Roxy Theater
Encyclopedia
- For other people and places named Roxy, see RoxyRoxy-Brands:* Roxy , women's brand of clothing, accessories, and snowboards by Quiksilver company for surfing* The Roxy Theatre, music venue in Los Angeles & online source for music, arts, culture, and more.-Names:...
or Roxy TheatreRoxy TheatreThe Roxy Theatre is located in the historic downtown section of Clarksville, Tennessee in the United States. Standing on a corner of the Public Square it offers live theater shows to the public offering a wide variety of selection in the spirit of literary theater...
.
The Roxy Theatre was a 5,920 seat movie theater
Movie theater
A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....
located at 153 West 50th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, just off Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. It opened on March 11, 1927 with the silent film The Love of Sunya
The Love of Sunya
The Love of Sunya is a silent film directed by Albert Parker, and based on the play The Eyes of Youth by Max Marcin and Charles Guernon. Produced by and starring Gloria Swanson, it also stars John Boles and Pauline Garon. It premiered at the grand opening of the Roxy Theatre in New York City on...
, produced by and starring Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...
. The huge movie palace
Movie palace
A movie palace is a term used to refer to the large, elaborately decorated movie theaters built between the 1910s and the 1940s. The late 1920s saw the peak of the movie palace, with hundreds opened every year between 1925 and 1930.There are three building types in particular which can be subsumed...
was a leading Broadway film showcase through the 1950s and was also noted for its lavish stage shows. It closed and was demolished in 1960.
Early history
The Roxy Theatre was originally conceived by film producer Herbert Lubin in mid-1925 as the world's largest and finest motion picture palace. To realize his dream, he brought in the successful and innovative theater operator Samuel L. Rothafel, aka "Roxy"Samuel Roxy Rothafel
Samuel Lionel Rothafel, known as "Roxy" was an American theatrical impressario and entrepreneur. He is noted for developing the lavish presentation of silent films in the deluxe movie palace theaters of the 1910s and 1920s.-Biography:Born in Stillwater, Minnesota, Samuel L. Rothafel was a showman...
, to bring it to fruition, enticing him with a large salary, percentage of the profits, stock options and offering to name the theatre after him. It was intended to be the first of six planned Roxy Theatres in the New York area.
Roxy determined to make his theater the summit of his career and in it realize all of his theatrical design and production ideas. He worked with Chicago architect Walter W. Ahlschlager
Walter W. Ahlschlager
Walter W. Ahlschlager was a twentieth century American architect who had his offices in Chicago for many years. Later he established an office in Dallas, Texas...
and decorator Harold Rambusch of Rambusch Decorating Company
Rambusch Decorating Company
The Rambusch Decorating Company was founded in 1898 in New York, New York by Frode Rambusch, a Danish immigrant.In the 1920's, it was the decorator for many elaborate movie palaces, including the famed Roxy Theatre in New York City, which seated 6,214 and opened in March, 1927. That project was...
on every aspect of the theater's design and furnishings.
Roxy's lavish ideas and his many changes ran up costs dramatically. Shortly after the theater's opening, Lubin, who was $2.5 million over budget and near bankruptcy, sold his controlling interest a week before the theater opened to movie mogul and theater owner William Fox
William Fox (producer)
William Fox born Fried Vilmos was a pioneering Hungarian American motion picture executive who founded the Fox Film Corporation in 1915 and the Fox West Coast Theatres chain in the 1920s...
for $5 million. The final cost of the theater was $12 million. With Lubin's exit, Roxy's dreams of his own theater circuit also ended. Only one of the projected Roxy chain was built, the planned Roxy Midway Theatre on Broadway on the Upper West Side
Upper West Side
The Upper West Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River and between West 59th Street and West 125th Street...
of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, also designed by Ahlschlager. The nearly complete theater was sold to Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
who opened it as Warner's Beacon in 1929.
Design and innovation
Known as the "Cathedral of the Motion Picture," the Roxy's design by Ahlschlager featured a soaring golden, Spanish-inspired auditorium, and a lobby in the form of a large columned rotunda called the "Grand Foyer," which featured "the world's largest oval rug", manufactured by Mohawk Carpets in Amsterdam NY, plus its own pipe organ on the mezzanine. Off the rotunda was a long entrance lobby that led through the building of the adjacent Manger Hotel to the theater's main entrance at the corner of Seventh Ave. and W. 50th St. The hotel (later called the Taft Hotel) was built at the same time as the theater.Ahlschlager succeeded in creating an efficient plan for the Roxy's irregular plot of land, which utilized every bit of space by featuring a diagonal auditorium plan with the stage in one corner of the lot. The design maximized the auditorium's size and seating capacity
Seating capacity
Seating capacity refers to the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, both in terms of the physical space available, and in terms of limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats...
but compromised the function of its triangular stage. The Roxy's stage, while very wide, was not very deep and had limited space off stage.
