 | |
  Kings Cross Theatre Location in central Sydney | |
| Address | Victoria and Darlinghurst Road |
|---|---|
| Location | Sydney |
| Coordinates | 33°52′28″S151°13′21″E / 33.8744°S 151.2225°E Coordinates: 33°52′28″S151°13′21″E / 33.8744°S 151.2225°E |
| Owner | Waddingtons |
| Type | Movie theatre |
| Opened | 14 April 1916 |
| Closed | 1966 |
The Kings Cross Theatre was located at the corner of Darlinghurst Road and Victoria Street, Sydney, between 1916 and 1966.
The Kings Cross Theatre and opened on Friday 14 April 1916. [1] The Theatre was managed by Waddigton's and boasted 2000 seats, a new ventilation system and beautifully decorated stage. [2] [3] The Secret Orchard starring Blanche Sweet was chosen for the opening night and within a few weeks its nightly showings became a popular venue for Sydneysiders. [4]
In August 1928 the theatre was renovated to increase its seating capacity and install a Wurlitzer orchestral organ. The total amount for the alterations and additions to the theatre was £15.000. [5] The addition of the Grand Wurlitzer was of some importance at the time as Waddington's engaged Joseph Wayne from America to play the organ augmented with an orchestra. [6] The theatre underwent further renovations in 1935 to extend the seating and redecorate the interior. [7]
In 1963 the theatre was closed and the Proclamation published in the Government Gazette of 20 April 1916 was revoked. [8] Between 1963 and 1966 the site was occupied by John Harrigan's Surf City. The building was demolished in 1966 and replaced by the Crest Hotel. [9]
Not far on same side along Darlighurst Road to the north was the Kings Cross News Reel. Contrary to its name, in the 1950s this 298-seat upstairs joint, managed by K F E Cook, showed feature films of the vintage variety.
Wilson Barrett was an English manager, actor, and playwright. With his company, Barrett is credited with attracting the largest crowds of English theatregoers ever because of his success with melodrama, an instance being his production of The Silver King (1882) at the Princess's Theatre of London. The historical tragedy The Sign of the Cross (1895) was Barrett's most successful play, both in England and in the United States.
Darlinghurst is an inner-city, eastern suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Darlinghurst is located immediately east of the Sydney central business district (CBD) and Hyde Park, within the local government area of the City of Sydney. It is often colloquially referred to as "Darlo".
Kings Cross is an inner-city locality of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately 2 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Sydney. It is bounded by the suburbs of Potts Point, Elizabeth Bay, Rushcutters Bay and Darlinghurst.
SCEGGS Darlinghurst is an independent Anglican single-sex primary and secondary day and boarding school for girls, located in Darlinghurst, an inner-city, eastern suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
The City of Bankstown was a local government area in the south-west region of Sydney, Australia, centred on the suburb of Bankstown, from 1895 to 2016. The last Mayor of the City of Bankstown Council was Clr Khal Asfour, a member of the Labor Party.
Ronald Grant Taylor was an English-Australian actor best known as the abrasive General Henderson in the Gerry Anderson science fiction series UFO and for his lead role in Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940).
William Street is a 1.4-kilometre-long (0.87 mi) major thoroughfare in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Australian non-residential architectural styles are a set of Australian architectural styles that apply to buildings used for purposes other than residence and have been around only since the first colonial government buildings of early European settlement of Australia in 1788.
Sydney-Bligh was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales, in central Sydney, created in 1894, with the abolition of the multi-member district of East Sydney and named after naval officer and colonial administrator William Bligh. It was in the Darlinghurst area, bounded by Riley Street, William Street, King's Cross Road, Bayswater Road, Neild Avenue, Boundary Street and Oxford Street. It was abolished in 1904 and partly replaced by the electoral district of Darlinghurst.
Arthur Dignam was an Australian stage and screen actor.
Raymond Longford was a prolific Australian film director, writer, producer and actor during the silent era. Longford was a major director of the silent film era of the Australian cinema. He formed a production team with Lottie Lyell. His contributions to Australian cinema with his ongoing collaborations with Lyell, including The Sentimental Bloke (1919) and The Blue Mountains Mystery (1921), prompted the Australian Film Institute's AFI Raymond Longford Award, inaugurated in 1968, to be named in his honour.
Albert Edward Bailey, better known as Bert Bailey, was a New Zealand-born Australian playwright, theatrical manager and stage and screen actor best known for playing Dad Rudd, in both mediums, the character from the books penned by Steele Rudd.
Edmund Duggan was an Irish-born actor and playwright who worked in Australia. He is best known for writing a number of plays with Bert Bailey including The Squatter's Daughter (1907) and On Our Selection (1912). His solo career was less successful than Bailey's. His sister Eugenie was known as "The Queen of Melodrama" and married noted theatre producer William Anderson, for whom Duggan frequently worked as an actor, writer and stage manager.
Alfred Rolfe, real name Alfred Roker, was an Australian stage and film director and actor, best known for being the son-in-law of the celebrated actor-manager Alfred Dampier, with whom he appeared frequently on stage, and for his prolific output as a director during Australia's silent era, including Captain Midnight, the Bush King (1911), Captain Starlight, or Gentleman of the Road (1911) and The Hero of the Dardanelles (1915). Only one of his films as director survives today.
Eugenie Marian Duggan was a popular Australian stage actress. She was the sister of the actors Edmund, P.J. and Kathleen Duggan. She began studying acting, won a number of elocution competitions and made her professional debut in 1890 in Romeo and Juliet.
Peter MacGregor Pagan was an Australian-American actor from Sydney best known for his role in The Overlanders (1946).
Carl Henry Kaeppel MC BA, generally referred to as Carl Kaeppel, was an Australian scholar of Classical languages and geography.
Olga Agnew was an Australian child actress, who starred in multiple plays and one movie from 1912 to 1920.
Lady Blanche Maud de la Poer Beresford Girouard was an Irish journalist and writer. She was the eldest child of the 6th Marquess of Waterford.
Charles Henry Hoskins (1851-1926) was an Australian industrialist, who was significant in the development of the iron and steel industry in Australia.