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CBS shows have begun their slow exodus from Television City, the first major complex built explicitly for television. Among the departing is an iconic studio: stage 33, longtime home to The Price Is Right.
Vintage Los Angeles creator Alison Martino was recently invited to tour the darkened space, and was able to photograph and video some of the surviving set pieces. “It was the same stage used for The Carol Burnett Show and Sonny and Cher,” the Los Angeles contributor says. “It has always been my dream to be a contestant on The Price is Right so when I got to spin the wheel there it was really my last chance.”
Courtesy Alison Martino
The modernist landmark was designed by William Pereira and Associates and opened in 1952. While The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, and Real Time with Bill Maher remain on the CBS Television lot for the moment, James Corden departed this spring with the end of The Late Late Show. And the heart and soul of the place left at the end of June when The Price is Right decamped after more than 50 years of Showcase Showdowns to set up shop at a former aerospace factory in Glendale.
Courtesy Alison Martino
Prior to that, it had been owned by the Gilmore family for 70 years when the network came calling in 1950. Rancher A.F. Gilmore struck oil while tending to his cattle farm located where The Grove is today. He and his son Earl Gilmore founded an oil empire, a drive-in theater, and the Original Farmers Market. The state-of-the-art studio replaced their Gilmore Stadium, a popular venue for football, auto racing, and political rallies.
Before host Drew Carey left the Bob Barker Stage for the final time, the show posted a goodbye video on Instagram.
Courtesy Alison Martino
“I used to tell people there was magic in the wood here because of all the good vibes that have been in this studio,” Carey said. “Now we gotta go and start a new place and put our own good vibes into that new place.”
Hackman Capital Partners paid CBS a reported $750 million in 2018 for the historic complex near Beverly and Fairfax.
Now, they’re seeking approval to build more than 1 million square feet of additional production and office space and to increase the number of soundstages from eight to at least 15. Renderings show new construction of at least ten stories in the $1.25 billion dollar project.
Neighbors, most notably Rick Caruso, owner of The Grove, have raised objections. The original building was declared a Historic-Cultural Monument in 2018 and will be maintained as part of the project.
The Culver City-based private equity firm has been acquiring movie studios and industrial buildings for movie crews in the film production hubs from L.A. to London. Locally, they have gobbled up the soundstages and backlots of Culver Studios, CBS Radford in Studio City, and Raleigh Studios on Melrose Avenue.
