Fox Redondo Theatre

The Fox Redondo seated around 1324 people. It was operated by Fox West Coast Theatres, the last chain was National General Theatres. This theatre was in District #4 for Fox West Coast Theatres. The move-over house in Redondo was the Fox Strand theatre.

The architect for the Fox Redondo Theatre was J. P. Perrine. The theatre opened in 1928.

The Fox Redondo Theatre was located 103 W. Diamond.

San Jose's FOX CALIFORNIA also run by Fox West Coast was a 75 Cent house
in its last days. In fact, the same double feature was playing
in its final week of operation in the 70's ... Mad Dogs & Englishmen with Woodstock! By God's graces, it is currently being restored
by the City of San Jose and will reopen very soon!

if anyone has a direct contact with the manager/owner or lease holder of the fox plese contact me WiseGuyRewind@earthlink.net

This theatre was demolished in the mid 70's.

Hello...Can anyone tell me where I can buy interior/exterior photos of the old FOX REDONDO THEATER? THANKS, Terrance (TWOH@aol.com)

Besides the photo on this page, the Los Angeles Public Library has about four interior photos. http://catalog1.lapl.org/cgi-bin/cw_cgi?displayMore+5747+11+21+0
They also have an exterior shot of the Strand Theatre.

I think XvXMatthewXvX was talking about the Fox California in San Jose that was being remodeled, according to LarryS.

I hope that is indeed true.

Yes, the (Fox) California in San Jose is being restored, as well as expanded. Check out its page on cinematreasures. I've recently written a construction update on it, following a tour of the theatre I got from one of the individuals in charge of installing a restored Wurlitzer organ there (actually two organs--one for the lobby as well as one for the auditorium).

For Moviemanforever - I was the manager of the Fox Redondo in the last two years of its great life. I'm very glad to hear you enjoyed going there, since me and my staff worked hard to put on the best shows (and prints) we could get. How we managed to get the high quality prints we usually did makes quite a story, but can't be divulged here). The utterly needless closure of this great old house was one of the sadder chapters in my life, but the blame must go entirely to Mann after he bought the National General Theatre chain. You mentioned somewhere going to the 5th Ave in Inglewood and seeing The Graduate there. That must've been in 1968 when I was manager, then. The 5th Ave was the best experience for me in my ten years as a theatre manager, since we showed the kind of artsy films I liked. Besides, I also had a small harem of the cutest girls to help me run the place adding to the enjoyment. If anyone has photos or knows where I can get them (I'll be glad to pay) of the exterior and/or interior of the following theatres, I'd be most grateful -- The Inglewood Theatre (Also known as The Little Inglewood) on La Brea, The Loyola in Westchester, The 5th Avenue, Inglewood, The Academy Theatre, Inglewood, The Fox Redondo, Redondo Beach and the El Portal in North Hollywood. My name is O.C. Frandsen

I "worked" at the Fox Redondo for about 13 years, starting by folding popcorn boxes around 1954 under the watchful eye of Manager, Scottie. When I was old enough to work legally, I spent more time there than at home, which was only a block away. Later, under the Manager, Bill Mauck, I learn what it was to be a showman. In the 60's, we would ballyhoo openings with stunts and giveaways, and Mauck was a pro at getting attention to his openings. I stayed with the Fox, working both full and part time until I was about 21 years old, even driving to work at night after moving to college in the San Fernando Valley. I knew, and still remember, every square inch of that wonderful, one- time vaudeville palace. I crawled under the sub floor in search of loose change as a kid, and climbed the rafters above the chandeliers as an adult. I filmed the building of King Harbor form its rooftop. I explored the abandoned organ pipes then covered with gilding, and took girlfriends for tours of the spooky, long empty dressing rooms in the deep underground of the backstage area. All the original equipment of a bygone area remained, from painted drop curtains to the antiquated lighting board. What history that building held! I can still see my ring of keys and know each for their function, from the box office to the fuse box panel! I walked the 16' ladder (for an extra $7.50 per week) to change the marquee. "Living" at the fox in the 50's and 60's offered me status as a teen, and by the way, I will still accept a challenge to be dethroned as the Fastest Popcorn Box Folder In The World! It was my home away from home where I saw many, many ushers, managers, and assistants come and go through those years. Of course, I saw every movie that played the Fox for two decades. In my more ambitious years I considered writing a book about my adventures, both during and after, operating hours there. Even after I left and lost touch with those that still ran the Fox, I felt it was my roots, my home. It was difficult to return and not recognize any employees. I still have the posters from every movie that played the Fox Redondo in the 60's. I networked with friends at other theatres to allow me courtesy passes throughout Los Angeles' Fox, then Mann theatres. Paying for my first admission to a movie theatre around 1974 was personally devastating and humiliating!
I now have only a piece of concrete as a souvenir of the Fox Redondo as my home and my youth which are inseparably linked. And I still have a great memory of seeing the huge, white building from my house. If you looked very hard at it's faded paint, the Fox would allow its past to show through: On the East side, from one end of the building to the other, in 5-foot tall letters were the nearly invisible words, "TALKING PICTURES." My Name is Bruce Berns. If you
were a part of that era at the Fox with me, I would love to hear from you.

Bruce...It was great to read about your experiences at the old Fox. Do you remember for the opening of Alfdred Hitchcock's "THE BIRDS" that they pasted big black bird cut-outs all over the front tiled entryway? It was an incredible place. I wasn't here when they ripped it down, or I would have raised hell. Redondo is still kicking itself. I find it interesting that, in an old photo on the R.B. Historic Society's website, it shows that the R.B.Chamber of Commerce was in the same building. I sell antiques and was at a flea mkt. and bought a wonderful large leaded chandelier. As I was putting it into my van, I noticed some plastic printed tape reading "FROM THE BALCONY OF THE OLD FOX REDONDO". I nearly dropped it! It now hangs in my bedroom. Everytime I dim it for TV or sleep, it conjures many pictures. I saw THE WIZARD OF OZ at the FOX REDONDO for the first time...It seemed like GONE WITH THE WIND played there forever...and quite right, too...That lush bright red carpeted stairway could have BEEN Tara. My sister was in a dance recital on that fully equipped stage. I can only imagine what glorious productions would have been brought to Redondo. I live in San Pedro. Fortunately, the WARNER GRAND here is a shrine with a great group of people (THE GRAND VISION) restoring/protecting it. >>> Do you know of anywhere I could get copies of interior shots? I would especially like some of the lobby. Thanks, Terrance (TWOH@aol.com)

I remember playing on the beach in 1967 and overlooking us was the huge figure of Sean Connery as James Bond for "You Only Live Twice" completely filling the arch where the flamenco dancer was.

I can remember standing out in front of the entrance, behind the hot dog stand and getting drenched by a wave. Here's 2 sites with great exterior/interior shots (but, NO lobby). http://home.earthlink.net/~streets.of.redondo.beach/History.html
http://www.hollyb.com/oldsouthbaypictures.html

Terrance...Hmmm, you got the chandelier, I got a piece of concrete! If it's one of the chandeliers in the interior shots you've seen, I can tell you that I once walked above it in the crawl, and I may have cleaned and changed its bulbs! For a week or two before Hitchcock's "The Birds" ran, I kept our Myna Bird "Smoky" in his cage in a corner of the lobby to advertise the upcoming movie, but he wouldn't shut up during the shows running, and there were a lot of complaints! For "Hatri," I was dressed in safari garb, and rode an elephant through the downtown streets of Redondo. For "5 Weeks In A Balloon," I dropped balloons (with passes in them) from a small plane we hired." The exterior shots of the Fox look as thought they were taken almost in front of my family's business across the street, the Del Mar Cleaners. They also owned the Del Mar Hotel above it, and Del Mar Liquor next door. I once had a snapshot of the lobby somewhere, but have yet to located it after all these years. I'm still hoping to find it for all interested. Thanks for the memories!

Bruce...Check this site out. There's a picture of the hotel across the street from the FOX (corner of Diamond & Pacific). http://home.earthlink.net/~streets.of.redondo.beach/photos.html

Terrance, yes that is the El Ja Arms, a classic hotel in its time. I think a president may have stayed there once. It was way to spooky for me as a kid. Although my brother and I "ran" that corner and every rooftop of the block in the 50's, the El Ja Arms, then occupied in its last years mostly by transients, was too dark and scary for us. Our hotel, the Del Mar, was around the corner to the South on Pacific Avenue. I'm familiar with every business that was on that block from 1946 through the 60's. The site you offered has some great old shots! Thanks

