The Carthay Circle Theatre was one of the most famous movie palaces of Hollywood's Golden Age. Located on San Vicente Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, it opened in 1926 and was demolished in 1969.
The auditorium itself was shaped in the form of a perfect circle, extended vertically into a cylinder, set inside a square that fleshed out the remainder of the building. It seated 1,150. Initially developed by Fox, it was called the Fox Carthay Circle Theater for its unique floorplan.
The Carthay Circle Theater opened at 6316 San Vicente Boulevard on May 18, 1926, with a showing of The Volga Boatman (1926), [1] and was considered developer J. Harvey McCarthy's most successful monument, a stroke of shrewd thinking that made a famous name of the newly developed Carthay Center neighborhood [2] [3] in Los Angeles, California. [4] (McCarthy's development was called Carthay Center—an anglicized version of his last name.) The Carthay Circle Theater became the focal point of Carthay Center, and Carthay Circle became the neighborhood's official name. [5]
The exterior design was in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, with whitewashed concrete trimmed in blue, with a high bell tower and neon sign visible for miles. [4] The architects were Carleton Winslow and Dwight Gibbs. [6] The iconic octagonal tower was placed in the front corner spandrel space left between the circle and the square. The auditorium's cylinder-shaped wall was raised up above the roof line, to create a parapet visible from the outside that resembled a circus tent. "Simple, massive and dignified, the building stands out for its intrinsic beauty," raved The Architect and Engineer. Pacific Coast Architect wrote that it was a theatre "masked as a cathedral". [4]
There was a drop curtain that featured an homage to the pioneer Donner Party that perished crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Bronze busts of Native American leaders and photographs of Edwin Booth, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Sarah Bernhardt, Eleanora Duse, Ellen Terry, Lillie Langtry, and other 19th century actors adorned the lounges and lobbies. Murals of historic scenes 40 feet tall graced the walls, painted by Pasadena artist Alson S. Clark. [4]
The theatre hosted the official premieres of The Life of Emile Zola (1937), Romeo and Juliet (1936), [7] Walt Disney's first animated feature length film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) [8] and Gone with the Wind (1939), among many other notable films. For Disney's Fantasia (1940), the most elaborate audio system in use at the time, Fantasound, a pioneering stereophonic process, was installed at this theatre. [4]
For the glamorous world premiere of MGM's Marie Antoinette (1938), with Norma Shearer and Tyrone Power, the gardens around the theater were restructured and enhanced to resemble the landscaping of the Palace of Versailles. In the 1930s and '40s, props from the sets of such premiered films as The Great Ziegfeld (1936), The Good Earth (1937), Captains Courageous (1937) and Gone with the Wind (1939) were displayed on the grassy median of McCarthy Vista, from Wilshire Boulevard south to San Vicente Boulevard. The premieres were red-carpet events, with the stars of the motion picture arriving in limousines at the entrance to the covered walkway to the theater south from San Vicente and cheered by hundreds of fans in bleachers there, accompanied by searchlights scanning the sky. Only Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood also had such elaborate premieres in that era.
In 1951 the first PATSY Award ceremony was held at the Carthay Circle. Presented by the American Humane Association, the event was hosted by Ronald Reagan, and honored Francis the Talking Mule as the first recipient of the award that honored animal actors.
Although the Carthay Circle Theater had hosted the first-run "roadshow", reserved-seat engagements of a great many aesthetically- and economically-important films, by the 1960s the "roadshow" concept, and, indeed, the Carthay Circle Theater itself, was considered an anachronism, overshadowed by modern multi-screen cinemas.
Its customer base had also been sapped by suburbanization, and many other economic factors, as film print runs increased almost exponentially from a few, high-quality, high-resolution prints (often "wide gauge"), to literally thousands, or even several thousands of average-quality, lower-resolution prints (usually "standard gauge").
The theater was demolished in 1969 by its owner, NAFI Corporation, which erected its headquarters and main computer operations center in its place; today, two low-rise office buildings and a city park occupy its former site.
In July 1994, a smaller-scale pastiche of the facade of the theatre (primarily the octagonal tower) was opened as the "Once Upon a Time" gift shop on the Sunset Boulevard section in Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. The store now sells clothing items for men and women. [9]
In June 2012, a fanciful larger-scale replica of the theater building was opened in the Buena Vista Street section of Disney California Adventure Park at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. Although this replica is larger than the Orlando version, it is still slightly smaller than the 1926 original, and has a modified exterior footprint and interior floorplan. While there is no actual theatre inside, the building houses the "Carthay Circle Lounge" and the members-only "Club 1901" on the first floor, with the "Carthay Circle Restaurant" on the second floor. [10] The original's signature circular floorplan is absent from the replica building, and the circular parapet is squared off from the outside.
Fairfax Avenue is a street in the north central area of the city of Los Angeles, California, United States. It runs from La Cienega Boulevard in Culver City at its southern end to Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood on its northern end. From La Cienega Boulevard to Sunset Boulevard, it separates the Westside from the central part of the city along with Venice Boulevard, La Cienega Boulevard, Hauser Boulevard, San Vicente Boulevard, South Cochran Avenue, Wilshire Boulevard, 6th Street, Cochran Avenue, 4th Street, La Brea Avenue, Fountain Avenue and Sunset Boulevard.