Despite the stage limitations, the theater boasted lavish support facilities including two stories of private dressing rooms, three floors of chorus dressing rooms, huge rehearsal rooms, a costume department, staff dry-cleaning and laundry rooms, a barber shop and hairdresser, a completely equipped infirmary, dining room, and a menagerie for show animals. There were also myriad offices, a private screening room seating 100, and massive engine rooms for the electrical, ventilating and heating machinery. The Roxy's large staff enjoyed a cafeteria, gymnasium, billiard room, nap room, library and showers.
The theater's stage innovations included a rising orchestra pit which could accommodate an orchestra of 110 and a Kimball theater pipe organ with three consoles which could be played simultaneously. The film projection booth was recessed into the front of the balcony to prevent film distortion caused by the usual angled projection from the top rear wall of a theater. This enabled the Roxy to have the sharpest film image for its time.
Courteous service to the patron was a key part of the Roxy formula. The theater's uniformed corps of male ushers were known for their polite manner, efficiency and military bearing. They went through rigorous training, daily inspections and drill, overseen by a retired Marine officer. The ushers' crisp attire was immortalized by Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
in a verse of the song You're the Top
You're the Top
"You're The Top" is a Cole Porter song from the 1934 musical Anything Goes. It is about a man and a woman who take turns complimenting each other...
in 1932.
The Roxy presented major Hollywood films in programs that also included a 110-member symphony orchestra (the world's largest permanent orchestra at that time), a solo theater pipe organ, a male chorus, a ballet company and a famous line of female precision dancers, the "Roxyettes". Elaborate stage spectacles were created each week to accompany the feature film, all under the supervision of Rothafel.
The theater's orchestra and performers were also featured in an NBC Radio program with Roxy himself as host. The Roxy Hour, was broadcast live weekly from the theater's own radio studio. Thanks to Roxy's radio popularity, his theater was known to radio listeners nationwide.
The Roxy after "Roxy"
In spite of the theater's fame and success, the financial problems of its majority owner, the Fox Film Corporation, destabilized the Roxy's operations and it was often saddled with inferior films. In 1932, Rothafel left the theater named for him to open the new Radio City Music HallRadio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city...
and RKO Roxy theaters at Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th and 51st streets in New York City, United States. Built by the Rockefeller family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan, spanning the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. It was declared a National...
. Most of the Roxy's performers and artistic staff moved with him to the Music Hall, including producer Leon Leonidoff, choreographer Russell Markert, and conductor Erno Rapee
Erno Rapee
Ernö Rapée was one of the most prolific American symphonic conductors in the first half of the 20th Century...
. The Roxyettes went on to greater fame at the Music Hall, becoming the Rockettes, as they are still known today. (The RKO Roxy soon changed its name to the Center Theatre after the owners of the original Roxy sued Rockefeller Center for exclusive rights to the Roxy name.)
After Rothafel's departure, the Roxy Theatre never quite regained its former glory but remained a leading New York showcase for film and stage variety shows. In 1942, A. J. Balaban, co-founder of the Balaban & Katz theater chain, began nearly a decade as Executive Director of the Roxy. He came out of retirement to run the theater at the request of Spyros Skouras
Spyros Skouras
Spyros Panagiotis Skouras was an American motion picture pioneer and movie executive who was the president of the 20th Century Fox from 1942 to 1962...
, the head of the Roxy's parent company National Theatres, as well as 20th Century-Fox Studios. Balaban restored the theater to profitability with access to first-run Fox films, as well as the production and presentation of first-class live shows. Among his innovations were building an ice rink on the Roxy stage, and engaging many noted performers of the era, such as the Nicholas Brothers
Nicholas Brothers
The Nicholas Brothers were a famous African American team of dancing brothers, Fayard and Harold . With their highly acrobatic technique , high level of artistry and daring innovations, they were considered by many the greatest tap dancers of their day...