I remember a very small rip in the screen. Also that when they showed BEN there somebody brought in a lot of rats, though I never saw any myself. Also riding my bike there one afternoon and finding the doors open and no one around that I could see, and being seriously tempted to steal a poster for COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE that was standing in the lobby, but not having the nerve. Also having a fist-fight with my cousin on the stairs that led up to the balcony, during THE LAST GRENADE or KELLY's HEROES, and being called into the manager's office and him being nice to us. Also that you could stomp your feet on the floor toward the front and it would make a huge sound. Also that sometimes the floor got flooded, in the late 60's. Also sneaking in with my dad when WOODSTOCK was playing to see if my sister was there when she wasn't supposed to be, and looking down over the balcony railing at a lot of people not in their seats. Also the 007 double-features, and the first two PLANET OF THE APEs together. Also thinking WHERE ANGELS GO, TROUBLE FOLLOWS was a great film (it's always on Stella Stevens' face that I remember the little rip). Also HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED, and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD on a triple bill--and when NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD started the whole place went quiet, which was rare on Saturday nights, and watching that movie you felt like you were on the Titanic and everybody going down. Also how great it felt to see a matinee there and come out in the late afternoon and be near the sea. Also hearing they were going to tear the place down but not being prepared to truly never see it again until I found this site. If I were a ghost there isn't any place I'd rather haunt than the FOX REDONDO. Also that the projectionist's quarters was a sort of booth at the back of the balcony--is that right? Also were the murals the same on either side of the balcony, and what were they of? Also on the outside front of the theater, above the marquee--was that a mermaid, and was she blue? Also they sold popcorn both downstairs and separately upstairs, and the poporn was always great, and so were the hot dogs, and so were the people. Also the rating M. Also the last few minutes of SPIRITS OF THE DEAD, which was rated R but played with THE OBLONG BOX, which was an M, and the little girl bouncing the silent ball. Also very early in life seeing THE SOUND OF MUSIC there with my mom; we rode there on bikes, and we saw it there more than once and always in the daytime. Also wearing my roller skates after WHERE ANGELS GO, TROUBLE FOLLOWS and thinking the sound of the wheels on our pebblestone walkway sounded a lot like the song from the movie. Now you can own all these movies on DVD but it isn't the same. Bruce, I hope you write your book someday. And O.C., you may have been the guy who had my cousin and me in your office--you were memorably decent to us. Also could you exit from the balcony and walk down some stairs to the street? If so, I remember doing that.

There are photos of the inside murals at one of the sites mentioned above. Please...If someone has photos, interior OR exterior, PLEASE POST THEM. Thanks! Terrance

Thanks, Terrance, for helping me find the interior shots at http://www.hollyb.com/oldsouthbaypictures.html I've never forgotten those guys in the murals, but I had forgotten how beautiful the ceiling was. Also now that I know that the lady out front was a flamenco dancer (not a mermaid), it seems to me she wore a red gown and had castanets in her hands. Also someone above remembers a red carpeted stairway, but I remember the carpet being more yellow/brown/green and having a leafy pattern. I remember the stairs made a sort of horse-shoe up from the lobby, identical curving stairs on either side, but I can't remember if from the top you could look down into the lobby, or if there was a lobby ceiling. Also the lobby snack bar--was it off to the left from the entrance, or straight out front? Anything anyone remembers about the FOX REDONDO is of interest to me; the FOX is my favorite place that ever was. Hopefully we'll be seeing some pictures of the lobby sooner or later.

As the manager of the Fox Redondo Theatre from late 1970 to its needless and tragic closure on Feb. 5, 1973, an act entirely to blame on Mann Theatres, it gives me great pleasure to read your stories about the place. I, too, look back with true fondness and nostalgia to that magical place and time. And it was, indeed. My staff and myself worked hard to put on great films for the public, while encouraging an atmosphere of fun and community. To this day, I have had no better job than with my involvement with the Fox Redondo and the wonderful public who patronized us at that time. Addressing you 'Schrader', I can't recall the incident (about you and your cousin), but it is entirely possible it was me, or possibly my assistant, Jerry. In any event, your recollections are heart warming and remarkably accurate. The concession stand was on the right as you entered the lobby and the stairway was straight ahead, then about ten steps up splitting left and right. There was a lobby ceiling up to the stairway, and as a result it was possible only to see a small portion of the lobby from the mezzanine. I can recall that when we played Gimme Shelter and Woodstock, Mann Theatres were too cheap to put the stereo system into proper working order. (Imagine, playing rock 'n' roll films without stereo!) No problem, I had plenty of ushers working for me of the electronic genius kind who volunteered (more or less) to repair the system. This is what I remember best about the Redondo -- the sense of community that prevailed. It was everybody's theatre, to some a second home and we all cared deeply about it. I'm a writer, now, and I have a novel planned which revolves around the Fox and in which the theatre plays a role as a major 'character'. Thank you all who came and contributed, as well as all the wonderful staff without whose help it would not have been possible. I gotta go now before I start crying. O.C. Frandsen

What is now located where this theatre was?

Can you say more about why Mann is to blame for its closure?

There now is a parking lot and a restaurant where the theatre once was.
I can't state categorically what was behind Mann's decision to rid themselves of the Fox Redondo, since I never was privy to all their inside communications. Believe it or not, the Fox was the most profitable (or atleast one of the most profitable) theatre in district 4 (in which there were 26). But there was some pressure from the City of Redondo Beach to, at least, paint the place to make it less of an eyesore that it was. Personally, I couldn't argue with that. The theatre was also in need of serious repairs and I was already talking to contractors and individuals to perform
whatever was necessary to get it done, while keeping the costs
down. Mann pursued his own track, however, and the estimate he got was about a quarter of a million dollars to restore the place. A
pittance, now, but admittedly that was a healthy sum in 1972. I
could have had it done for less than $100,000. But such an investment (even the $250,000) would have given Mann a healthy return on his money, as evidenced by such jewels as the Alex in
Glendale and the Nuart in Santa Monica. In the end, the political
will just wasn't there and Mann decided to sell the land, take the
money and run...and this was in the face of a considerable grassroots movement by the community (and my assistant manger and myself) to save the theatre. In the end, I was threatened by Mann to lay off or lose my job. (I did anyway, about six months after the closure of the Redondo, while I managed the El Portal in North Hollywood).In my opinion, it was a crime to not only close the place, but to tear it down. Everytime I drive by the place where
it once stood (and I do that yearly in spite of living in the Valley), I grieve for
the theatre and become angry for the crime committed against it and the communities
around it. O.C. Frandsen

O.C., I look forward to reading that book. My mom remembers seeing a lot of Doris Day/Rock Hudson movies at the Fox before I was born, and smoking with her girlfriends in the balcony. I remember about 20 shows, mostly double features, that I saw at the Fox between the ages of 6 and 11. I also saw movies at the Marinas & Surf, the Torrance Drive-In, and the South Bay Theater, but none of those places held a candle to the Fox. I remember JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN not because it was a good movie but because I got bored with it amid fantastic surroundings. Something else I remember is that audiences used to applaud when a movie started and finished. The Fox was one place where that probably made sense.

My father, Bill Mauck was manager at the Fox Redondo from 1956 to '65 or '66. Bill worked theatres from a very young age. As a usher in the Fox network in San Diego before the war and as a manager after the war. I think his first manager job was at the Fox Theatre in Pacicifc Beach (San Diego area) in about '46. He was transferred to Calexico California in '48 and sstayed there until '56. I remember him telling me that he told the big bosses that the wanted a "Beach" town again. So, there we were at the waters edge in (I think about September) l956.

I have many, many fond memories of life around the Fox and the other waterfront entertainment places. The bowling alley, the skating rink, the penny arcade and the pier with all the activities you could possibly want as a youngster. I came across some photos of candid shots of the outside of the theatre (some with me, and some without) not too long ago and was instantly beamed back to that time in history. Man those were the days. Hey bruce, remember when the "Squires" band used to play early rock and surf tunes on the stage during the Saturday matinees and at the car club midnight shows?

I still have many friends in the South Bay area that remember the fun times at the Fox and Strand theatres. Catching the movies or just hanging out at the "downtown" area of Old Redondo.

Bill Mauck passed away in Nov '99 and my brother Bill (who also was a theatre manager for about 15 years) passed away in June'03. Through the years I have lived in the South Bay, San Diego and the Long Beach area. My soul will always be attached to the part of me that spent my youth in and around the Fox Redondo theatre. My name is Robert (Bob) Mauck and I now live in Torrance, CA.

The Fox Redondo Theatre was built on the site of the 600 seat Art Theater (1913-1928). Architect John Paxton Perine designed what has been described as a combination of Art-Deco and California-Spanish style for the building.

The Fox opened on 22nd February 1929 with an early William Fox talking picture "The Ghost Talks" starring Helen Twelvetrees plus five acts of vaudeville and Lynn Cowan's 10 piece orchestra.

The Fox Redondo Theatre was demolished in 1973.

Bob Mauck,
I've been hoping you would discover this sight and offer your comments!

News of your father's and brother's passing brought me tears. I have stated throughout my life that it was your father that molded my personality, and he has had the strongest influence on my ways to this day. Like the Fox Redondo, he was one of a kind. I worked with Bill Jr., too, and have only the fondest memories of him and his quiet and humorous ways.

I was there that day in '56 that Bill started managing the Fox Redondo, and I became "Brucie Boy" to him when he was in a good mode. And I was there when he moved on. Because for several years, I spent more time at the Fox than at home, his transfer was very depressing for me. In our daily contact, he taught me a lot about working with people as well as teaching me more mundane things. I still think of him every time I must stand up for long periods of time, since he taught me how to avoid discomfort!

Bob, do you have any of the "scrapbooks" he kept of his promotions? He proudly showed me these in the 60's. There could be several snapshots of the Fox that we've all be hoping to uncover.

I'm glad you found the sight, and hope you share more memories with us all. I'd also love to talk to you about some of our mutual friends and long-term employees that you may remember.

You and I did a lot of exploring deep in the bowels of that wondrous old vaudeville house,and we do indeed share some great memories of Old Redondo.

My name is Bruce Berns (bbrms@earthlink.net), and I'd like to hear from anyone connected with the Fox Redondo...on this site or by email.

