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Orpheum Theatre (Los Angeles)

 

 
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Orpheum Theatre (Los Angeles)
 
 
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The Orpheum Theatre on Broadway
Broadway (Los Angeles)

Broadway is a major thoroughfare in Downtown Los Angeles, California. It starts off at Mission Road in the Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles, California neighborhood and heads due west ....
 in downtown Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles is the largest city in the U.S. state of California and the List of United States cities by population in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, Los Angeles is rated as a beta global city, has an estimated population of 3.8 million and spans over in Southern California....
, opened on February 15, 1926 as the fourth and final Los Angeles venue for the Orpheum
Orpheum Circuit, Inc.

Orpheum Circuit, Inc. was a company started by Martin Beck who owned a series of vaudeville theatres and motion picture theatres.Orpheum Circuit, Inc....
 vaudeville
Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a genre of a variety show prevalent on the theatre in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. It developed from many sources, including the concert saloon, minstrel show, freak shows, dime museums, and literary burlesque....
 circuit. After a $3 million renovation, started in 1989, it is the most restored of the historical movie palace
Movie palace

A movie palace or picture palace is a term used to refer to the grand cinemas of the 1910s to early 1960s.There are three building types in particular which can be subsumed under the label movie palace....
s in the city.

The Orpheum has a Beaux Arts
Beaux arts

Beaux Arts, Beaux arts, or Beaux-Arts may refer to:* Beaux-Arts architecture, an architectural style**see also...
 facade designed by movie theater architect G. Albert Lansburgh
G. Albert Lansburgh

Gustave Albert Lansburgh was born in Panama and raised largely in San Francisco, California. After graduating from that city's Boys High School in 1894, Lansburgh enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley....
 and has a Mighty Wurlitzer
Wurlitzer

The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to simply as Wurlitzer, is an American company, formerly a producer of stringed instruments, woodwind, brass instruments, theatre organs, fairground organ, orchestrions, electronic organs, Wurlitzer electric piano and jukeboxes....
 organ, installed in 1928, one of three pipe organs remaining in Southern California venues.






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The Orpheum Theatre on Broadway
Broadway (Los Angeles)

Broadway is a major thoroughfare in Downtown Los Angeles, California. It starts off at Mission Road in the Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles, California neighborhood and heads due west ....
 in downtown Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles is the largest city in the U.S. state of California and the List of United States cities by population in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, Los Angeles is rated as a beta global city, has an estimated population of 3.8 million and spans over in Southern California....
, opened on February 15, 1926 as the fourth and final Los Angeles venue for the Orpheum
Orpheum Circuit, Inc.

Orpheum Circuit, Inc. was a company started by Martin Beck who owned a series of vaudeville theatres and motion picture theatres.Orpheum Circuit, Inc....
 vaudeville
Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a genre of a variety show prevalent on the theatre in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. It developed from many sources, including the concert saloon, minstrel show, freak shows, dime museums, and literary burlesque....
 circuit. After a $3 million renovation, started in 1989, it is the most restored of the historical movie palace
Movie palace

A movie palace or picture palace is a term used to refer to the grand cinemas of the 1910s to early 1960s.There are three building types in particular which can be subsumed under the label movie palace....
s in the city.

The Orpheum has a Beaux Arts
Beaux arts

Beaux Arts, Beaux arts, or Beaux-Arts may refer to:* Beaux-Arts architecture, an architectural style**see also...
 facade designed by movie theater architect G. Albert Lansburgh
G. Albert Lansburgh

Gustave Albert Lansburgh was born in Panama and raised largely in San Francisco, California. After graduating from that city's Boys High School in 1894, Lansburgh enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley....
 and has a Mighty Wurlitzer
Wurlitzer

The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to simply as Wurlitzer, is an American company, formerly a producer of stringed instruments, woodwind, brass instruments, theatre organs, fairground organ, orchestrions, electronic organs, Wurlitzer electric piano and jukeboxes....
 organ, installed in 1928, one of three pipe organs remaining in Southern California venues.

