Paramount Theatre

poirotsj on September 30, 2007 at 10:52 pm

I worked at the Paramount around ‘73 and '74. I was trying to remember all the shows we saw there in those days.. here are some that I could recall: Santana, Weather Report, Peter Frampton, The Doobie Brothers, Dave Mason, Jackson Brown, Eagles, Sly and the Family Stone, Jerry Jeff Walker, Quicksilver Messenger Service, It’s A Beautiful Day, Blue Oyster Cult, (I think Kiss too), Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks, Earth Wind and Fire, John McGlaughlin & The Mahavishnu Orchestra.. I know that there were many more.. does anyone remember what some of the others were? Prior to my time working there, I also saw Stevie Wonder there (probably around '70), and I believe that Canned Heat, Yes and the Greatful Dead had also played there.

BarryMonush on August 24, 2007 at 2:31 pm

This is one of the most beautiful theatres I have ever had the privilege to sit in. I was in Seattle recently where I saw the pre-Broadway tryout of YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN here and I was astounded to think that this was the way people used to go to the movies on a casual basis – how lucky they were! This place is so huge you can sit in the front of the mezzaine and not even be aware of those people all the way in the back. If you’re planning a visit to Seattle, try to see something here – it’s worth the visit.

lostmemory on August 15, 2007 at 9:38 pm

This is a b/w close-up view of the Paramount Theater.

lostmemory on March 5, 2007 at 10:53 am

This is a 2/28/2003 article about the Paramount Theater.

“Seattle Theater Celebrates 75th Anniversary.

The Seattle Times
By Patrick MacDonald

Feb. 28—“There are ghosts in this place something terrible,” a Paramount Theatre stagehand told a Seattle Times reporter back in 1971.

It must have felt that way then, when the granddame of Seattle theaters was tattered and run-down, and operated only occasionally as a movie theater. A year later it became a rock hall, dubbed Paramount Northwest, the first in a series of renovations that has brought the architectural gem back to its original glory, and then some, in time for its 75th birthday.

Today it is recognized as one of the finest theaters in the country, not only for its beauty and grandeur, but for its state-of-the-art technology. Innovations and expansions have made the Paramount perfect for performances of all kinds, from rock shows to touring Broadway musicals. If ghosts still haunt the storied building, they must be of a happier sort now.

When it opened as The Seattle Theatre on March 1, 1928, it was one of the largest, grandest theaters in America. Built as a movie palace and vaudeville theater — modeled after New York’s famed Paramount — it reflected the prosperity and opulence of the Roaring Twenties.

With gold leaf trim, crystal chandeliers, period furniture, heavy drapes and luxurious carpets, it cost more than $3 million (the principal investor was movie mogul Adolph Zukor). It had a $100,000 gilded Wurlitzer organ (still in place), a stage elevator capable of lifting a 60-piece orchestra, a backdrop projection system that could create the illusion of clouds, stars, rainbows, snow and other effects, 41 backstage dressing rooms, a green room for VIPs and a card room for stagehands.

But only three years after its opening, the Great Depression closed the Paramount (it had been renamed in 1930). It was shuttered from July 1931 to October 1932. When it reopened, it resumed a policy of presenting films and live performances until the late 1940s, making it one of the last vaudeville theaters in the world.

Movies kept the theater alive, although most of the fancy furnishings were put into storage and the balcony was closed (except for a few blockbusters, like “Psycho” in 1960). From 1956 to ‘58, it was a Cinerama theater, showing movies on a giant, curved screen.

Gordon Moody, 74, grew up less than four blocks from the theater, and has vivid memories of the daylong Saturday serial movies that played there during the late Depression and World War II. He’d always go with his two best friends, Hugo Scarsheim, a pilot who died in the Korean War, and Robert Joffrey, who founded the world-famous Joffrey Ballet.

1935: The Marx Brothers played the Paramount for a week in 1935. Groucho, Harpo and Chico starred in the stage version of “A Night at the Opera” three times a day. Tickets were 25 to 55 cents. “We’d sit in the first row; tried to put our feet up on the iron bar that was along the front row there; and of course your body’s almost in a V shape. We were staring up there bug-eyed at the screen all day. We’d always get cricks in our necks and wonder why,” Moody said.

Live shows played there occasionally, including a production of “John Brown’s Body” in 1953, directed by Charles Laughton and starring Tyrone Power, Anne Baxter and Raymond Massey. Betty Hutton headlined a revue that same year. Danny Kaye appeared in 1952 and ‘55, Ella Fitzgerald sang there in 1958, and Mickey Rooney brought a comedy show in 1961.

The theater was closed for long periods in the 1960s. But live music was heard again in the 1970s and ‘80s, with rock shows presented on a regular basis. Among the many stars who made memorable appearances at Paramount Northwest were Bob Marley, Bruce Springsteen and The Kinks.

Like any longstanding, beloved institution, some myths have grown up around the Paramount. For instance, B. Marcus Priteca, a renowned Seattle architect who designed many of the grandest movie palaces in America in the 1920s and ‘30s, was a consultant on the Paramount project but had nothing to do with the theater (he worked on the building’s apartments and office suites). The theater was designed and built by the Chicago firm of Rapp & Rapp. Alexander Pantages, the showman and theater builder who lived in Seattle, built several theaters here, but not the Paramount, which he is sometimes credited for.

