Retirement hasn’t hastened the creative juices of the residents at the Motion Picture Country Home. According to a recent story in Topic, on any given day, there are staged readings, studio gossip and even the operation of an in-house television channel. For the former actors, creatives and technicians who call this place home, the show does indeed go on.
Founded in 1921, The Motion Picture & Television Fund (MPTF) is a nonprofit public-benefit corporation founded in 1921 to provide a safety net for workers in the entertainment industry. One of the primary goals is to ensure the continued support of a retirement community created specifically for former employees of the industry, along with their spouses and partners.
“Located on MPTF’s 23-acre Wasserman Campus in Woodland Hills, the community currently accommodates around 230 residents ages 70 and up, and it has a unit for individuals with Alzheimer’s and dementia and a 40-bed long-term care facility,” shares Topic.
“The campus is both bucolic and state-of-the-art, featuring rows of cottages shaded from San Fernando Valley sun by tall trees, a network of walking paths connecting the living quarters to a health-and-wellness center, a greenhouse, and, of course, a movie theater—a 200-seat venue that plays first-run films, often introduced by their principal actors. If the facilities (excepting that movie theater) might seem typical of a high-end retirement community—though you’d be hard-pressed to find many as well outfitted as this one—the names of the buildings are not: the Jodie Foster Aquatic Pavilion, the Louis B. Mayer Theater, the John Ford Chapel. It is, unmistakably, a place with a legacy, an environment dedicated to the art form that its residents once practiced.”
Read more about this unique retirement home for one of the Golden State’s most revered industries here.