Soon after it was opened, it was a popular venue for burlesque queen Sally Rand
Sally Rand

Sally Rand was born Harriet Helen Gould Beck in Hickory County, Missouri. She also performed under the name Billie Beck. She was a erotic dancer and actor, most noted for her ostrich feather fan dance and balloon bubble dance....
, the Marx Brothers
Marx Brothers

The Marx Brothers were a popular team of sibling comedians who appeared in vaudeville, stage plays, film, and television....
, Will Rogers
Will Rogers

William Penn Adair ?Will? Rogers was a Cherokee-United States cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentary, vaudeville performer and actor. He was the father of U.S....
, Judy Garland
Judy Garland

Judy Garland was an American actress and alto singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years, Garland attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage....
 (singing with her family as Francis "Baby" Gumm) and comedian Jack Benny
Jack Benny

Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudeville, and actor for radio programming, television, and film.Widely recognized as one of the leading American entertainers of the 20th century, Benny was known for his comic timing and his ability to get laughs with either a pregnant pause or a single expression, such as his signature exasperated "...
, as well as jazz greats Lena Horne
Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne is an American singer and actress. She has recorded and performed extensively, independently and with other jazz notables, including Artie Shaw, Teddy Wilson, Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington, Charlie Barnet, Benny Carter, and Billy Eckstine....
, Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as "Jazz royalty" and the "First Lady of Song", is considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century....
 and Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and bandleader.Duke Ellington was recognized during his life as one of the most influential Jazz royalty, if not in all American music and he is of only four jazz musicians ever to have been featured on the cover of Time magazine ....
. In the 1960s the theatre held rock and roll concerts featuring Little Richard
Little Richard

Rev. Richard Wayne Penniman , better known by the stage name Little Richard, is anAmerican singer, songwriter and pianist. He is considered a key figure in the transition from Rhythm and blues to Rock and roll in the 1950s....
, Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin

Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter and pianist commonly referred to as "The Queen of Soul". Although renowned for her soul recordings, Franklin is also adept at jazz, rock and roll, blues, Pop music, Rhythm and Blues and Gospel music....
 and Little Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. A prominent figure in popular music during the latter half of the 20th century, Wonder has recorded more than thirty US top ten hits, won twenty-two Grammy Awards , plus one for Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, won an Academy Award for Best Song, an...
. The restored Orpheum Theatre is now a venue for live concerts, movie premieres and location shoots. Broadcasts of American Idol
American Idol

American Idol is an Television in the United States Singing airing on Fox network. It debuted on June 11, 2002, and has since become one of the most popular shows on American television....
 and filming of The Last Action Hero and Transformers were hosted here. The Orpheum also appeared as a arena in the 2007 Alvin and the Chipmunks movie
Alvin and the Chipmunks (film)

Alvin and the Chipmunks is a 2007 in film United States live-action/computer-generated imagery Christmas film-comedy film starring Jason Lee , David Cross, Cameron Richardson, Jane Lynch and the voices of Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler and Jesse McCartney....
. In the 2007–2008 film In Search of a Midnight Kiss
In Search of a Midnight Kiss

In Search of a Midnight Kiss is an award-winning, American, independent, romantic comedy written and directed by Alex Holdridge. It is listed on the National Board of Review's Top 10 Independent Films of 2008, won the Independent Spirit's John Cassavetes Award in 2009 as well as having earned awards at festivals around the world....
, Wilson (Scoot McNairy) and Vivian (Sara Simmonds) do a quick tour of the Orpheum on their "first date." The love metal band HIM played there for their CD/DVD live album Digital Versatile Doom
Digital Versatile Doom

Digital Versatile Doom is HIM 's first commercially released live album and live DVD, as opposed to the bootlegged Live and Undercover which was not official....
.

The Orpheum theatres are named for the Greek god Orpheus
Orpheus

Orpheus was a legendary figure, probably from Thracian origin, venerated by the Greeks and Thracians of the Classical age as a chief among poets and musicians, and the perfector of the lyre invented by Hermes....
.

See also

  • Broadway Theater and Commercial District
    Broadway Theater and Commercial District

    Broadway Theater and Commercial District in Downtown Los Angeles is the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places....


External links