Location, Location, Location: Catalina Island

Norma Shearer, Paulette Goddard and Charlie Chaplin off Catalina, 1934

A Film Location and Celebrity Haunt Since the Early 20th Century

Santa Catalina, one of California's Channel Islands, is just 26 miles SSW of Los Angeles. Once called Pimu, it's been inhabited for more than 7,000 years and has weathered the Spanish conquest, an influx of otter hunters and infestation by smugglers over its long history. It is best known today as a playground for those with money and celebrity and was once a popular location for filming Hollywood movies.

22 miles from shore to isle

Back in 1891, Catalina was purchased by the Banning brothers who planned to develop the island as a resort. Avalon Harbor was their primary focus, but roads and hunting lodges were also built in the interior. A devastating fire and World War I eventually forced the Bannings to sell off the property. In 1919, William Wrigley, Jr., founder of the chewing gum company and owner of the Chicago Cubs, bought controlling interest in the island. He soon set about building a dance hall on Sugarloaf Point - the Sugarloaf Casino.

Not long after, in 1920, Al Jolson recorded "Avalon" and popularized the song about Catalina's resort town:

"Avalon" sheet music

I found my love in Avalon
Beside the bay.
I left my love in Avalon
and sail'd away.
I dream of her and Avalon
from dusk 'til dawn.
And so I think I'll travel on
to Avalon.

As it turned out, the song's tune was similar enough to an aria from Puccini's Tosca (1900) that the composer's music publisher filed and won a plagiarism lawsuit.

The Ten Commandments (1923)

From Hollywood's earliest days, Santa Catalina Island provided a shooting location for film crews. D.W. Griffith was one of the first to use the island for this purpose with Man's Genesis in 1912. Other filmmakers followed suit. Classic silents with a Catalina backdrop include Fox's Treasure Island (1918), directed by Sidney Franklin, DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1923) for Paramount, and Ben-Hur (1925), directed by Fred Niblo for MGM. The island portrayed locales as exotic as North Africa and Tahiti and three diverse island areas were most often used for filming - Avalon, Little Harbor and the Isthmus - which eventually became known as "the Movie Colony Isthmus." Some of Catalina's palm trees were originally planted by film companies, and the island's buffalo herd was the result of a movie production. Legend has it that the animals were imported for Famous Player-Lasky's Richard Dix vehicle, The Vanishing American (1925). Though this is unproven, it is true that the picture was filmed on the island at the same time the creatures first appeared.

The  Casino's Avalon Ballroom opened in May 1929

Throughout the 1920s the island grew more popular as a resort destination and William Wrigley decided to raze Sugarloaf Casino to make room for a newer, larger structure. Construction on the Catalina Casino, a ballroom and theater, began in 1928. Architects Sumner A. Spaulding and William Webber created a design described variously as Moorish Alhambra and Mediterranean Revival. Fixtures and furnishings and art were designed in the Art Deco style. John Gabriel Beckman, known for his work on Mann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, designed the murals.

The new ballroom opened in May 1929 with the Maurice Menge band providing dance music for 2,500 couples. The theater opened with The Iron Mask (1929), a silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks enhanced by the musical accompaniment of the theater's organ, the largest Page organ in the world. Click here to visit the interior of the Casino theater and ballroom and hear "Avalon" played on the Page organ.

The Avalon Theatre

In 1929 sound permanently took hold in motion pictures. One early talkie filmed on Catalina was Sam Goldwyn's Condemned (1929) starring Ronald Colman and Ann Harding. Critic Mordaunt Hall, writing for the New York Times in November 1929, referred to it as an 'audible film.' In Condemned, Catalina provided the French penal island locale.

The island went on to appear in several classics of the 1930s: The Island of Lost Souls (1932), Rain (1932), Victor Fleming's version of Treasure Island (1934), Captain Blood (1935), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Captains Courageous (1937).

Errol Flynn on the Sirocco just off the island

Filming on the island introduced movie casts and crews to the pleasures of Catalina, and those who could afford it sailed and vacationed there. Some of the biggest names in movies spent time on and around the island...Chaplin and Paulette Goddard (pictured above on Joe Schenck's yacht) reportedly enjoyed fishing for marlin in the nearby waters. And Errol Flynn, a devoted sailor and carouser, ended up on trial following one of his many sojourns to the island.

Beginning in 1934, the Casino Ballroom hosted legendary big bands that were broadcast nationwide as they played live. Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Harry James, the Dorseys, Woody Herman and other top bands played to ballroom crowds that, over 28 years, averaged 4,000 per night. A record crowd turned out 6,200 strong for Kay Kyser and his band in 1938. The Avalon Ballroom's live big band broadcasts lasted far into the 1950s.

In the mid-'30s MGM produced this 19-minute musical revue featuring Buddy Rogers and his band (the California Cavaliers), Chester Morris, Leon Errol and others. Filmed in beautiful 3-strip Technicolor, the short includes cameo appearances by Cary Grant, Errol Flynn, Mickey Rooney, Virginia Bruce, Lee Tracy, Randolph Scott, Marion Davies and Lili Damita. Avalon provides the sea- and sun-kissed setting.

Jaws 1975

When the United States entered World War II, the island was closed to tourism and decreed off-limits to film production for the duration. Following the war, domestic and international air travel boomed and studios began shooting on location in Africa, the South Pacific and around the world. This didn't end Catalina's life as a location site, however. The island and its surrounding waters have been featured many times since in films like Around the World in 80 Days (1956), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Chinatown (1974), Jaws (1975), Dick Tracy (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Apollo 13 (1995), and The Thin Red Line (1998). Beginning with the silent era, Catalina has appeared in more than 200 films. Of course, the island has been featured on TV many times, too...

Bacall and Bogart offshore

Once World War II ended, movie folk returned to the island. Bogart, Bacall and friends sailed often to and from Catalina on his beloved Santana. Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher spent part of their honeymoon on Catalina. Marlon Brando rented a house on the island while Morituri (1965) was shooting offshore. In 1972, Liza Minnelli threw a party in Avalon to celebrate her Oscar win for Cabaret. Celebrity couples from Warren Beatty and Julie Christie (dancing at the Chi Chi Club back in the day) to Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw to Barbra Streisand and James Brolin have been spotted on Catalina over the years.

On a sadder note, Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner were spending Thanksgiving weekend 1981 in the area on their yacht, the Splendour, and it was in the waters off Catalina that she drowned.

During William Wrigley's ownership of the Chicago Cubs, the team's spring training was held on the island - a tradition that went on for 30 years. But in addition to developing and making use of the island, Wrigley wanted to preserve it. In 1972, P.K. Wrigley fulfilled his late father's wishes when he established the Catalina Island Conservancy and transferred family ownership to it. Ever since, most of the island has been held in trust by the Conservancy...and buffalo still roam in the uplands (click here to watch them roam), schools of Garibaldi fish still swim in the coastal waters, gray whales continue to pass by during their annual migration and dolphins are often sighted not far from shore.

Avalon Harbor

Catalina Casino entrance

Casino entrance detail

Condemned 1929

Captain Blood 1935

Mutiny on the Bounty 1935

Rosemary's Baby 1968