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Straits Times

American prop house that supplies Hollywood may get the chop

A guillotine prop (left) at History For Hire's warehouse in North Hollywood, California. The company is run by Mrs Pam Elyea and her husband Jim. PHOTOS: JAKE MICHAELS/NYTIMES LOS ANGELES – When the Netflix series Wednesday (2022 to present) needed a guillotine recently, it did not have to venture far. A North Hollywood prop house called History For Hire had one available, standing taller than 2.4m with a suitably menacing blade. The company's 33,000 sq ft warehouse is like the film and television industry's treasure-filled attic, crammed with hundreds of thousands of items that help bring the past to life. It has a guitar American-French actor Timothee Chalamet used in A Complete Unknown (2024) and luggage from Titanic (1997). Looking for period detail? You can find different iterations of Wheaties boxes going back to the 1940s, enormous television cameras with rotating lenses from the 1950s, a hairdryer with a long hose that connects to a plastic bonnet from the 1960s, a pay phone from the 1970s and a yellow waterproof Sony Walkman from the 1980s. Old baby carriages that have been used in Addams Family Values (1993) and Bride Of Chucky (1998) at History For Hire. PHOTO: JAKE MICHAELS/NYTIMES History For Hire, which married couple Jim and Pam Elyea have owned for almost four decades, is part of the crucial but often unseen infrastructure that keeps Hollywood churning, and helps make it one of the best places in the world to make film and television. 'People just don't realise how valuable a business like that is to help support the look of a film,' said set decorator Nancy Haigh, who found everything from a retro can of pork-and-beans to a one-tonne studio crane there for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019), for which she won an Oscar. 'But it's because people like them exist that your movie-going experience has such life to it.' When Good Night, And Good Luck (2005) was being filmed in town on a tight US$7 million (S$9 million) budget, its set decorator Jan Pascale persuaded the Elyeas to rent the team vintage cameras, microphones and monitors at a discount. Vintage cameras at History For Hire. PHOTO: JAKE MICHAELS/NYTIMES When director George Clooney wanted an old Moviola editing machine, Pascale recalled, the Elyeas found her one at a local school. And they had not only the telex machines that the production needed, but also workers who knew how to get them to work. 'I don't know what we would do without them,' said Pascale, who has won an Oscar for Mank (2020). No one likes entertaining that idea. But with fewer movies and television shows being shot in Los Angeles these days, and History For Hire getting less business, the Elyeas fear they may not be able to afford to renew their lease for five more years. If they close, Los Angeles will lose another piece of the vibrant ecosystem that has kept it attractive to film-makers, even as states such as Georgia and New Mexico lure productions with lucrative tax credits. Some Angelenos fear a vicious circle: If the city continues to lose local talent and resources, even more productions will flee. The Elyeas were making enough before the Covid-19 pandemic to employ 25 people. Now, they employ 11, and have been drawing down savings to stay open. The rent is expected to go up 25 per cent in July, when their lease is up. Now, they face a difficult choice. 'What do we do?' asked Mrs Elyea, 71. 'Do we say yes – we think there's going to be a going business here? Or do we say, 'We had a good run'?' From field radios to vintage boxes of Froot Loops Buckets, cups, boxes and bags of familiar brands from different eras at History For Hire. PHOTO: JAKE MICHAELS/NYTIMES The Elyeas met at design school. Mr Elyea , now 74, became a courtroom artist, but a sex-abuse trial he worked on in the 1980s soured him on that career. His parents owned an antique store, and he had always been a collector. So, when a friend who was a production designer asked him to come work on sets, he was sold. 'He loved it,' said Mrs Elyea . It was what he wanted to do. The couple opened their prop-rental business out of their apartment. Their first big break came when they got the gig to rent flak vests, field radios and medic equipment to Oliver Stone's 1986 film Platoon . They soon opened a 4,000 sq ft store , a fraction of their current size . Using his eye for antiques, Mr Elyea bought many items over the years. Artisans reproduced others. The work called for creativity and flexibility. A 3,600kg camera crane from the 1930s – shown in movies such as Hail, Caesar! (2016) and Babylon (2022) – had to be modified to comply with modern federal safety laws. Budweiser bottles at History For Hire. Getting the right Budweiser bottle can mean measuring down to the centimetre. PHOTO: JAKE MICHAELS/NYTIMES No detail is too small, said Mr Richard Adkins, the business' graphics director, who recreated eye-catching vintage cereal boxes of Cheerios, Froot Loops and bygone brands such as Sugar Jets for the prop house. He squinted at a ruler as he measured the height of a glass bottle. A film set in the 1980s was seeking a Budweiser bottle in a size that is no longer made, so Mr Adkins pulled two candidates from his vintage stock. 'There's a lot of research that one can do on the internet, but there's also a natural advantage of being a person my age who remembers,' said Mr Adkins, 76, who has been doing this work for 51 years and has worked at History For Hire for 27. Perhaps the most fulfilling part of the job, said Mrs Elyea , is diving into the history itself. There is an entire library in the warehouse devoted to that work, filled with books and reference guides that could be props themselves. Each prop has its own filmography Carts filled with props at History For Hire. Shoppers collect their items on carts and place orange tags on things they want to rent. PHOTO: JAKE MICHAELS/NYTIMES Scan a bar code, and History For Hire's inventory system will reveal a prop's past lives. One much-loved vintage camera – used in the 1992 film Chaplin starring Robert Downey Jr – has been to Antarctica and Mexico. A weather-beaten brown satchel appeared in The Patriot (2000) and Pirates Of The Caribbean (2003 to 2017). For 10 per cent of the price of the prop, it can be yours for a week. Want a wooden drumstick from the 1970s? That is US$2. Want an actual Vistalite drum set? That is closer to US$495. The Elyeas would have to rent many drum sets and many, many, many drumsticks to cover the US$500,000 they pay annually to rent the building where they store them all. Mrs Elyea is fine with some work going other places, and noted that it made sense to film, say, Oppenheimer (2023) in New Mexico. She has shipped her props all over the world for years. But she would need more local production in Los Angeles to keep her doors open. Aisles of items grouped together by topic or theme at History For Hire. PHOTO: JAKE MICHAELS/NYTIMES Set decorators say they have already lost several local prop houses, one as recently as in 2025. Faux Library had specialised in providing lightweight books that designers could use to fill a study. Modern Props, which had been a go-to for futuristic items, sh uttered awhile back. Mrs Elyea intends to keep the doors open as long as she can for herself, her husband, who has Parkinson's disease, and her staff. 'Neither Jim nor I are really ready to throw in the towel yet,' she said. Maybe, she added, they will sign a two-year lease, rather than a five-year one. And then they will see how it goes. One thought she is entertaining is that if the business were still viable, the couple may hand it over to the next generation that has learnt the trade – perhaps some of their long-time staff. But at this moment, it is a little unclear whether taking over the business would be a boon or a burden. But she knows one thing for sure. 'I don't want to be the last prop house in Los Angeles.' NYTIMES Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.