1957: Movies kept the Paramount alive after vaudeville died. From 1956 to ‘58, it was a Cinerama theater, with a giant, curved screen. A former manager of the theater used to drop the names Priteca and Pantages, and told grand tales to tour groups in the '70s detailing how the building was constructed on a bridge that had to be built over an underground stream discovered during the building’s excavations, and that the elaborate decorations around the proscenium arch were created by Italian craftsmen who hand-sculpted them in wet clay.

But the building’s original architectural drawings, stored at the University of Washington Library’s Northwest Collection (along with those for the recent renovations), show no such bridge or underground stream. And no corroboration could be found for the wet-clay story. Given the grandiose promotion of the theater at its opening, such details would surely have been trumpeted.

Seventy-five years later, much remains of the theater’s opulent beginnings.

Former Microsoft executive Ida Cole wears her personalized hard hat under the scaffolded interior of the Paramount Theatre in 1995. Cole bought the largely run-down theater in 1993 and led a partnership in a large-scale restoration that eventually cost $37 million. T

The renovations that have brought the theater to its present world-class status cost $37 million. More than $30 million came from the personal fortune of former Microsoft executive Ida Cole, who bought the theater in 1993 for $9.6 million and late last year turned it over to the nonprofit Seattle Theater Group.

The most magical innovation is a pneumatic system that allows the venue to be transformed into a ballroom, with the seats tucked underneath the floor. An addition to the rear of the structure added even more dressing and meeting rooms, and state-of-the-art stage systems, enabling the theater to present the most elaborate of productions.

Now the theater is home to a huge range of events, from kids shows like the Wiggles this weekend to modern dance like the Alvin Ailey company, rock concerts, traveling Broadway productions, silent films and even the most recent run of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s “The Nutcracker.”

The mighty Wurlizter organ has been restored (including an elevator to lift it from under the orchestra pit); a rare, gold and ivory Knabe Ampico grand piano has been restored and is back in its original place in the lounge area just above the foyer; and the two large chandeliers in the lobby, with 52,000 individual crystals each, have been cleaned and restored to their original brightness.

Some of the original lobby furniture is in use in the Paramount’s offices. The theater’s collection of nine large, grand European paintings, in gilded frames, which originally hung in the lobby, were stolen in 1965 and never recovered.

And the place has the same resonance for some of the people who remember it in its original glory days.

“It hasn’t changed much,” said Moody. “They’ve put in some different carpets, and some different lighting, but it looks the same.”

PARAMOUNT THEATRE 75TH ANNIVERSARY

The performance lineup for the theater’s month-long 75th anniversary celebration underscores the diversity of the Paramount’s events. In addition to the gala with Tony Bennett tomorrow night, a partial list of events includes Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre (March 7-9), Bob Ralston of The Lawrence Welk Band playing the Mighty Wurlitzer (March 16 ), George Jones and June Carter Cash (March 18), Ellen Degeneres (March 19), Erasure (March 23), Ibrahim Ferrer (March 26), Dee Dee Bridgewater (March 27), Youssou N'Dour (March 29), and on March 31, a nod to the theater’s earliest days, a silent film with organ accompaniment (“Wings,” winner of the first Academy Award for best picture in 1928, the same year the theater opened)“.

lostmemory on January 12, 2007 at 6:54 pm

Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974

Paramount Theatre (added 1974 – Building – #74001959)
911 Pine St., Seattle
Historic Significance: Event, Architecture/Engineering
Architect, builder, or engineer: Pritteca & Peters
Architectural Style: No Style Listed
Area of Significance: Architecture, Performing Arts
Period of Significance: 1925-1949
Owner: Private
Historic Function: Recreation And Culture
Historic Sub-function: Theater
Current Function: Commerce/Trade, Recreation And Culture
Current Sub-function: Restaurant, Theater

veyoung52 on October 7, 2006 at 8:33 am

Does anybody on earth have fotos of the Cinerama installation at the Paramount? I have exterior, but am looking for auditorium shots. Thanks, all.Vince

DonLewis on September 30, 2006 at 10:21 am

My image of the PARAMOUNT sign
www.flickr.com/photos/lastpictureshow/256523714

lostmemory on March 19, 2006 at 9:37 am

This is a photo of the Paramount Theater dated July, 2002.

Bway on October 3, 2005 at 11:46 am

Chuck, did you take all your photos down? I noticed on another theater too that I couldn’t access a photo you posted.

Chuck1231 on July 31, 2005 at 2:49 pm

A great exterior of the Paramount Theatre.
View link

btkrefft on February 28, 2005 at 9:47 pm

Here are some great photos of the Paramount, inside and out.

William on November 18, 2003 at 5:21 pm

The Paramount Theatre seated 3049 people at one time.

William on March 5, 2002 at 4:48 pm

The Paramount opened on March 1, 1928. The architects were B. Marcus Priteca and the firm of Rapp & Rapp.