Los Angeles on Screen: The Hollywood Hotels That Played Themselves

In most cities, a film crew in the lobby is an event. In Los Angeles it's a Tuesday. The city's grand hotels sit minutes from the studios, so for a century they've been the easiest five-star sets in the world, and several have filmographies longer than most actors'.

Beverly Wilshire: Pretty Woman (1990)

The most famous hotel stay in romantic comedy belongs to the Beverly Wilshire. In Pretty Woman, Richard Gere's corporate raider Edward Lewis brings Julia Roberts's Vivian back to his penthouse, and over a week of shopping on Rodeo Drive (directly across the street), opera in San Francisco and a bath with headphones, falls for her. Roberts won the Golden Globe and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. The 1928 Beaux-Arts building's exterior and lobby are the real thing; some interiors were built on a set.

The hotel leans into it. Guests can book a "Pretty Woman for a Day" experience, and the hotel has its own Hollywood history: Warren Beatty lived in its penthouse for years, and Elvis Presley stayed there while filming at Paramount. Entourage also filmed here.

The Beverly Hills Hotel: the Pink Palace's century on screen

The Beverly Hills Hotel opened in 1912, before the city of Beverly Hills existed, and it has appeared in more than 200 productions. Its Polo Lounge was the industry's power-lunch room for decades, and Elizabeth Taylor spent six of her eight honeymoons in its bungalows.

The highlights:

• California Suite (1978). Neil Simon's four-part comedy follows four sets of guests staying at the hotel. Maggie Smith plays a British actress nominated for an Oscar, and won a real one, Best Supporting Actress, for the role.
• American Gigolo (1980). Richard Gere's escort first meets Lauren Hutton's character in the Polo Lounge.
• Shampoo (1975) and Beverly Hills Cop II (1987). Both use the Polo Lounge, and Eddie Murphy's Axel Foley drives past the hotel on his first arrival in Beverly Hills in Beverly Hills Cop (1984).
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998). Terry Gilliam's film, with Johnny Depp as Raoul Duke, includes a scene in the Polo Lounge.
• Saving Mr. Banks (2013). Emma Thompson's P.L. Travers stays at the hotel while Tom Hanks's Walt Disney tries to win the rights to Mary Poppins.

The hotel's credits go back to Harold Lloyd, who filmed a scene for A Sailor-Made Man here in 1921. It also appears in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), which won five Academy Awards; Designing Woman (1957), with Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall, which won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay; Move Over, Darling (1963), with Doris Day; Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? (1963), with Dean Martin; The Way We Were (1973); and Anywhere But Here (1999), with Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman.

Millennium Biltmore: Ghostbusters, Chinatown and eight Oscar nights

Downtown, the Millennium Biltmore was the largest hotel west of Chicago when it opened in 1923. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was conceived at a lunch in its Crystal Ballroom in 1927, the hotel hosted the Academy Awards eight times between 1931 and 1942, and the nickname "Oscar" took hold during those years. Hollywood never really left.

The Biltmore is the Sedgewick Hotel in Ghostbusters (1984), where Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis chase Slimer through the lobby and trap him in the ballroom. Alfred Hitchcock used its 11-storey back staircase for the dizzying sequences in Vertigo (1958). It appears in Chinatown (1974), which won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and The Sting (1973), the Best Picture winner, which used its Gold Room. Molly Ringwald's prom in Pretty in Pink (1986) is in the Crystal Ballroom, which also appears in True Lies (1994), Rocky III (1982) and The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989). Eddie Murphy's Axel Foley visits the Rendezvous Court in Beverly Hills Cop (1984), and the pool appears in Cruel Intentions (1999), Bugsy (1991) and The Fan (1996).

The full list runs to Ocean's 11 (1960), Alien Nation (1988), The Bodyguard (1992), In the Line of Fire (1993), Independence Day (1996), The Insider (1999), House of Sand and Fog (2003) and Wedding Crashers (2005).

The Westin Bonaventure: In the Line of Fire (1993), Rain Man (1988)

The mirrored cylinders of the Westin Bonaventure look like the future as imagined in 1976, which is why filmmakers love them. Clint Eastwood's Secret Service agent chases John Malkovich's assassin into its glass elevators in In the Line of Fire, and in Rain Man, Tom Cruise's Charlie Babbitt turns down a big deal while lounging by its pool.

Chateau Marmont: Somewhere (2010), The Doors (1991)

The Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard is Hollywood's most storied place to misbehave. Sofia Coppola shot Somewhere almost entirely at the hotel, with Stephen Dorff as a burned-out actor living there and Elle Fanning as his daughter; it won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Oliver Stone filmed The Doors on location here to recreate the night Jim Morrison hurt his back dangling from a drainpipe while trying to swing into his room from the roof.