Orpheum Theatre
203 S. Main Street,
Memphis,
TN
38103
203 S. Main Street,
Memphis,
TN
38103
10 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 36 comments
June 2021 article:
The Orpheum theatre history 06 Jun 2021, Sun The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tennessee) Newspapers.com
September 13th, 1976, for sale ad posted.
Closed as Malco in 1976.
Reopened as Malco on April 19th, 1940. Grand opening ads posted.
Grand opening ad posted
Here is a Historic Film Row link, related to the film vault photo I just added to the gallery.
https://historic-memphis.com/memphis-historic/filmrow/filmrow.html?fbclid=IwAR0Hx23JIvm8TcMlPThrj7jbyrRuC5ecaib7mjRs9y366jhSTctVqOC41ts
If you haven’t seen it already, the Memphis Orpheum is on both front and back covers of this quarter’s Marquee magazine from the Theatre Historical Society.
That is a very interesting photo of the Orpheum, have not seen that one before. Whatever is on the marquee has been carefully retouched out. Note Milton Slosser’s name on the reader board.
Great photo David,The Loews State can be seen in the background also.
I added a pic I found on the net of the Orpheum as the Malco in the late `50’s. Elvis appears to be getting a ticket in front.
The Orpheum on a muggy summer day in 1996 – they must have been showing the original 1960 version of “Psycho”, as the remake came out two years after this photo:
View link
Nice history I do not like the marquee with its electronic lights.
The old Grand Opera House in Memphis, on the site of which the Orpheum was built, is listed in the 1897-98 edition of the Julius Cahn Official Theatrical Guide. It was under the management of Staub, Jefferson, Klaw and Erlanger. Admission prices ranged from 25 cents to $1. There were 747 orchestra seats, 582 balcony seats and 1000 gallery seats, total: 2,329. The proscenium opening was 38 feet wide X 42 feet high, and the stage was 65 feet deep. The theater was on the ground floor and there were 9 members of the house orchestra. There was also a New Lyceum Theatre in Memphis which had 2,010 seats. There were 4 newspapers, the Commercial, Scimitar, Times-Figaro and Herald, and 5 hotels for show folk, the Gayoso, Clarendon, Arlington, Fransioli, and Peabody. The 1897 population of Memphis is listed as 100,000.
LM Great picture! This last one really shows off the asymetrical layout. The red brick (middle left) would never have been seen from the sidewalk across the street. Now that there’s a park there, it, unfortunatly, is visible (It’s a little pocket park with a statue of Elvis) The house left side of the upper gallery (the former segregated blacks only area) only has 4 rows and a cross aisle. The right side has 11 rows (if memory serves). The other two balconies are symetrical with the odd shaped spaces made up in stairways and restrooms. It’s an amazing plan to see on paper and then walk the halls and realize how subtly the architects (Rapp & Rapp) worked out the odd shapes they had to work around.
The May 1 interior photo is beautiful…too bad Nashville doesn’t have a theatre like this…anymore!
Great photo and I so wish that Nashville could claim one of their original downtown theatres/marquees today, but they are all gone.
Actually Gail, the old “colored” box office still exists too. It is hidden behind new solid metal doors that were installed in the 1982 renovation. Several remodelings have changed the path of the stairs that once led from the Beale Street box office up to the segregated balcony. The result is that, opening those doors reveals the old box office window and the steps rising into the darkness. A floor has been inserted over the stairs at the 2nd floor level to create a storage closet in the former stair-well.
The old Beale Street box office is now used by the concessions manager. There once was a small marquee on Beale Street too: that has been removed.
I have a memory of the Orpheum from the early 1960s (1963 – 1965) when it was the Malco movie theatre. We had parked past the theatre on Beale. We walked along Beale on the side of the theatre toward Main. There was a ticket booth on Beale that I walked toward, but my mother told me I couldn’t go to that one. We had to walk to Main to the larger ticket booth. The Beale ticket booth was for “colored” movie patrons. Once we entered the theatre from Main, I wanted to go up the stairs to sit in the balcony. My mother told me I couldn’t because the balcony was for “colored” movie patrons. She seemed very uncomfortable trying to explain why this was set-up this way. Finally, she told me that she was from Ohio where all movie patrons used the same ticket booth and sat in the same areas together. This prompted a discussion that was difficult for a 7 year old to understand. The side entrance still exists, but tickets are not sold there.
Jack: Thank so much as I shall take that tour of the Orpheum that is in Memphis and NOT in Nashville. I guess the only think Nashville wants to be known for is the Grand Old Opry and Opryland. So sad to read the Nashville did not preserfe any of its historical theatres. I guess my next question is…why not? And to think that one of their theatres is “currently being gutted and will soon be part of a grocery store”? Unbelievable!
Patsy: Unfortunately Nashville did not preserve any of its historical theatres. Ironically one of the city’s icons, the Belle Meade Theatre, is currently being gutted and will soon be part of a grocery store. Allegedly the shell of the theatre will remain intact and the neon marquee will illuminate the night sky as in days of yore.
You can take a virtual tour of the Memphis Orpheum by going to the theatre’s Web site (http://www.orpheum-memphis.com/) then clicking on Virtual Tour in the menu on the left.
Chuck: Can’t access the Photobucket photos and would like to especially see the smaller auditorium photo.
“The Orpheum also owns a Mighty Wurlizter organ” And that organ would have been built in N. Tonawanda NY!
Will: I would love to see an interior photo(s) of this theatre in Memphis. From what I’ve read it doesn’t seem as if the City of Nashville has preserved any of their historical theatres though I may be wrong so would love to be proven wrong in this case.
Thanks Will and Jack! I didn’t notice the related website link. It truly is a beautiful theater!
LuisV, the link in the opening post under “Related Websites” has an option called “virtual tour” and it did work for me just now. You’ll find some professional photos there of the interior and another view of the predecessor building. Cheers!