Hollywood Sign Los Angeles during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the sign became an internationally recognized symbol and was left there. Over the course of more than half a century, the sign, designed to stand for only 18 months, sustained extensive damage and deterioration. During the early 1940s, Albert Kothe (the sign's official caretaker) caused an accident that destroyed the letter "H". Kothe, driving while inebriated, was nearing the top of Mount Lee when he lost control of his vehicle and drove off the cliff directly behind the "H". While Kothe was not injured, his 1928 Ford Model A was destroyed, as
Hollywood on the Tiber by Hollywood studios, which reached its height with 20th Century Fox's "Cleopatra" in 1963. The phrase "Hollywood on Tiber", a reference to the river that runs through Rome, was coined in 1950 by "Time Magazine" during the making of "Quo Vadis". Following World War II, Hollywood studios increasingly shifted production abroad both to take advantage of lower costs and to use frozen funds (profits from American films which foreign governments barred from export). These films, known as runaway productions, could also benefit from local subsidies. By the early 1950s, some of the largest-budget American films were being shot in European