Roxy Theatre
153 W. 50th Street,
New York,
NY
10020
153 W. 50th Street,
New York,
NY
10020
83 people
favorited this theater
Showing 201 - 225 of 1,209 comments
Tinseltoes:
My name is Bill Savoy and I am fascinated with (and a little bit jealous of) your knowledge of the Roxy (until now, I thought I was the only one so obsessed). I was a friend of the late Ben Hall’s: he befriended me at age 16 and shared his vast collection of Roxy memorabilia with me. During the last 46 years I have added to this archives (a vast collection of programs from opening to closing, photos from excavation to demolition, over 100 photos of staff and performers, etc., etc., and last, but not least, the original blueprints from 1925 (later to be slightly revised … which, once-and-for-all clear-up the seating capacity mystery!). I have built four scale models of the place (including one commisioned by The Museum Of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York, where it is currently on display) and am now starting my fifth … (sooner or later, I’ll get it right!). I worked at Radio City Music Hall from 1969 until 1983, where I met many surviving Roxy alumni (Leonidoff, Markert, Kilduff, Parmentier, etc., etc., ) and had full access to the building and archives!
I live and work (as a scenic artist) in New York City and would love to communicate with you further on our shared obsession. If you are also interested please contact me at .
I have to sign off now because I see, by the program, that the prologue “DESTINY” is starting … to be followed by THE LOVE OF SUNYA!
Happy Roxy day! Hope to hear from you! Bill Savoy
Myron, The Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts would be a great repository for the Roxy Programs…as I would (love to have them)…or at least borrow them and then bring them personally to the library.
Love to reminisce about the Roxy, my all-time favorite theatre. My sister always points-out that one of the ice skaters actually fell during the show after the screening of “The King & I” but she got-up and continued. The audience saw blood. I saved the Roxy programs somewhere in my collection (they were printed in green). If I locate these and those for the RCMH, what could I do with them? I’d hate to dispose of these.
Hey Housechecker, Yes, indeed, before the Roxyettes (later known as “Blades and Belles”)skated on ice they could be seen not only on roller skates, but balancing and doing formations atop huge balls (an audience favorite). Yes, indeed, Merman sold tickets as a publicity stunt (fact checked from Variety)just for the opening hour.
Hey Simon: I was just a little boy when “A Tree Grows” played at the Roxy. I started working there in 1953 on the last day of Peter Pan. Then the Roxyettes were on ice skates. This is not to say when “A Tree Grows” played the Roxy the girls were not on roller skates.
If Ethel Merman sold tickets in the morning on the opening day of “No Biz Like Show Biz,” I never heard about it. That was the kind of stuff locker room gossip was made of. But I was working “Permanent Closing.” However, Johnny Ray did show up drunk in the evening.
Hey Tinseltoes, Good job but you might have mentioned that “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” was a major hit and ran an unprecedented six weeks (opening week $105,000)grossing $500,000 during that time. The 24 Roxyettes also did their famous roller skating routine which featured “the whip” requiring the last skater to catch up to the end of the ever spinning line. Next show was “A Royal Scandal” with Tallulah you know who…and a major bomb.
Just for a chuckle. A publicity stunt: Ethel Merman sold tickets in the box office on opening morning.
There’s No Business, etc… opened at the Roxy on December 17, 1954. (Thx to New York Times online archives)
Myron, One of the many informed contributors to this site (wish I could remember who)regularly sent a year by year list of Roxy films and the accompanying stage show. But you have to go back through the archives for this. Also fun is going to the Lincoln Center Library and read all the Variety magazine issues on microfilm from 1927 to the Roxy’s demise. Another source on line is Billboard Magazine and search year by year. The info is out there…just search and ask.
Where can I find a list of films and dates which played at the Roxy. This was my favorite all-time theatre and I was sad when it was demolished. I think that “There’s No Business Like Show Business” sccreened there during Dec. 1954. If so I can’t figure why my family and I never saw it there. We were big fans of Marilyn as well as musicals. Maybe we saw “The Country Girl” at the Criterion instead. As a kid, I saw many films at the Roxy. I often pass the spot where it was located and I get a lump in my throat. So many happy memories of great films and then they added ice skaters (Roxyettes) to the bill. I even saved programs which I have somewhere in my collection.