, Carmen Cavallaro
Carmen Cavallaro
Carmen Cavallaro was an American pianist. He established himself as one of the most accomplished and admired light music pianists of his generation.-Music career:...
, and The Harmonicats
The Harmonicats
Jerry Murad's Harmonicats were an American harmonica-based group. Originally they were named The Harmonica Madcaps and the group consisted of Jerry Murad , Bob Hadamik , Pete Pedersen , and Al Fiore, . They reformed later as a trio with Murad, Fiore, and bass harmonica player Don Les...
to appear on the Roxy stage. Even classical ballet dancers, such as Leonide Massine, performed there. Balaban invited the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
to the Roxy along with soprano Eileen Farrell
Eileen Farrell
Eileen Farrell was an American soprano who had a nearly 60 year long career performing both classical and popular music in concerts, theatres, on radio and television, and on disc. While she was active as an opera singer, her concert engagements far outnumbered her theatrical appearances...
for a two week engagement in September 1950. Appearing for the first time as the main attraction at a movie palace, the orchestra played an abbreviated concert program four times a day between showings of the feature film, The Black Rose
The Black Rose
The Black Rose is a 1950 20th Century-Fox film starring Tyrone Power and Orson Welles, loosely based on Thomas B. Costain's book. It was filmed partly on location in England and Morocco which substitutes for the Gobi Desert of China...
.
The Roxy's stage was rebuilt twice, in 1948 and 1952, to add the ice surface for skating shows. During the latter refurbishing the stage was extended out into the house over the orchestra pit and had colored neon embedded in the ice. Ice shows were presented, along with the feature film, on and off through the 1950s. In January 1956, skating star Sonja Henie
Sonja Henie
Sonja Henie was a Norwegian figure skater and film star. She was a three-time Olympic Champion in Ladies Singles, a ten-time World Champion and a six-time European Champion . Henie won more Olympic and World titles than any other ladies figure skater...
brought her revue to the Roxy in her final New York appearance.
Widescreen CinemaScope
CinemaScope
CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically...
was introduced at the Roxy with the world premiere in 1953 of 20th Century-Fox's film The Robe
The Robe (film)
The Robe is a 1953 American Biblical epic film that tells the story of a Roman military tribune who commands the unit that crucifies Jesus. The film was made by 20th Century Fox and is notable for being the first film released in the widescreen process CinemaScope.It was directed by Henry Koster...
. The Roxy had also introduced the original 70mm widescreen
Widescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
format "Fox Grandeur
70 mm Grandeur film
70 mm Grandeur film, also called Fox Grandeur, was a 70mm widescreen film format developed by the Fox Film Corporation and used commercially on a small scale in 1929-1931. It is technically very similar to the Todd-AO 70mm system, marketed from 1955 and still in limited use today...
" in 1930 with the premiere of Fox Films' Happy Days
Happy Days (1929 film)
Happy Days is an 80 minute musical film, notable for being the first feature film shown entirely in widescreen anywhere in the world. Happy Days (1929) is an 80 minute musical film, notable for being the first feature film shown entirely in widescreen anywhere in the world. Happy Days (1929) is an...
. Due to the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, however, the Roxy was one of only two theaters equipped for 70mm Grandeur and it never caught on (Grauman's Chinese was the other). Another widescreen format, the three-projector Cinemiracle
Cinemiracle
Cinemiracle was a widescreen cinema format competing with Cinerama developed in the 1950s. It was ultimately unsuccessful, with only a single film produced and released in the format. Like Cinerama it used 3 cameras to capture a 2.59:1 image. Cinemiracle used two mirrors to give the left and right...
debuted at the Roxy as well on a curved 110-foot screen with the 1958 film Windjammer.
One of the last big combined shows was in 1959 with feature film This Earth Is Mine
This Earth Is Mine
This Earth Is Mine is a 1959 drama film directed by Henry King and starring Rock Hudson and Jean Simmons. The film portrays the lives and loves of the Rambeau family, a California winemaking dynasty trying to survive during Prohibition in the United States.-Summary:Elizabeth , an English cousin of...
starring Rock Hudson
Rock Hudson
Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
and Jean Simmons
Jean Simmons
Jean Merilyn Simmons, OBE was an English actress. She appeared predominantly in motion pictures, beginning with films made in Great Britain during and after World War II – she was one of J...
