Lee speeded construction by having the plaster ornamentation fabricated off-site and then brought to the building and fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

[4] Charlie Chaplin helped fund the completion so that it would be ready to open with the premiere of his film City Lights in January 1931.

[10][6] It was the last such movie palace built on Broadway, as the area began to feel the effects of the Depression and faced competition from Hollywood Blvd.

After closing its doors to the public in 1994, the Los Angeles has sat vacant for many years, although it can be rented as a venue for special events.

The theatre was used in the back drop on the set of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and seen in the music video for "Spiderwebs" by No Doubt, "Heartbreaker" by Mariah Carey (1999), "Jaded" by Aerosmith (2000), "Shake It" by Metro Station (2008), "Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5 and Christina Aguilera (2011), "Safe and Sound" by Capital Cities" (2013), "Delicate" by Taylor Swift (2018), "Black Swan" by BTS[12] (2020), "2U" by Kang Daniel (2020), "Ghost Story" by Carrie Underwood (2022) and "Middle of the Night" by Elley Duhé (2022).