Elstree Studios: 100 Years in the Making

Like any good Jewish institution, the household name that is Elstree Studios has made sure to mark its big anniversary in style — by stretching its centenary celebrations over three years.

As Councillor Morris Bright MBE explained, it’s legitimate. “The land for Elstree was bought in 1925. The studios and stages were built in 1926. And the first films came out in 1927. So we’ve been able to celebrate each of these landmark occasions in 2025, 2026, and we have plans in place for 2027.”

Over the past 100 years — with a short break during the Second World War, when Elstree was requisitioned by the Royal Army Ordnance Corps to serve as a military supply depot and secret workshop space for the British war effort — the studios have become synonymous with internationally successful feature films, as well as today’s home of the BBC’s East Enders and Strictly Come Dancing.

There is simply nothing like Elstree anywhere in the world, which is perhaps why it comes as a slight surprise that there is not already a “Hollywood sign” welcoming visitors to the suburb, on the outskirts of north-west London. In fact, plans are in place to erect just such a sign over the A1.

But unlike the Hollywood sign, the Elstree banner will not be an unmoveable fixture. Instead, its coloured lights will spell out different messages according to the season— watch out for a Chanukah theme at the end of this year.

Bright, a board director at Elstree Studios and a film historian, is, together with Elstree’s official historian Howard Berry, a reader in film heritage at Hertfordshire University, a font of (nearly  all) knowledge about Elstree. Most of us know that it was an early home for the great director Alfred Hitchcock, before he went to America, and that big names such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Stanley Kubrick flocked from America to Elstree for a unique British experience.

Among the biggest films developed or fully filmed at Elstree were, of course, the original Indiana Jones trilogy and the Star Wars films. Between 1981 and 1989, for Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Elstree’s production team built extensive indoor sets, water tanks, and sound stages.

But Bright and Berry have more to share — not least the Jewish creatives who worked at the studios, a combination of home-grown talent and refugees who had fled Nazi Europe, to deploy their skills in leafy Hertfordshire.

Elstree has been through a number of changes of owners in its 100 years — not least the Israeli cousins Menachem Golan and Yoram Globus, who, operating as Cannon Films, briefly ran the studios in the mid-1980s while Superman IV was filmed, Christopher Reeve’s last outing as the Man of Steel.

Today, however, Elstree Studios is owned by Hertsmere Council — almost certainly the only such pairing in the world. The ownership, says Bright, enables the council to develop both civic pride, and help with the economic regeneration of the area.

The Elstree team are now working with the council on the Elstree Immersive Experience, where visitors can learn how films have been made at the studios, from Britain’s first talking picture in 1927 — Hitchcock’s Blackmail — to present-day film and TV work.

Central to that history was Joseph Grossman, studio manager from 1927 to 1949. He oversaw the production of hundreds of films, from Blackmail itself to major films such as The Man Who Knew Too Much and The Private Life of Henry VIII.

Grossman, say Bright and Berry, was “one of the most respected and influential figures in British filmmaking”. Dartford-born Joe and his identical twin, William, were the sons of Myer Grossman and Rosa Morris, from a German-Polish Jewish background. William, with whom Joe performed as a child double act with magicians and illusionists, reportedly died after attempting to recreate Houdini’s famous chained water tank escape.

Working alongside Grossman were one-time refugees such as German-born scenarios editor Frederick Gotfurt, and Mutz Greenbaum, who changed his name to Max Greene and worked as a cinematographer at Elstree, described as a man who “transformed the visual language of British cinema”.

Greene worked on productions across British studios including The Thief of Bagdad, The Stars Look Down and The Importance of Being Earnest, and Bright and Berry say this “demonstrated how refugee talent enriched British filmmaking with technical innovation, artistry and international experience”.

Another former refugee who became a key creative at Elstree, was a Vienna-born contemporary of Some Like It Hot director Billy Wilder, producer Victor Skutezky. His films included Woman in a Dressing Gown, The Bespoke Overcoat and The Mudlark.

With film must go music, and one of the most renowned composers was Elstree’s musical director, Louis Levy, said to have defined the sound of British cinema during Elstree’s golden age. He supervised scores for big-name productions, including Hitchcock’s Blackmail, The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes.

Other creatives included director Paul L Stein, Vienna-born and admired for “continental sophistication” in the 1930s, and Cyril Frankel, who worked on seminal TV shows such as Department S and Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased).

Few entrepreneurs shaped the modern history of Elstree more than legendary Ukrainian-born media tycoon Lew Grade, who turned the studios into a powerhouse of British TV, notably by persuading Jim Henson to make The Muppet Show there as American networks had shown little enthusiasm.

In 1976, he became Baron Grade of  — where else? — Elstree, the most fitting of titles for the man who did so much to keep Elstree Studios alive and thriving.

It’s not just Jewish men who have helped to shape Elstree. Bright and Berry point to actresses such as Carrie Fisher, who, during the first three Star Wars films made at Elstree, endured months of sweat and gruelling wire-stunts inside the stifling hangar bays of Stage 8 and 9, using her biting wit to command absolute respect in a notorious “boys’ club”.

Decades later, Natalie Portman used the quiet, claustrophobic intensity of the Elstree stages to construct her raw, breathtaking performance in Closer.

In 1983 Barbra Streisand took total command as writer, director, producer, and star of Yentl, and used the sound stages of Elstree for intensive musical rehearsals.

Jane Goldman, one of the UK’s most commercially successful screenwriters, set up her entire creative headquarters directly on the Elstree lot for her superhero smash Kick-Ass.

Bright concludes: “To thrive in its next century, the studio must actively tap into the extraordinarily large, deep skills pond of Jewish creative talent — both male and female — that continues to flourish across the British entertainment industry today. By welcoming the next generation of Jewish writers, directors, and visionaries onto these historic stages, Elstree will ensure its future remains just as revolutionary as its past”.