Brown Derby was a chain of restaurants in Los Angeles, California. The first and best known was shaped like a derby hat, an iconic image that became synonymous with the Golden Age of Hollywood. It was opened by Wilson Mizner in 1926. The chain was started by Robert H. Cobb and Herbert K. Somborn in the 1920s. The original Brown Derby restaurants had closed or had been converted to other uses by the 1980s, though a Disney-backed Brown Derby national franchising program revived the brand in the 21st century. It is often incorrectly thought that the Brown Derby was a single restaurant, and the Wilshire Boulevard and Hollywood branches are frequently confused.
TCL's Chinese Theatre is a movie palace on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States.
Carthay is a half-square-mile neighborhood in Central Los Angeles, California. It contains Carthay Circle, Carthay Square and South Carthay. There are three Los Angeles Historic Preservation Overlay Zones in Carthay.
El Capitan Theatre is a fully restored movie palace at 6838 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, United States. The theater and adjacent Hollywood Masonic Temple is owned by The Walt Disney Company and serves as the venue for a majority of the Walt Disney Studios' film premieres.
Carthay Circle is a neighborhood in the Mid-City West region of Central Los Angeles, California. Originally named Carthay Center, the neighborhood was later renamed after the famed Carthay Circle Theatre.
Wilshire Boulevard (['wɪɫ.ʃɚ]) is a prominent 15.83 mi (25.48 km) boulevard in the Los Angeles area of Southern California, extending from Ocean Avenue in the city of Santa Monica east to Grand Avenue in the Financial District of downtown Los Angeles. One of the principal east–west arterial roads of Los Angeles, it is also one of the major city streets through the city of Beverly Hills. Wilshire Boulevard runs roughly parallel to Santa Monica Boulevard from Santa Monica to the west boundary of Beverly Hills. From the east boundary, it runs a block south of Sixth Street to its terminus.
The Saban Theatre is a historic theatre in Beverly Hills, California, formerly known as the Fox Wilshire Theater. It is an Art Deco structure at the southeast corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Hamilton Drive designed by architect S. Charles Lee and is considered a classic Los Angeles landmark. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 3, 2012.
Mid-Wilshire is a neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. It is known for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Petersen Automotive Museum, and the Miracle Mile shopping district.
Stiles Oliver Clements was an architect practicing in Los Angeles and Southern California.
Mid-City West is an area in the western part of Central Los Angeles that is served by the Mid City West Neighborhood Council. It contains the neighborhoods of Beverly–Fairfax, Beverly Grove, Burton Way, Carthay Circle, Melrose, Miracle Mile and Park La Brea.
Hollywood Land is a themed land at Disney California Adventure park at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. The area is inspired by the 1930s Golden Age period of Hollywood and hosts attractions themed to this concept, including a backlot of a typical Hollywood studio. The land opened as Hollywood Pictures Backlot with the park in 2001.
The Ebell of Los Angeles is a women-led and women-centered nonprofit housed in an historic campus in the Mid-Wilshire section of Los Angeles, California. It includes numerous performance spaces, meeting rooms, classrooms and the 1,238-seat Wilshire Ebell Theatre. The Ebell works to uplift the Los Angeles community through arts, learning and service.
Buena Vista Street is a themed "land" at Disney California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort. Though named for the real-life Burbank thoroughfare that the Walt Disney Studios sits on, the central plaza represents Los Angeles, and specifically the Los Feliz area, in the 1920s when Walt Disney first arrived there. One of the main features is a small-scale replica of the Hyperion Bridge, which was being constructed when Disney stayed in Atwater Village. The replica functions as a working bridge for the resort's monorail system.
The Wadsworth Theatre, a historic live theater, is located in the Sawtelle community of West Los Angeles, California, within the 388-acre West Los Angeles Department of Veterans Affairs complex. Situated on Eisenhower Avenue in Building 226, the theater is part of the historic Sawtelle Veterans Home, nestled between Wilshire Boulevard and San Vicente Boulevard on the east side of Brentwood.
The Red Car Trolley is a 3 ft 3+3⁄8 inmeter gauge tramway and transportation attraction at Disney California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. Construction began on January 4, 2010, and the attraction opened on June 15, 2012, as part of the re-dedication of the park. The attraction features cars inspired by the Pacific Electric Railway's "Red Cars" that once traversed much of Southern California, and provides transportation between the park's main entry at Buena Vista Street and Sunset Boulevard near Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout! in Hollywood Land.
Samuel Tilden Norton, or S. Tilden Norton as he was known professionally, was a Los Angeles–based architect active in the first decades of the 20th century. During his professional career he was associated with the firm of Norton & Wallis, responsible for the design of many Los Angeles landmarks.
Beverly Grove is an area within the Beverly–Fairfax neighborhood in the Mid-City West region of Los Angeles, California.
The Hayworth Theatre is a theater and performing arts venue at 2511 Wilshire Boulevard located in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.
The beautiful princess, Snow White, her prince charming, the gruff queen and even the seven dwarfs have learned to speak Spanish, in a way. This is taking place every Sunday afternoon—5 o'clock to be exact—at the Carathay Circle Theatre....
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