BOB MAUCK, Would you post your photos PLEASE?! There's a lot of people who'd love to see them. There's, actually, so little recorded about this wonderful palais that spun dreams for so many. Regards, Terrance

I will be glad to share photos as soon as I round up the ones that may be of special appeal. Hang in there with me, I have to set up a new printer/photo unit sometime soon so that I can post them on this site. Also, alot of the photos are still in San Diego with my stepmother. Bob Mauck

As the original contributor of this theater to the website I have read all of these comments and now feel remiss I have not posted more of my own. For a place as fondly remembered as this one there really is very little documentation about it. I grew up in Torrance and attended the Stadium Theater regularly and look back on it fondly. However, a trip to the FOX was something special. As stated above even the most mediocre pictures (the double bill of "Where It's At" and "Sinful Davey" comes to mind) seemed better especially with one of those delicious hot dogs and a tube of Flicks. Our family would go to the beach where the theater was clearly visible and wish I was there instead of where I was. The Bond films on that big screen were truly memorable. This theater was part of the reason I wanted to go into theater management when I was old enough and I did only to find it paid peanuts. I did eventually work for Mann, with Mr. K at the FOX Palos Verdes but when the FOX Redondo was demolished I was working for UA. I don't remember whether the seats were comfortable or if the paint was peeling but I do remember sitting in the 5th row when the curtains (remember them??) opened to reveal the vast Spanish landscape in "For a Few Dollars More". I also vividly remember the organ screens. Funny what the mind will retain or lose. There is nothing, I repeat NOTHING, in that area now worth the losing of that local landmark. Every theater I attended as a kid and yound adult, every theater in which I ever worked....all gone. I'm getting misty.

For Manwithnoname...and everyone else who are contributing so many sweet and priceless memories of what clearly was a very special place to so many people. One can only speculate upon how many more are out there who do not know about this site and may have much to say about the old Fox Redondo. (I'm the former manager, O.C. Frandsen). I want to thank and commend most sincerely Manwithnoname for being the original contributor to all this. We all thank you, I'm sure. Mr. K at the Fox Palos Verdes... You must be talking about Mr. Kotsos (I believe that is how it was spelled). I remember him very well -- a most decent and pleasant fellow. I recall how he was transferred from the Palos Verdes to the Academy in Inglewood by god only knows what sort of nefarious trick by National General Theatres. A black theatre (mostly) and at the time a recipient of all of the new genre of 'blacksploitation' films (Shaft, Cotten Comes to Harlem, etc.) and a most difficult situation for a genteel fellow such as Mr. Kotsos. He survived there for six months before it fell to me to run the theatre; this was in early '69 as I recall. Manwithnoname, it would please me greatly if you could reveal your name to me. It is not likely we know one another personally, but all of us who were connected to the old Redondo in some way share at least one important common bond -- that theatre, that place and the pleasure moments we received from being there. I have only one connection from those days with whom I'm still in touch -- Sal, who was one of my ushers. He still lives in Redondo Beach, in the same place as then, not far from the empty lot where the Fox stood, and I'm convinced he's never gotten over the loss of the theatre, not to mention the loss of what he considered a career, nay a calling! Bob Mauck -- I don't think I ever met your father, but I certainly recall hearing stories about him. Like so many of the old theatre managers from the golden age of film, there were some really great characters among them, your father included. Your brother Bill I do recall vaguely. He was a manager while I was still an assistant, but if memory serves me right, he managed at one time the Inglewood (the little Inglewood) in...surprisingly, Inglewood! This became the first theatre I ran as a manager in 1967. I very much look forward to seeing the photos of the Redondo (and any others, incl. your father and brother). One last note, and a nod to Moviemanforever -- You were right in noting that NGC (National General Theatres) was the last to own the Redondo at its closing, not as I have claimed, Mann Theatres. It was several months later in late Spring, 1973 before Mann purchased the entire chain from NGC. (Have this confirmed from old audit reports I still have). Thanks to you all for being here. Ole Frandsen.

O.C., my name is Ed Haselwood and it's funny how memory plays tricks. I remembered Harry Kotsos as having managed the FOX from opening to closing but that was obviously not the case. Harry was a gentle soul with health issues and it's hard to picture him at the Academy at that time. I did not work at the FOX PV until it was twinned and also worked with Jewel, who moved to the Old Towne and Al the projectionist. I spent many Sundays covering for Harry while he went home to rest. I closed on Fridays. I stayed in touch when he moved to the South Coast Plaza (a long drive from his home) and for a short time after his retirement. When I first met Harry was the day I, as a customer in PV, walked up to him and asked if he had any posters I could take as I was collecting at the time. He let me clean out the cupboards. He was one of a kind.

Thank you Ed. I appreciate knowing your name even if our paths crossed only indirectly through Mr. K. Harry was his first name, that's right. Thank you for dusting off my cobwebbed memory board, there. You are right, how time plays tricks with our memories. It was, indeed, a crime to place a man like Mr. K. with the health problems he had in a situation such as the Academy. I was 25 at the time of my being forced to take over...yes, it was either or for me. On the first Sunday of my stint at the Aacademy, I was greeted by a riot of sorts (the place nearly always sold out on Sundays no matter what played) and where the attending mob simply decided to walk out with the cash register from the concession stand; just took it and disappeared with it. Not a thing anyone of us working there could do about it. It took me a year to bring the place under control, by methods few people will believe, now, I'm sure. Here I was, a young blond, blue-eyed wonder, totally naive in the ways of things racial...with glasses, barely 145 lbs. dripping wet, forced to wear
a tuxedo. At the Academy! The kids used to call me 'four-eyed penguin'. "Uh-oh! Look out, here come da four-eye penguin", I'd hear them say. No one knows about the destruction of ego until you've gone through an experience like that. My two years at the Academy
was a seminal experience, believe me, but in many ways also a very
positive one, since it gave me a perspective of the other side I'd never be privy to otherwise. While there, I was never harmed in any way, (this was the days of Crips, Black Panthers and US). In fact, once the community understood what I was doing and accepted me, they went out of their way to protect me and help me to make the Academy, like the Redondo, an enjoyable, fun place to attend and soak up great movie experiences. I'm please to know someone like you Ed, who knew a good man like Harry Kotsos. Ole Frandsen.

I think I know which photo you mean, George, and it isn't a pretty sight. I am using an interior shot I got at http://www.hollyb.com/oldsouthbaypictures.html as my Internet Explorer Wallpaper. Every now and then I remember another movie I saw at the Fox and add it to my profile, for posterity. I think this site is great.

I either saw or dreamt I saw a movie at the Fox that ended in a lagoon, at the center of which stood a gigantic skull, out of which Jerry Lewis or Don Knotts or maybe Soupy Sales kept being blasted by huge sprays of water. If anyone can tell me the name of that movie I will send them a dollar.

I also remember one Saturday night when the manager (maybe O.C. Frandsen, except I remember his hair being black) shut off the projector and told the crowd the movie would not continue until they quieted down. It may have been that same night that my dad got hit in the head by a marble. Years later my cousin and I got drunk together and it turned out he had been there that same night. A real marble, not a spitball or some popcorn.

Here's one of my best Fox memories: At the start of the 007 movies you're watching James Bond through what I thought then was an eye (what is it? the barrel of a gun? a telescope?) and he turns around and shoots you. Every time he did that my dad and I clutched our chests and sank down in our seats. I guess it was four times: we saw two double-features. I wanted to be either a spy or a projectionist when I grew up.

Good to meet someone else who's had some of the best times of his life in a movie theater. Going by yourself is always great once the lights go down. I miss the dollar movies at the Marinas where on weeknights you might have an auditorium nearly to yourself. And I like to think I bought the last ticket ever to a midnight showing of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. This was at the Surf/Bijou in Hermosa in the very late seventies, and I was the only one to buy a ticket, so they cancelled the film and did a second showing of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, which was already in progress next door. When I asked for my money back the girl at the ticket-booth told me I would have to come back in the daytime and speak with the manager. I got mad and she gave me my refund. Now I wish I'd kept the ticket.

To Schrader -- The manager you're talking about shutting the movie down was likely the manager I replaced. I forget his name, now, but I remember he had black hair. He committed the cardinal sin of shutting down a show on a Saturday night (any night), when as a theatre manager he ought to have known the greatest (unwritten) rule of all in show business - THE SHOW MUST GO ON!! That cost him his job. To be fair, the Fox Redondo really had gotten out of hand with crowd control at that time, and its reputation with all the other managers in the district was such that no one wanted to go there...not even assistants who were promised promotions to full
manager. Since I had done all I could with the Academy in Inglewood and was rather bored with my job there, and since the Redondo was less than five minutes from my place in Hermosa beach...and I was able to demand a decent salary increase, I volunteered to take on the Fox Redondo. It turned out to be a greater challenge than I'd imagined, but with a lot of help from some great people among my staff and you the patrons, we turned it into a great and memorable show place it was. I'm glad I came and was part of it all. O.C. Frandsen.