Simon I would like to point out that although CinemaScope 55 was projected in 35mm we had the advantage of the higher resolution quality from the 35mm reduction prints. Much like VistaVision which Paramount abandoned in 1963 the standard 35mm vertical reduction prints from the horizontal VV negative was rather good. I can only imagine what those images would look today projected thru the much improved Schnieder Isco lenses we have today which are a cut above the Bausch and Lomb.
Paul… You hit the nail on the head. And I say “ditto” with regard this theater. The same greed, crooked politics and destructive insanity has happened in so many American cities, especially San Francisco’s awesome FOX. Enough is enough… we MUST save these magnificent theaters for the future generations to come!
“The city and the movie palaces have never been the same” quotation from the above description of the Roxy says it all! N.Y.C. had a unique position in the pantheon of world cities and they could not wait to destroy it’s character for just another bland version of glass and steel boxes seen in and 2nd rate place on earth. Just look what is on the site of the legendary movie palace now, a building that could just as well be in a third world country and could disappear overnight without a single word of complaint,such is the banality of what we have today. As long as I live I shall NEVER forgive the perpetrators of such vandalism no matter what the circumstances.
As a youngster, it was a wonderful experience to see “Carousel” and a stage show at this magnificent entertainment palace. The Roxy was my favorite theatre in Manhattan. Some other musicals I saw there were “The King & I” & “Damn Yankees. (You are right Simon, it was not “Oklahoma!”)
Sorry ERD, but Oklahoma premiered at the Rivoli in Todd AO on reserved seats. Also interesting is that Carousel was never actually shown (although it was advertised) in the CinemaScope 55 process (more info on the Wide Screen Museum)
Thanks, Ed Miller.
Mark and Paul, I agree wholeheartedly with your comments about the Roxy, as well as our other criminally destroyed landmarks. AGRoura, any IMDB member can update and correct, simply by going choosing the update option. I do it frequently.
In some fairness to the folks who were around at that time, it’s important to remember that the movie palaces were seen as commercial venues, much like today’s big multiplexes. They were places to exhibit movies and make a lot of money. When the movies, and the people that watched them, moved to the suburbs, it just seemed that the movie palaces' day was done. That they were also architectural masterpieces (some of them) and venues capable of being retrofitted for a future as arts centers and community treasures was never thought of, except by a very few. It took another generation to make this discovery, by which time so many of them were gone.
Yes it’s a criminal loss. The early 1960s was s time when the past seemed immaterial and nothing mattered but the future. The loss of Pennsylvania Station and the Metropolitan Opera House followed closely on the disappearance if the Roxy. The only bright side is that these horrendous losses opened some minds and spurred some to action. Today we do have a restored Grand Central Terminal, Radio City Music Hall and a landmarked Broadway theatre district because of it. But what a heavy price to pay.
Just been looking (again) at the photos of the incredible Roxy, makes me so very ANGRY that my and future generations were denied the chance to experience the greatest movie theatre ever built. I would like to personally lynch those responsible but they are probably gone now (to eternal hell, hopefully). New York City lost it’s soul when the great theatres were torn down and it will never be the same again, I’m so depressed that this was allowed to happen.
Thanks! No worries, the internet can be a very dicey place. Best wishes.
Thanks Mark I dont know why I did not just do that. Appperently the image hosting site I used hosts pornographic material as well as he more family suitable images, I was not aware of that till now and will of course never use it again. I still do no understand how the link went that image instead of the movie poster I put up, a very sick joke if you ask me My aplogies once again to those of you who clicked on that link. Meanwhile yes indeed “Tunnel Of Love” was shot in CinemaScope and Black & White
I have no exlanation as to why that link takes you to that awful picture. It should have gone to movie posters. I have written and complained to the website If you have not used that link please do not. My aplogies to those of you who have.
Also should be noted that “The Tunnel of Love” was one of Gene Kelly’s directorial efforts.
In the IMDb site it says Tunnel of Love is in color, yet a comment by a viewer says, like Tinseltoes above who in my opinion knows what he is talking about, that it is in black and white. Anyone knows how to correct an IMDb entry?