Sidney Patrick Grauman (March 17, 1879 Indianapolis, Indiana – March 5, 1950 Beverly Hills, California) was an American showman who created one of Southern California's most recognizable and visited landmarks, Grauman's Chinese Theater. The son of David Grauman who died in 1921 in Los Angeles, California and Rosa Goldsmith (1853-1936).
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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 Theater, 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. He died in Los Angeles on March 5, 1950. [1]
Grauman was known far and wide among Hollywood's leading stars and was considered to be a close friend to many, including Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. It was in Grauman's office at the Million Dollar Theater that Arbuckle called the San Francisco police to turn himself in.
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 was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
He was one of the original 36 founders 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.
  | Sid Grauman's Chinese Theater (Historic Photos) - Sid Grauman's Chinese Theater |
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