It's very interesting reading everyone's comments. I was raised in Hollywood Riviera. I can remember my Mom popping us shopping bags of popcorn and my brother, sister & I hiking down the hill to the Saturday free show at the Strand or Fox. My sister won a Davy Crockett hat once...I could have killed her. I remember sitting in the VERY front row to see the 10 COMMANDMENTS at the Strand, as the place was packed. Talk about overwhelmed! Of course I, like you, particularly mourn the Fox's demise. The wrecking ball picture and the picture of the Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce in THE SAME BUILDING(!) really tear me up. Where were the people to defend this irreplaceable piece of old Hollywoodland?! I'm actually writing to tell people that there's something they CAN do to make their prescence known. The beautiful WARNER GRAND in San Pedro has a committee called THE GRAND VISION. It's there to protect and to restore & maintain this beautiful sister theater to THE PANTAGES. Had there been a few more people in Redondo with VISION, perhaps our Fox would not have been destroyed. Here's the website, if anyone is interested in being a part of preserving our South Bay history. http://warnergrand.org/

In 1960 I saw "Portrait in Black" with Lana Turner and Anthony Quinn. It was a terrific movie! After the movie, my dad and I went to join my mom and sister and we went fishing on the pier. I remember hearing the sound of the ocean waves under the theater!

I remember the Fox Redondo from the fifties, when I was a kid. The first movie I ever saw was a double-bill . . . "Moby Dick" and "Prince Valiant." I remember sitting against the front door of the Fox in the sixties the day "A Hard Day's Night" premiered. I was in the balcony with Terrance (his posts are above) when "Ship of Fools" played. Does anybody remember how the railing on the balcony came detached if you leaned on it too hard? Several of us girls just about fell into the orchestra by pushing on that railing during a closed-circuit rock concert. The Fox Redondo holds so many wonderful memories . . . . Please, anyone with photos, please post them!

An entire group is forming from at least 5 people (so far) who have posted comments only to this theater and nowhere else. O.C., I was at a show at the Stadium in Torrance when a fight broke out in the lobby. The manager threw up the lights in the middle of the Sinatra flick "The Naked Runner" and cleared the house. No refunds. I complained to Pacific and they sent back passes. I saw "Hard Day's Night" at the Vermont D.I. I do remember "Support Your Local Sheriff" (still one of the funniest films ever made) and "Dracula Has Risen From the Grave" the one-sheet of which was more entertaining than the film and the only one I remember seeing from the balcony.

LIFE AT THE FOX REDONDO
As I wrote earlier, I was a fixture at the Fox Redondo for about 13 years, starting at age eight in 1954 as the "official" popcorn box folder...for free admittance. I stole the job from an 18 year old comic book geek, mainly because no one had ever seen boxes folded so quickly, especially by such a cute little kid, and I could fold a case of 500 boxes in about 10 minutes when showing off. I would often have races with older kids, the teens that were working there. I never lost...ever. It was my only champion feeling. I suppose that made me as much a geek as the prior fellow. Normally I would just sit in the storage room, and while staring with drooling awe at hundreds of cases of candy, I would fold up the whole week's delivery of boxes at once. Thus, I earned the right to enter the theatre at will..and to even bring a friend! I considered myself a pretty important little boy at that time. So did my friends!

Not long after earning entrance privileges, I had the run of the place, especially in the early hours before opening to the public, when I could explore the dark and dangerous bowels of the building and even crawl between the walls and ceilings, walk the catwalks and explore the hidden rooms, and even the multi-level rooftops. This was my second home, and I was determined to know every inch and to discover all its secrets. My parents were comfortable knowing where I was, and the small town atmosphere predicted my safety.

After I finally got my teen work permit, there was no way of removing me from the Fox. Managers, assistants, and staff came and went. I stayed. With my family's three businesses across the street on Pacific Avenue and my home within sight a block away on Carnelian, this triangular patch of ground became my personal territory that I was quite willing to share with anyone who cared to visit. The Fox, of course, was already there when I came to Redondo in 1946, but it had yet to be remodeled. I remember when it was quite normal to dress up to go to the show. You didn't see much casual dressing for movies then. Most men wore suits and ties to the movies. The earliest admission price that I remember for children was seven cents. Then nine cents. When, at some point, it reached seventy-five cents for kids, I thought it was absurd. But what the heck did I care? I could come and go at will, and the privilege was eventually extended to the Strand Theater, the Fox Hermosa and the La Mar in Manhattan. Later on I could get a pass for nearly any theatre in the National General or Mann chains. Except for the Strand Theatre, I walked the 16-foot ladders to change the marquees at the Redondo, Hermosa and Manhattan Beach theatres once I was old enough. I think I got about $7 extra in pay for doing that. The La Mar in Manhattan, which was on a hill, wasn't worth it, and I soon said no more...too scary.

Over the years, there were several types of other business located in the attached stores on either side of the Fox Redondo, with the Chamber of Commerce, noted in earlier comments, as being the most remembered and captured in photos. I recall the names of no others, except Lacy's Ice Cream Parlor which opened on the East side of the building in the early sixties. Lacy tried hard to make it a nostalgic and fun place, but by that time, downtown foot traffic just wasn't enough to sustain the business. I briefly stepped in to run the little shop when Mr. Lacy went on vacation. It took me years to recover from the daily overdoses of chocolate and maraschino cherries.

I thought I would mention some of the lesser known things about the Fox Redondo. And so as to not monopolize this area, I'll take it one item at a time. Today, I'll tell you about an embarrassing problem the theater faced.

In the late 50's, the Fox Redondo was plagued with mice. At one point, they were running down the aisles and over people's feet while they watched the movie. Employees tried to act surprised each time a patron would come out to complain. The janitor set mouse traps at night, which were nearly always full the next day, but it did not relieve the rising problem. On weekend mornings, I would have fun tripping the few traps that were untouched before someone on staff would remove them for the day. It seemed to be only mice. I never saw rats inside the theatre, although they were probably there as well, since I did chase rats, some the size of Chihuahuas, that lived among the rocks right outside.

You can imagine the scene that some people made, with their demands for refunds. Of course, the show must go on, and eventually professional exterminators were called in to take care of the problem. But that plan backfired horribly.

Below the seats and sub floor was an area which was accessible to a kid like me by crawling on my stomach, and it held a seemingly endless feast for vermin, consisting of old popcorn, candy and an unbroken layer of sticky stuff you don't want to know about. And while it had plenty of rodent droppings, it also held loose change that had fallen between floorboards, and there was enough of that to encourage a kid like me to take a flashlight and make the crawl from time to time. With the exterminators now gone, the poisoned, dead mice began to decompose in this area. My crawling searches under the floor for fallen change quickly stopped.

Anyone familiar with the smell of rotting flesh will understand that it was not an expected part of an evening at the movies, although the kiddy matinees which filled the theater on the weekends produced no complaints at all. The kids couldn't hear the movie over all the chatter, and apparently couldn't smell the dead mice over all their popcorn and candy. Or they just didn't care.

While management considered ways of cleaning up the problem, they did their best to keep the place open by using gallons of a very strong, industrial-strength deodorizer. But this temporary cure was as bad as the original problem, with a super Pine-Sol kind of smell that would catch in your throat like vapors of ammonia. The West or ocean side of the theater was especially bad, although I'm not sure why. So now there was the smell of rotting flesh as well as the overpowering deodorizer. It clung to the floors, walls and carpets. During this time, it was a nightly routine for a patron to come storming out of the theater asking what the hell the stench was and demanding a refund. They were right, of course, and met with a smile, an apology and the refund if they did not accept the offer of moving to a "private" seat in the loge or balcony, which were areas that were normally kept closed unless higher attendance warranted their opening.

Those that sat it out, to me, were nuts. It took months for the smell of death to vanish, but the medicinal smell of the stench-removing chemicals that were now soaked into the flooring and sub flooring lingered lightly for years. I never crawled under the floor again. For those of you that may have worked at the theater in later years and wondered what that unique odor of the place was, this is your answer. It never completely went away.

Next time, I'll tell about a better, and much more enjoyable smell at the Fox Redondo. My name is Bruce Berns. If you worked at the Fox Redondo during any part of the 50's and 60's, I would especially love hearing from you.

Oh man, I'm glad I didn't know that when I was eating those hot dogs in the '60s! :-)

To manwithnoname: Have no worry. The hot dogs were kept frozen in a deep freeze backstage. Surprisingly, there was never a sight of rodents in the candy storage room, nor droppings. I guess there was so much to feed on in that crawl space under the seats, that they didn't need to seek out new territory.

Are you sure? Some of those Raisinettes looked suspicious now that I think back.

Ha! That's funny. Yes, I'm pretty sure. There were never any other pests either, though I would have expeted roaches and other insects. Considering all the unused, cold, dark, underground rooms, I'm surprised that there were no cobwebs and such.

I spent all my weekends during the late fifties at either the Fox or the Strand, and I don't remember mice or a weird smell. Ah, the ignorance of youth! I'm waiting to hear Brucie's next story . . . .

Thanks, Bruce Berns, for writing again about our big old favorite ghost ship! I can't wait to hear more. I am thinking the cigarette smoke might have helped mask the smell of the chemicals and dead mice.

(More of) MY LIFE AT THE FOX
I think it was during the holidays somewhere around 1961, and a Disney film was booked at the Fox Redondo. A first-run Disney film would mean a full house for each showing. There was no practice of clearing the house between runs, and kids would sometimes stay all day. We would began announcing, "First ten rows only," to those in the ticket line. This wasn't quite true, since little kids who liked sitting that close would often break away from their friends or siblings and fill these rows before taking good seats elsewhere, even the doubles and triples. There were over 1,300 seats,but some kids would rather sit right at the screen than in the last row of the balcony. The noise factor, especially during a packed Disney matinee, was quite loud. Kids had to speak louder just to hear each other over the rustle of so many candy wrappers. And the aisles were seldom empty, with a steady flow of children walking to and from the concession stand, bathrooms or just wandering. They were immediately blinded by an usher's flashlight and scolded if they ran. That worked until they returned, running again.

