 million makeover that resulted in the construction of a state-of-the-art 482-seat motion picture theater, the only Hollywood theatrical venue owned and operated by veterans. The American Legion is the nation's largest wartime veterans' association, and Post 43 is home to and provides services for 1,400 veterans, as well as services for youth and the community. Nothing in the group's mission statement suggests that opening a movie theater would be a natural fit. But its heart-of-Hollywood location had always tied Post 43 to the film community, and its members decided to take the leap in creating the best motion picture theater possible to increase the strength of those ties.
I had never heard about a veteran's group building a world-class 35mm/70mm and digital cinema inside an American Legion, says the project's creative director/chief projectionist Taylor Umphenour. Those are two Venn diagrams I never thought would overlap. But the American Legion Post 43 stands at a unique crossroads of old and new Hollywood and the veteran community and I wanted to be involved. Umphenour, who supervised finishing of the projection booth, started his career as an IMAX 15-70mm projectionist. It's a film format that is completely unforgiving, he remarks. It's a very exacting environment and it's where my habits were formed and where I came to understand the value of preparedness and attention to detail. Later, he moved to an art-house movie theater where he operated 35mm carbon arc projectors. I really benefitted from understanding both ends of the spectrum, he said.
When Umphenour arrived at the Hollywood Legion, the makeover of the entire building had a deadline. I came on in Fall 2018 and the Turner Classic Movies film festival was set to debut in Spring 2019, he recounts. The first thing that needed to be done was the film system, which had been purchased from Los Angeles Center Studios and needed to be completely overhauled and restored for 35mmm and 70mm in time for the film festival. One challenge was finding parts but, says Umphenour, finding support staff who know these projectors well enough to resurrect those machines was an even tougher hurdle.
He gives a shout-out to the invaluable support from Bill Steele, the theater director, and Roger Addams, the Norelco AAII projector technician. The three of us worked as partners in making sure the engineering on the film system would be complete by Spring 2019, he says. As a team, Bill and I set the standards for what we wanted to accomplish, and everybody rose to meet those standards. Since the debut of the projection booth, Umphenour says, they have added the ability to run at variable speeds. Now, when we project silent films, we are able to run them at the frame rate at which they were originally shown. The booth also has a Christie 4K projector for digital projections.
Steele's role was to oversee the remaking of the theater's cavernous interior, a massive 6,500-square foot concrete space with 80,000 cu. ft. of air. The greatest challenge there was taming the acoustics. We had to get the decay to a level that allowed cinema sound to really shine, Umphenour says. British acoustics engineering firm Arup did an auralization, a technique for the reproduction and creation of sound that enabled Steele and architect Peter Gruneisen to hear the space before it was even built. Using auralization, Grueneisen, who has designed many of film composer Hans Zimmer's recording studios, applied specific acoustic treatments that resulted in a dramatic improvement in the room's audio. It was night and day, says Umphenour.
Since opening the Legion Theater in Spring 2019, it has hosted a robust film schedule until COVID-19 hit in March 2020. Steele and Umphenour approached the American Legion board with a proposal for converting the parking lot into an outdoor cinema, which was approved and opened in early October that same year. We're in the heart of Hollywood, he says. We needed to find a way for people to safely enjoy entertainment together. The schedule can be found at www.hollywoodlegiontheater.com.
The American Legion Post 43 is to be commended, says Umphenour. They took a big risk on doing something good for their community and the Hollywood community. It's not a risk a lot of other organizations would have taken but, downstream, it created a beautiful world-class venue that is starting to pay off.
The HPA Awards will take place at the American Legion Theater on November 18.
Most recent headlines
24/12/2025
What is AI good for? Posted by MTI Film on December 24, 2025
What is AI good for?
What is AI good for?
It's been three years since ChatGPT first cap...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Back to All News
Love, Fights, and Everything in Between: Badly in Love' Returns for Season 2
Entertainment
24 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied t...
24/12/2025
Scripps Research study links sleep variability with sleep apnea and hypertension How consumers' digital activity trackers could enable personalized health s...
23/12/2025
How guilas Cibae as Dominican Winter League Games Are Locally Produced for Glob...
23/12/2025
BitFire's Jim Akimchuk on Supplying Scalability and Customization in the Clo...
23/12/2025
CAMB.AI Enables European Athletics to Offer Multi-Language SupportPlan is to eventually offer translation into all languages spoken in EuropeBy Ken Kerschbaumer...
23/12/2025
Analysis: As sports media values trend negative, scarcity and quality are king By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Monday, December 22, 2025 - 14:08
Print ...
23/12/2025
ESPN, Disney, and NBA Return to the Animated Altcast Fray With Second Edition of...
23/12/2025
End the Year on a High Note and Donate to the Sports Broadcasting Fund Today! By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 - 12:25 pm
...
23/12/2025
The year is winding down, the weather outside is frightful, and it's the perfect time to escape into a story that warms the heart. For listeners looking for...
23/12/2025
A Zeus motor is hot fire tested at L3Harris' Camden, Arkansas, solid rocket ...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Lightware will exhibit several major product innovations at ISE 2026, including the new USB-C BOOSTER-V1, Google Meet. integration for various Taurus UCX models...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's The Great Flood and Culinary Class Wars 2 Top Gl...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things By the Numbers: How the Global Phenomenon Shap...
23/12/2025
Experience the power of WO Automation for Radio's newest service, the System Effectiveness Review. Designed to help you achieve more, a System Effectiveness...
23/12/2025
23 Dec 2025
VEON's Beeline Kazakhstan and Rakuten Symphony Collaborate to A...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
How Steamy Can It Get? Single's Inferno' Season 5 Pre...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
33 Million Global Viewers on Netflix Watched Jake Paul vs. Ant...
23/12/2025
New technique lights up where drugs go in the body, cell by cell Scripps Research scientists developed a technique that maps drug binding in individual cells th...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...
22/12/2025
Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
The Egyptian Revival style building on the west side of Highland has been a Hollywood landmark since it opened July 4, 1929, a fitting date for the building which was commissioned in 1919 by World War I veterans and has been home to the American Legion Post 43 since then. The site includes an art deco speakeasy once frequented by Charlton Heston, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Gene Autry, Ronald Reagan, Micky Rooney, Stan Lee and others, and a large meeting room that hosted dances and meetings.