, followed by The Big Circus
The Big Circus
The Big Circus is a 1959 film starring Victor Mature as a circus owner struggling with financial trouble and a murderous unknown saboteur.-Cast:*Victor Mature as Henry Jasper 'Hank' Whirling*Red Buttons as Randy Sherman*Rhonda Fleming as Helen Harrison...
starring Victor Mature
Victor Mature
Victor John Mature was an American stage, film and television actor.-Early life:Mature was born in Louisville, Kentucky to an Italian-speaking father from the town Pinzolo, in the Italian part of the former County of Tyrol , Marcello Gelindo Maturi, later Marcellus George Mature, a cutler,...
. On the Roxy stage were Gretchen Wyler
Gretchen Wyler
Gretchen Wyler was an American actress and founder of the Genesis Awards for animal protection.-Early life:...
, The Blackburn Twins, Jerry Collins, and The Roxy Orchestra. The managing director since 1955 was Robert C. Rothafel, son of the original Roxy. By this time the Roxy's appearance was altered considerably from its golden 1920s design. Part of the proscenium and side walls had been removed to accommodate the huge Cinemiracle screen and much of the rest of the auditorium was covered in heavy drapes. The big orchestra pit was mostly covered by the stage extension with the organ consoles removed. The elegant lobby areas, however, remained largely intact.
Closing
The Roxy closed on March 29, 1960 after having been acquired by Rockefeller CenterRockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th and 51st streets in New York City, United States. Built by the Rockefeller family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan, spanning the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. It was declared a National...
in 1956, and then sold to developer William Zeckendorf
William Zeckendorf
William Zeckendorf, Sr. was a prominent American real estate developer. Through his development company Webb and Knapp – for which he began working in 1938 and which he purchased in 1949 – he developed a significant portion of the New York City urban landscape.-Career:Zeckendorf's...
. Initially purchased to obtain air rights
Air rights
Air rights are a type of development right in real estate, referring to the empty space above a property. Generally speaking, owning or renting land or a building gives one the right to use and develop the air rights....
for the Time-Life Building
Time-Life Building
The Time-Life Building, located at 1271 Avenue of the Americas in Rockefeller Center in New York opened in 1959 and was designed by the Rockefeller family's architect Wallace Harrison, of Harrison, Abramovitz, and Harris.The Time & Life Building was the first of four buildings in Rockefeller...
, built to its east, it was finally demolished by Zeckendorf to expand the Taft Hotel and for an office building that is now connected to Time-Life. Gloria Swanson was photographed on October 14, 1960 for Life Magazine by photographer Eliot Elisofon in the midst of the ruins during the theater's demolition (see "External links" below).
Legacy
The spectacular stage and screen programming ideas of the Roxy's founder continued at Radio City Music Hall into the 1970s. Radio City's lavish Christmas stage show, created in 1933 by the Roxy's former producer and choreographer, Leon Leonidoff and Russell Markert, continues to this day as the Radio City Christmas SpectacularRadio City Christmas Spectacular
The Radio City Christmas Spectacular is an annual musical holiday stage show presented at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The show features over 140 performers, lavish sets and costumes and an original musical score. The 90 minute revue combines singing, dancing and humor with traditional...
. The Music Hall itself was saved from demolition by a consortium of preservation and commercial interests in 1979 and it remains one of New York's entertainment landmarks. Its restored interior includes the lavish art deco offices created for "Roxy" Rothafel, preserved partly as a tribute to the visionary showman.
Sources
- L'Estrange Fawcett: Die Welt des Films. Amalthea Verlag, Zurich, Leipzig, Vienna 1928, p. 42 (German-speaking version, translated from English to German from C. Zell, with additions from S. Walter Fischer)
External links
History and commentary- Roxy Theatre Cinema Treasures.com
- Commentary and photos of Roxy auditorium in 1927. Pictureshowman.com.
- Requiem for the Roxy American Theatre Organ Society website, via Internet Archives
Painting and photos
- Artist's rendering of the interior of the Roxy Theatre Historical Society of America. Elmhurst, Illinois.
- Roxy entrance 1927 Vitaphone Varieties.
- Roxy Rotunda Rug, Photo 1, Photo 2
- Roxy exterior and marquee photos Theatre Historical Society of America, Joe Coco Collection.
- Roxy Lobby. LIFE Magazine 1943.
- The New York Philharmonic onstage at the Roxy. LIFE Magazine 1950.
- Gloria Swanson in the ruins of the Roxy rotunda. LIFE Magazine 1960.