One thing that National General management did especially right during packed house runs, was to hire plenty of help, and beside the doorman and those assigned to the candy counter, there would always be ushers stationed inside keeping the peace, usually one each at the top of the center aisles downstairs, and another two upstairs between the loge and balcony. Among their duties was to always light a path to vacant seats for those entering who were blinded by the darkness. Splitting parties up when the house was full was a busy and stressful duty for young ushers trying to do professional jobs. People entering at the top of the aisle would naturally stop and wait for their eyes to adjust, but in doing so would block the view of those in the last aisles. So speed in finding them seats, especially in their blinded state, was where we took pride in our jobs.

Even with the most rowdy of crowds, I do not remember ever stopping the movie at the Fox Redondo. There would always be enough ushers on staff during such times, and we would simply walk toward the screen and back to the aisle tops. In those days, this was enough to keep the peace. The ushers with their flashlights actually commanded respect due to fear of reprimand. Times were certainly much simpler then. Within only three or four years, those innocent times were gone, and a private duty police officer would be needed, more often for show than need of force, to keep the peace.

You may remember that the Strand Theater, three blocks South, was a different world. The manager, named Polis, a sour, self-important sort of man, never paid for the additional staff needed to keep the peace. Kids would nearly tear the place apart on weekend matinees, and it was close to a ritual for Polis to stop the film and stand spotlighted on the stage with a microphone, and threaten to close the show if the kids wouldn't stop throwing popcorn boxes and quiet down. I think he like the attention he got doing this, and he took his time ranting and repeating himself. It never changed anything for more than a few minutes, and there were times when he would stop the movie two or three times. I mention all this in praise to the management of the Fox Redondo and others in the chain that were not so cheap as to avoid having adequate staff.

While ticket sales for the blockbusters, like "Babes in Toyland" and other holiday films, were obviously good, the bid made by theater management to the distributors for the rights to exhibit big films could leave very little profit when the run was finished. Nearly all of the ticket sales in the first week, or even weeks, were not kept by the theater. But as Manager Bill Mauck taught me early on, the business was there for selling candy, with popcorn and drinks being the largest profit makers. All the rest of our show business was to funnel the patron to the concessions, and cleaning up kiddy vomit was just part of the price paid to sell the candy. You may recall the free "kiddy matinees" with all cartoons or "Mighty Joe Young" a few times each year at the Fox. Now you know why they were free. Concession sales from a packed house was good business. That's probably not changed a lot, considering the price of popcorn, drinks and candy at theaters today! Earlier, I recall popcorn costing a dime, with butter 15-cents. I remember it rising to 15/25, 20/30, 35/50 and so on. It was real butter,too, kept in the freezer backstage. It wasn't uncommon during such busy runs for Mr. Mauck to give me a few dollars and send me to the market, because butter supplies would be exhausted, and the Fox Hermosa could not afford to lend what they had. Butter was one of the few items not under the heavy inventory control. If a patron said, "Extra butter, please," they would get it. Eventually, different colored popcorn boxes helped to keep inventory control of the butter. And extra butter had an extra charge.

Popcorn, surprisingly, was under very heavy inventory control. The boxes probably cost more than their contents, and the boxes were used to keep track of inventory. They were counted and compared to the number of bags of pre-popped corn delivered and sold. If the percentages were off, the staff would be scolded for supposedly eating too much themselves or for loosing boxes. Bill Mauck never accused anyone of stealing or giving popcorn away, but we were always warned that it was the boxes themselves that were inventoried, and to keep close track of them. Of course we understood if we were to eat the popcorn we were to use another type of container or a used popcorn box. During a Disney-type week, it wasn't uncommon to order a hundred or more of the large popcorn-filled bags, but we did not have enough space to store them in the candy room, and had to take them upstairs to a break room used by employees, which you may have noticed just outside the manager's office. I remember one very huge movie opening where even that room could not hold all the bags ordered, and we simply left them sitting in the upstairs lobby between the two restrooms.

During one of these house-packing days, I was working a shift as doorman, talking with Manager Bill Mauck, and the subject of concession sales techniques and subliminal advertising came up. We already knew the science of where to put which boxes of candy behind the glass, and not long before, upper management sent new instructions for selling drinks. They told us when a patron asked for a soft drink, our response was now always to be "Regular?" This immediately increased the sales of the large size drinks and decreased the sales of the small size. We were amazed at the amount of change, and therefore profit, from this technique. Mauck and I were wondering if there were ever any techniques within the films, like single frames or even other more subliminal techniques designed to increase concession sales. Then I said if we could only pipe the smell of the popcorn into the house we could sell tons of it.

He laughed and agreed. When the popcorn was extra hot, and the breeze was flowing the right way, it did fill the house with its delicious odor. We've all had the experience of first smelling the irresistible odor of popped corn, and being unable to resist buying some. Mauck had a twinkle in his eye, and said it would probably work. I kidded, suggesting we take bags of corn backstage and down to the room holding the giant fan that circulated the air throughout the theater. I said we'll let it blow the smell into the house. Then we could see if our home-made subliminal suggestion would work. Well, theater managers are paid a percentage of concession sales, and Mauck actually agreed to give it a shot! In fact he laughed. I only saw Bill Mauck laugh to the point of tears a couple of times over the years. It was not a common sight to see him with more than a warm grin of a smile, but when he did smile enough to show his gold tooth, everybody's mood changed for the better. Today's laugh was not to tears, but the mood was jovial. After all, we had a packed house, concession sales were tremendous, and that had a direct effect on his earnings.

As for our popcorn experiment, things could have been easier if the corn was popped on the premises, but remember, it was delivered pre-popped and cold in giant bags. But there was little doubt in my mind that this was going to work, and we set to the task. We needed a very large box to dump the bags of corn into, the idea being to set it as close to the fan as we could manage. By the late afternoon our experiment was running, the furnace was on, the popcorn wafting. And it turned out to be a complete failure.

Our problem was simple: The corn itself had to be very hot to give off its wonderful aroma. Cold or cool corn is actually chewy and has a stale odor. But our experiment produced no odor at all inside the house. Even all that corn sitting in the small fan room could not do the job without a strong heat applied to the kernels. Of course, we probably looked strange walking the aisles, sniffing the air for the next hour, but we just had to give it all a try. We did agree the idea was sound. We just didn't have the equipment. Of course, in today's hi-tech world, I wouldn't be surprised if a tiny chemical drop of artificial odor is frequently used to sell popcorn and pleasures in theaters or other places.

My name is Bruce Berns. If you worked at the Fox Redondo in the 50's or 60's I'd especially love to hear from you.

I remember being seated in the front row during "The Swiss Family Robinson." Forty-five years later, my neck still hurts. And now I know why!

Bruce, I think Heloise (of Hints From Heloise) must have hung out at the Fox during your popcorn experiment. She suggests that to "freshen" your house and put people in a good mood, you should stick a bag of popcorn in the microwave when you see guests pull up outside. You tear the bag open as they walk through the door and they get a blast of good-memory-provoking popcorn. It works. You were ahead of your time!

Bruce, your story got me hungry for a tub of popcorn with extra butter.

Speaking of stopping a movie in progress: I remember a period in the early seventies when at the South Bay Theater they would interrupt a movie between reels with a short for some charity or other (sorry I can't remember which charity), then bring up the lights and pass collection baskets through the auditorium. I sure wouldn't have liked being an usher during that experiment. But that's a South Bay Theater story . . .

Manwithnoname, I think it's great you remember the poster for DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE. I actually saw that twice at the Fox--or 1 and 1/13 times, because on the first try I was too scared to stay for more than a few minutes. Afterwards I went to school with a couple band-aids on my neck, as a sort of homage to the movie, and wound up being sent to the school psychologist.

One more great Fox memory I have is that one night before the main feature they showed the FRAZIER/ALI CHAMPIONSHIP BOUT--it was about a thirty minute film and the nearest I ever got to experiencing an old-fashioned night at the movies, with newreels and whatnot.

O.C. or Bruce, I know that the last show to play at the Fox was WOODSTOCK with MAD DOGS AND ENGLISHMEN--but do you happen to remember if WOODSTOCK also played there at another, earlier time? Also, during your time at the Fox was there electricity in the old dressing rooms or were they pitch black?

Schrader: You are no doubt thinking of the Will Rogers foundation. Taking up collections were common for many years for this particular charity in most theaters not just the FOX. I can't remember a film being interrupted for that, though. I was at the UA Del Amo (the first Assistant Manager) in 1972 and worked the South Bay Theaters in the '80's part time. I was with MANN (FOX Palos Verdes, FOX Cinemaland, etc.) in between.

I wish my memory was better, but I can't think either what movie I witnessed being interrupted at the South Bay Theater; I can only think of movies that were not. My apologies to the late Mr. Rogers and his foundation.

(More of) MY LIFE AT THE FOX
During the mid- to late-fifties, the kiddy matinees on Saturdays were a staple at the Fox Redondo. Most of the time, the movies were of the Abbot & Costello, Bowery Boys type, along with some shorts, cartoons and serials. It was amazing how often the same features and shorts would show up, but nobody complained. We saw Elroy Hearsh movies and sang along with Smoky the Bear. The afternoon, filled with films having short run times, allowed for plenty of mischief and visits to the candy counter, and that made the company happy. Kids had big decisions to make on such days. Just how much can be bought, and how long will it last, with the twenty-five or thirty cents they got from mom to spend on candy?

