SID GRAUMAN

'Sidney Patrick Grauman' (March 17, 1879 - March 5, 1950) was an American showman who created one of Southern California's most recognizable and visited landmarks, Grauman's Chinese Theater. A failed prospector in the Klondike gold rush, he had owned movie theaters in Alaska and Northern California before building three noteworthy Los Angeles movie palaces: the Million Dollar Theater, the Egyptian Theater, and finally the Chinese, noted for its extravagant exterior design and its forecourt containing celebrity hand- and footprints. Grauman's Chinese Theater is now one of the ten most-visited places in Southern California.
Grauman received an honorary Academy Award in 1949 for raising the standard for film exhibition. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6379 Hollywood Blvd. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
He was one of the original 36 s of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).
One of Grauman's surviving (albeit somewhat distant) relatives is film and television director Walter Grauman, who still lives in Los Angeles.