Los Angeles: Like almost every other star in town, the Hollywood sign is getting a makeover.
Repairs on the 82-year-old landmark began on Wednesday.
By the time workers are done the sign will have been stripped to the metal and repainted from top to bottom, said Chris Baumgart, chairman of the Hollywood Sign Trust, which oversees the sign's maintenance.
"It's got the cracks that Mother Nature and LA's haze have done to it," Baumgart said. "If it was your house, you'd have it repainted."
A crew of seven workers will take about four weeks to refurbish the sign. They'll coat the 14-meter letters with 1,135 liters of a specially formulated paint in ``Hollywood
White,'' said David Codde, president of Bay Cal Commercial Painting which is donating the makeover work together with Red Diamond Coatings.
The sign was last painted in 1995.
It originally read "Hollywoodland" when it was built for $21,000 in 1923 to advertise a tony new subdivision going up in the Hollywood Hills.
It was falling apart when the ``land'' was dropped and the remaining letters were repainted in a major refurbishing in 1949.
It was repainted again in 1973 when it was declared a Los Angeles Cultural-Historical Monument.
In 1978, the Hollywood Sign Trust was formed and donors spent $250,000 to rebuild the looming letters atop Mount Lee.
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