For about two years in the mid- to late fifties, when I was around 12 years old, there was also some on-stage entertainment offered by one Roy Gordon, an stout, gray-haired fellow who would play games and give away prizes during the extended Saturday intermissions. Of one thing I am certain. Gordon didn't really like kids. My free run of the backstage area allowed me to lurk in the shadows and to hear his comments when off stage. His language was for adults until the spotlight hit him. But he did a good job and made all us kids happy during his performances. I'm guessing he was an old timer from the vaudeville days and happy to still be in show business. He worked a circuit of theaters on the weekends, but I don't know exactly which ones he visited. Some of you may remember his coming to other theaters in the Los Angeles area.

At one point, with Dr. Pepper as the main sponsor, and with local businesses joining in, Roy Gordon promoted a long running contest with weekly drawings for prizes, some as nice as bicycles. One drawing ticket was given to each person attending the show that day, and tickets could be obtained from many of the downtown merchants on their own terms, and most importantly, you could get one drawing ticket for every two Dr. Pepper bottle caps you brought to the show that day. Toward the end of the weekly contests, this was changed to one for one. You could keep your tickets for future week's drawings as well.

Prizes could also be won by earning the right to join Roy on stage to play some simple games. Roy would choose kids in the audience to come up and play the games in two different ways. The first was to use a pocket mirror, shining the spotlight in a kid's face and saying, "Okay, you can come up." This would be done with four or five kids each week. In truth, most of those chosen with the mirror were the kids that hounded Gordon when he arrived at the theater. They would hang on him, begging to be picked during the show. He usually gave in, and ended up picking them "at random" if he could find them in their seats during his bit. But there was often a kid or two he overlooked or couldn't find, and they would end up crying, feeling hurt and betrayed. They would tackle him as he left, and he would make his usual insincere promise of, "Next week, Honey."

I, on the other hand, ended up on stage more often than all the other kids. The second way to win the chance to participate in the on-stage games was to guess the name of a song. Roy would play the song on his accordion. There was just one problem with this. He could barely play, and he didn't know the songs children new. He would explain the rules, that the first to call out the name of his song could come up and play a game. Then the hush would come as he would play something like "Slaughter On Tenth Avenue." Nobody? So he would try others, like "My Blue Heaven" or "Cocktails For Two." Now this is where I became a long-time, friendly enemy to Gordon. I came from a musical background, and I knew every song Roy could play by the time I was eight. I knew every song Roy couldn't play, too. So week after week, he kept hearing my squeaky voice yelling out in the darkness something like, "THE SHEIK OF ARABY!" and he would say, "You again!" I was on stage most of the times he pulled out that accordion, and I had to bite my tongue several times after he finally sought me out to ask if I would give the other kids a chance in return for some future reward. But that's a different story.

Once on stage, the game was often as simple as rhyming a word that Roy would say within three seconds. Do it, and he would drop a dime in a cup and give another word. Sometimes he would just shake the cup and not drop the dime. Either he couldn't resist the con, or was short on dimes, but I watched him do that many times. Rhyme his words too well, and he would pull out one of his favorite game stoppers, like "balcony" or "orange." But a kid could win sixty or seventy cents to spend on more candy, and there were no complaints, even though you knew you had been double-crossed. When he pulled such tricks on me, we both knew what was going on.

As for the prizes from ticket drawings, I had a tremendous advantage over the other thousand or so kids each week. First of all, my "work", which took an hour or two on Saturday mornings, longer if I wanted to wait for others so I could show off, meant that I was in attendance for every drawing. Second, downtown Redondo Beach was my territory, and the participating merchants all knew me, and I sweet-talked most of them into giving me a few tickets. But third, and most impressive of all, was my resolve to find every Dr.Pepper bottle cap in town. There were two liquor stores just across the street from the Fox, one owned by my grandparents. Any bottle caps in the catch-bin there, as well as in the other store, were mine! I made my daily pickups.

One day I enlisted my older cousin with a car to take me to every liquor store we could find from Torrance to Manhattan Beach. I remember spilling the caps out on the back seat floor, sifting through them for the Dr. Peppers. Each week, my supply of drawing tickets increased. Because they came from different sources, it was nearly impossible to find a single number called out during the drawings in time to claim the prize. I lost a couple of prizes simply because I couldn't find the right stub in time. So eventually, with hundreds of tickets, I put them in numerical order, stapled them to cardboard sheets, and paid other kids a few cents each, assigning them boards to check after each number was called out. It was my own little enterprise, and it paid off, since over time I won two bicycles and a half dozen other nice prizes and cash.

Kiddy matinees will always be happy memories for me, and I'm sure for you as well. And somewhere up there, Roy Gordon may be looking down and saying, "Come on, Bruce, what rhymes with 'balcony'?" My name is Bruce Berns. If you worked at the Fox Redondo in the 50's or 60's I would especially like hearing from you, and all others who would like to share their Fox Redondo memories.

Schrader: Judging from your earlier posts your memory is certainly as good as mine. The memory I envy is our friend BrucieB. Sounds like I'm about 5 years younger than he and I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning!

As for the Will Rogers pitches, you probably remember them that way because they did come in between trailers sometimes and the lights were turned up to pass the collection plate. I never liked that "in your face" part of it. I felt a lot of folks donated because they felt guilty if they didn't.

The posts to this theater have become sort of a family reunion. It's great to be part of it.

To Manwithnoname: I remember you having scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. (Just kidding.)

Some of my favorite memories of the Fox are of movies I never really saw there, usually because they were Rated R. For instance, for years I thought MAD DOGS AND ENGLISHMEN was a horror movie, like THE DOBERMAN GANG but too intense for children. As big a fan as I've become of Geraldine Page, her Aunt Alice isn't nearly so scary as the one I imagined after seeing the poster for WHATEVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE?, which shows a face partially covered by sand--I took it for a doll's face that Aunt Alice had cracked apart. And here's a scene from ROSEMARY'S BABY that I never saw and will never forget: Rosemary has hidden her baby in a shoe box and run from the devil to the roof of her apartment building. The devil lurches at her and she drops the box. The end.

It may be blasphemous to say it here at Cinema Treasures, but I like that the Fox Redondo belongs so completely to the world of Things that Are Not. If the place were open today I would campaign to keep it open--but that said, I like that THUNDERBALL played there and STAR WARS did not, that WOODSTOCK played there and XANADU did not. The Fox is where I feel like I went to WOODSTOCK even when the movie wasn't playing there. During the talkier parts of CRY OF THE BANSHEE, or almost any part of FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED, the Fox was where on a rowdy Saturday night somebody might call out, "Give me an F!" and a good part of the theater would shout out "F!" and so on. It seemed terrible to me as a ten year old--and can't have been much fun for the management either--but I like my memory of WOODSTOCK as a terrible event even more than I like the real event as I've come to understand it, or the movie, which is also very beautiful.

Now the Fox is its own kind of movie. It had reality in a specific place and time--now it's echoes sounding on in the hearts of the people who loved being there. This is me doing my best to be profound--but if I come off sounding grandiose or corny, even that seems kind of appropriate to the Fox. It's a palace with popcorn under its floorboards. It has a beautiful golden curtain with stains on it. And the great thing about discovering this site is that the movie gets bigger all the time. The Fox that I know used to have a basemnent where a little girl ate her parents--now it has many more underground rooms, as well as organ pipes and vaudeville players and Helen Twelvetrees.

Please keep writing, everybody. And Sally--I know it's a long shot, but my mom and her friends were attending the Fox at the same time you did. Did you happen to know the Beachums?

Schrader: If you want scary Geraldine Page, look no further than "The Beguiled".

Schrader, Beachum sounds familiar. My maiden name is Parmer. Do anything for you?

I remember Roy! And one time, there was a big prize. I'm guessing it was a bike, because I never had my own bike and always wanted one. Anybody remember that?

George, I know what you mean about growing up in theatres, and having it protect you from the rest of your life. I grew up in Hollywood Riviera, in a dysfunctional extended-family situation, and all I did was dance and read. When West Side Story played at The Strand, I sat through every show I could get to, as long as it ran. After about the second week, I told my mother I was changing from ballet to jazz dance, which also got me involved in theatre. (I eventually became a Theatre Arts teacher.) Movies were, and still are, magic.

I have a great black-and-white shot of The Strand (well, The Marina) being torn down. It shows the theatre entirely gutted, construction workers with axes going at it, and the only thing standing is the "Tickets" sign. It depresses me every time I look at it.

P.S. Something just struck me. An old friend of mine (I don't have a current address for him) worked as an usher at either The Fox Redondo, The Fox Hermosa, The Strand, or possibly The Loyola. He said it was his first job, so it would have been the mid-late sixties. His name is Gary Altobella. Does that name ring a bell for anybody? If so, I'll try to track him down. Sally adlibitum@earthlink.net

Hi, Sally! I knew it was a long shot--I guess you and my mom didn't know each other. My mom remembers the Del Mar Hotel, though, and a friend she had who lived there for a while named Jack Paar (not the Tonight Show host). My mom's favorite movie that she saw at the Fox was ON THE TOWN (which I also think is one of the best musicals ever).

People used to think both the Del Mar Hotel and the Biltmore Hotel in Hermosa Beach were haunted. We used to sit outside the Biltmore at night and wait for ghosts. Jeez, we were dumb!

Schrader, ask your mom if she remembers the "haunted" Biltmore.

(More of) MY LIFE AT THE FOX
Something that most us wouldn't even try to remember about the Fox
Redondo was its intermission music. There were only a few times when
special films were delivered along with required music for playing
during intermission, but the rest of the time, for all the years I was
a part of the Fox, the exact same music was played over and over
again. It was a piano solo of a Cole Porter medley, up tempo and
bubbly. I listened to it from about 1954 through 1969, and of course,
I heard it several times in a day in my teen years, when I was
actually earning a salary there. Eventually, it started to drive me
nuts. I was hearing it even when I wasn't at the theater! Why, I
would ask? Why can't we get a little more modern with the music? I
had no concept of legalities or royalties, and while I was brought up
with the older, familiar music and styles, I still just wanted to
hear something else, something more fun to listen to. I started
dropping hints, and after several weeks, that turned into whining. Finally, I was given
permission to bring in a record from home, but only if the boss could
preview it before we opened that day.

This may seem to be a pretty mundane subject to anyone else. I, on
the other hand, could hardly sleep the night before. I had visions of
eventually bringing in all of my favorite and most unusual records.
It certainly wouldn't sound like any old-fashioned intermission any
more. I might just have patrons enjoying the music so much that they
didn't care if the movie ever started!

I decided to bring in my album of electronic music, created on the
Moog synthesizer. I couldn't wait to hear this very different and
unique electronic music through those speakers behind the screen.
Those speakers were the size of Volkswagens, and this was going to be
so great! I had visions of patrons coming out to the lobby to say,
"Wow, what's that great, new, upbeat and modern music you're playing.
Who's wonderful idea was that? You gave him a raise, didn't you?"

The next day, I had to wait for the projectionist to arrive before
going into the booth. That projection booth, as in other theaters,
was the most off-limit place for anyone other than the projectionist.
Anyone but me anyway. Unbeknownst to the others working there, I knew
every inch of the room. I had been exploring that sacred place since
I was nine, but only when I was alone or with a trusted friend who was
receiving one of my private and secret tours. I had no scarier
thought than to be caught in that room if I was not invited. Of
course, I was invited many times over the years, and my questions were
answered as I observed the duties of a projectionist as they were
performed in the fifty's and sixty's.

I think that the Cole Porter medley may have been played on a
reel-to-reel machine, but right now I can't imagine how a tape would
not have been completely worn out after years of daily multi plays,
and I can't summon a mental picture of what type of machine was use.
I'm willing to say don't remember clearly what type of playback device
was used, and maybe one of you can recall that for me. I do know
that it was not a record player. There certainly was a turntable
there, and I wanted it to be in use that day, but there was no needle
dropping for intermissions normally.

Mac, the projectionist arrived. Mac had a cigarette with a half-inch
ash surgically attached between his lips. He didn't like people very
much, and he was going to need a lot of encouragement, if not begging, to
make this unexpected change in his normal routine. It seemed to me to
be a very little thing at the time. But the turntable would need to
be dusted and leveled, and this was not solid state equipment. In
fact it was a very lo-tech booth. Vacuum tubes and the carbon-arc
projectors heated the room like a sauna, and there were no modern
electronics or anything we would consider small scale today. Wires
and plugs had to be switched around, and let's face it, just moving an
ash tray in this relatively tiny room that was occupied by the same
man for many years, could cause a verbal response so caustic it might
bleach your hair. But here again, I made it happen, because it was
me, Brucie Boy, the kid who grew up asking Mac questions, and I was now
asking for this gigantic favor. And I did get him to agree, although
I think I learned a few new words that day.

Well, I can tell you, like my other ideas, my new, updated
day-at-the-movies experience with modern, upbeat music was a total
bust. The music sounded absolutely horrible. I mean, truly like crap.

The turntable's needle was probably better suited for 78 rpm records, and it sounded like it was cutting a new groove as it played. Moreover, the sound system simply wasn't tuned to handle the frequency output. Things were probably not hooked up correctly, and Mac wasn't
about to lift a finger for any troubleshooting to perfect my stupid idea, and the more I screamed to turn up the volume or adjust the frequency responses, the more distorted the noise became. I was crushed, and the preview time was ending. The others on staff who were getting ready to open looked at me like I was nuts. While I was yelling uselessly at Mac, with the house lights up, they watched me running like a mad man, up and down the empty aisles and lobby steps, from balcony to orchestra, trying to find a spot where the music actually sounded like music instead of a garbage truck. They want to know why the hell was I thinking of playing that kind of noise in the theater? We spent the rest of that day, and subsequent years, listening to the Cole Porter Medley.

My name is Bruce Berns. If you were a part of the Fox Redondo in the 50's or 60's, I would like to hear from you.

Sally, thanks for mentioning the Biltmore Hotel! I had forgotten about it until I saw your message. That's another great memory brought back to me by someone I've never met. Aren't we a bunch of not-so-strange strangers!

My great gandmother and great uncle lived across the street from the Biltmore, and their two small houses are still there, according to my mother. The Biltmore was a big deal in my mother's childhood, and she remembers going with my grandmother to hear Ethel Waters speak there. I looked for pictures of the Biltmore at the sites that had the Fox pictures, but didn't find any.

BrucieB, I sure wish I could remember that Cole Porter music but it slips my mind completely. The music I DO remember is the stuff they played at the Torrance Drive-In, the same six or eight songs over and over, all instrumental and swoony like the soundtrack for ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST.

A favorite trailer I saw at the Fox was the one for TROG, where a little girl in a park goes down a slide and Trog is waiting at the bottom. Trog was kind of scrawny but he scared me.

I make have been a freakish kid, but I loved the Cole Porter medley. Well, I loved musicals more than any other movies, so I guess it fits. I must not have been at The Fox the day of your experiment, Bruce . . . I think I would've remembered it!

Yes, we really are a weird little group here, aren't we? The Fox, The Strand, The Biltmore . . . . Anybody remember The Windjammer restaurant?

Did it have bright red bricks on the outside?

It was in Riviera Village.

It was in Riviera Village.

I ate there for sure, but I get my restaurants confused. With movies I can usually remember pretty well what I saw and where, or even what my parents saw and where, but meals I'm not so good at.

What was great in the Riviera Village was a small book store where in the early seventies they had rows and rows of Agatha Christie paperbacks. Also they sold large books edited by a man named Richard J. Anobile, which were like comic books but made up of pictures taken from frames of classic movies, with the dialogue written out beneath the pictures. Some of the titles were STAGECOACH, THE MALTESE FALCON, DR. JECKYLL AND MR. HYDE (the Rouben Mamoulian version), NINOTCHKA, CASABLANCA, and PSYCHO. When those movies played on television I made audio cassettes of them, leaving out the commercials, and played them back while looking through the pictures in the books. But PSYCHO was always heavily cut for TV (ABC used to show it with nearly the whole first third missing, so you barely knew why Janet Leigh had checked into the motel!) so I sneaked my tape recorder into a revival theater and got my PSYCHO soundtrack that way, with real screams on it. That was all in the days before VCRs.

Favorite spot in the Fox: I think it was the left-side balcony entrance facing the screen--I stood there against the wall at the end of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD with a lot of other people who were scared out of their seats, including a very pretty girl with long black hair and bangs who had seen the movie before. I've never forgotten the distinct way the floor felt under my feet. Favorite sense-memory also.

It's too bad that Marineland wasn't a theater. We could start a whole new discussion. The theater I remember as playing the same music over and over was the Stadium in Torrance. Every single matinee we would buy our tickets and just about the time we sat down on came a Ray Charles album that literally greeted us for years. Funny, although I saw everything at the Torrance DI from "Have Rocket Will Travel" to "E.T." I can't remember one thing that came over that speaker during intermission. Of course, I may have been a little busy....:-)

I think the bookstore you're referring to in Riviera Village was Catalina Books. I knew the owners, Fred and Alice. Unfortunately, the shop went from a tri-level art supplies/music/book store to just a tiny bookstore in the eighties. When Fred and Alice lost their lease, Fred got Alzheimer's Disease and Alice had to take a job as a clerk at Morgan Moore's Stationery.

Catalina Books carried the coolest stuff! I bought my first very own 45 rpm record there -- with my own money! It was Roy Orbison's "Crying" backed by "Only The Lonely." And I remember buying a Fugs album there -- but I had to ask Fred for it because they kept the questionable stuff behind the counter.

Terrance just e-mailed me about The Insomniac. A beatnick joint in Hermosa. Any old beatnicks here? It was the neatest place, with a great bookstore downstairs.

As for Marineland . . . . I was dragged to see those dumb fish twice a year every year. We always went on a school field trip there, and of course my parents just had to take us kids. I don't think anybody closed Marineland for economic reasons. I think those boring fish just bored visitors half to death!

Worst Marineland memory: I'm playing on our front lawn in Redondo and my dad drives up in his new sports car and says jump in. So I jump in and we head up through Palos Verdes and the whole way he's shouting, Guess where we're going! guess! guess! and I have no idea, until finally Marineland comes into view and I say, Marineland? Is it Marineland? and he says, Yep! Marineland! and we turn around and head home. The ride was the thing, he really loved that car.

The best thing about going to the Fox with my dad was that he was a cop, so we got in free and I felt more important than the average moviegoer.

Here's a great Dad-memory to make up for the last one: He figured out ahead of time what Soylent Green was, so we left the movie and went for a ride in a police boat. Man, it went fast! Pretty scary and pretty fun! (Picture me in the boat and the Fox somewhere over my shoulder . . .)

I remember beatnicks! I thought they were all pretty dangerous until my cousin became one, then they were dangerous but family.

I went to school with a kid named Robbie who may have been the son or nephew of Fred and Alice.

Remember the plastic whales and stuff you got at Marineland? You could just about eat them. Thick soft plastic and my whale was blue.

Favorite movie promotional item: Little white plastic Angeliques they gave out when NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS premiered. (Also I'd love to have got a barf bag, but I didn't get to see THE CORPSE GRINDERS, etc.)

I remember the plastic animals at Marineland! You put coins in a machine and the machine "made" the animals. Like the one at Graumann's Chinese Theatre.

Vaguest Fox Memory (for Manwithnoname): HAVE ROCKET WILL TRAVEL played at the Fox, too, I think, sometime in the early sixties. I was sitting toward the front with my sister.

Movie I Would Most Like to Have Seen at the Fox in the Late 1950's: THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN. (I've read that Richard Matheson got the inspiration for his novel while sitting in a movie theater in Redondo Beach. I like to think the theater was the Fox and the movie was LITTLE WOMEN . . .)

If you are referring to a goatee, wearing beret & turtleneck while reading poetry at the coffeehouse to some real cool cats that would be me. Slip me some skin, Daddy-O!

Thanks to all of you for not complaining about my longer comments. While "the book" doesn't look like it's likely to be written, this has been the place for me to recall those sweet memories of my life for over a decade at the Fox Redondo. And knowing that some of you were there, and that we share the same mental images, creates a unique kinship among us. Writing and posting here has been therapeutic for me, and, I hope, not too self-centered to bore any of you. When I write down more of my memories, I hope you'll overlook the self-indulgent aspect, and rediscover some lost Fox Redondo memories of your own. --Bruce

----------------------------------------

(More of) MY LIFE AT THE FOX
In the early 60's, an off-duty, but uniformed, Redondo Beach police officer was often hired for weekend nights. You're smart enough to know what he was there for, and because he was meant to be visible, we seldom needed assistance to handle any troublemakers. The officer that I remember being there most often for that job was named Danny Ashcraft. I felt very close to Danny, and he was the third and last person who assumed permission to call me "Brucie Boy".

For me, working as doorman after a feature started, was the most boring of jobs, and while Danny, in full uniform, was free to move about, he often just stood and talked to me. He would tell me his exploits as an officer, and I'd ask, no doubt, stupid questions. I don't remember any particular lessons from him, but felt like a family member with Danny, and I missed him when I grew up and moved away from the Fox Redondo.

There was one other semi-regular, private, off-duty cop that I remember, but I'm sorry to say, not his name. He was a funny fellow, talkative with just a hint of a country twang, always joking, and was never in uniform nor armed. He was sort of a scrawny guy and seemed to have more problems to handle than Danny did. As I look back on it, I'm sure that's because of the lack of a uniform. He must have had a badge on his belt, but I don't recall that, and I don't think in those days that an off-duty officer had to necessarily identify themselves as being one before saying to a patron, "You've been told to shut up five times tonight. Open your mouth again, and I'm going to toss you outside."

That was probably the most often used phrase by any of the private officers. I do remember one time when this scrawny cop dragged a gorilla-sized guy out to the street and mashed his face into the cement for about 15 minutes while waiting for a patrol car to arrive. He didn't even carry handcuffs. I was very impressed that night and all of the times when he grabbed a punk by the back of the neck and tossed him through the front door.

Of course, these days, I suppose that private, off-duty police may be required to be a bit more polite. Remember, as I said before, in those days, an usher carrying his flashlight was considered an authority figure commanding at least a minimum of respect. But those days were coming to an end fast, and it was the beginning of a time when higher numbers of rowdy adults would think a geeky teenager, wearing an ill-fitting jacket and crooked, clip-on bow-tie, was worth ignoring.

Kids, of course, were easy to scare straight. But I can remember only a handful of times when I had to use the threat of throwing an adult out if they did not stop whatever it was they were doing. Of those, it only came to that end a few times. Most likely, they continued their offenses because they didn't believe I could do it. They were right. I couldn't. I was just a geeky teenager in an ill-fitting jacket and a clip-on bow-tie. I got Danny to do it. And Danny did it with a single finger, and a come-hither motion, so as not to disturb others. They respected him, but they gave me murderous looks. But I was armed...with a flashlight and Danny. And hey, at this point, I had my own private bodyguard to walk those guys out to the street! Was I scared? No, only once, when a jerk came back, but he only came close enough to yell that he would be waiting for me after work. I could see him later that night, still waiting. I was no fool. I hope he waited all night. I walked the one block home after exiting from back stage.

Many years later I stopped in at the Redondo Beach Police Department to see if Danny was still around. He wasn't. I've forgotten about him until recently. He was an extra nice and quiet man who did his job well. I miss him all over again.
My name is Bruce Berns. If you worked at the Fox Redondo in the 50's or 60's I'd like to hear from you.

Speaking of bookstores in that area ... is Either/Or Books still there, near the Hermosa Pier?

Either/Or is long, long gone. Re/Style Two is now occupying the space. That was a great bookstore, though.

Bruce...Do you remember any live performances on the stage? And were you around when talk of the wrecking ball first started to emerge? Terrance

Terrance....Yes, I do! Beside Roy Gordon's weekly live entertainments there were other Saturday live distractions, most unadvertised.

My dad remembers Dan Ashcraft as one of the most level-headed officers he ever worked with. Dan retired about twenty years ago and moved to Fallbrook. His daughter Lisa was about the prettiest girl in my school.

Schrader....I'm glad I'm not alone remembering Danny, whether here when talking about the Fox Redondo,or anywhere. Thanks for telling me. What school? When was that? Where's Fallbrook?

She went to Hillcrest Junior High for certain, and she might also have gone to Redondo High. I think there may have been two daughters but Lisa's the one I remember. And Fallbrook is somewhere near San Diego. My dad calls it "Avocado Country."

I will trade authentic old Either/Or Bookstore bookmarks for posters or any other memorabilia people may have from the Fox.

Schrader....I do have several hundred posters and their stills from the 1960's. I sold zillions when I lived at my college dorm in '67, but I still have some great ones left, from Elvis to Disney. But I'm not interested in bookmarks or other memorabilia. Perhaps we could discuss some other goods or services to trade for them!

BrucieB: I would be interested in possibly purchasing certain Western one-sheets especially spaghetti westerns. Drop me a line: ehaselwood@hotmail.com

BrucieB: I was sort of kidding about the bookmarks anyway. The one poster you might have that I might be interested in is the one for DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE. Also--the night I saw NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD there was no poster outside, just some stills, and I saw the one where Duane Jones is helping Judith O'Day to put on her shoes. I thought they were in a shoe store and he was waiting on her. All through the movie I was thinking the people trapped in the house would get out eventually, because there was a scene coming up in a shoe store--and I remember the awful moment it dawned on me that they really weren't getting out at all . . . So that's a still I might be interested in later on. In the meantime I am enjoying your comments and only wish they could be gathered together in a book with lots of photographs. I told a friend a while back that if I could have two lives I would want one of them to be yours. I'd rather have grown up around a hotel and at the Fox than almost anywhere else.

In the 60's my dad gave me 75 cents to go to the Fox Redondo to see a movie and get popcorn and a coke!
Tricia

Tricia: 75 cents! Admission, popcorn and a Coke. And to think, you spent all that on high-profit items, too. Hold on, gang. Next thing in theaters may be pay toilets.

I noticed that some of us also enjoyed the Fox Palos Verdes.
I also worked there, and I wrote about some interesting times which I've posted on that page. I hope you'll come there and join in with your comments.

My Grandfather lived on Earnest Ave; my Grandmother farmed the area that was TRW. My father moved a house when the Hollywood freeway was being built. The house is still standing on Farrell Ave.

My father started little league baseball in Torrance, and the field was named Tibben/Texaco field. We have three generations that graduated from Redondo Union High School.

The old Fox was a beautiful place one where I got the crap scared out of me when the movie 'Cyclops" played. I think that is the correct spelling? When the old place came down it was a sad day for sure. I still have a piece of Blue/Purple marble that was part of the building. I was a surfer spending all of my time at Knoll Hill, Sapphire, and of course Hermosa Beach.

It is great to see so many people with such memories of the Fox. I was just showing some of my grandchildren the piece of the building I have and the story that goes along with it.

I went on the Internet to find some more information to show the kids when I came across this site.

Thanks it brings back nothing but good memories, that is except for the movie Cyclops!

Greetings

Tom

I really loved this theatre!! It was FOR-SURE a grand movie palace! I was only 11 when I saw the one and only movie there, it was: Soylent Green, I believe it was 1971. Was living in Lomita at that time. The same year Manwithnoname saw his first films there. There are so many posts for this GRAND movie palace!! I got to dive-in and get to reading, saw some VERY interesting posts!....Have a great weekend all!!

Sorry Manwithnoname, it was Moviemanforever, that saw his first movies at the Fox in 1971.

I also have many wonderful memories of the Redondo Fox. The Fox and the pier were our main forms of entertainment when I was very young (5-8). We would walk to the show from our house on Maria St, just off of Diamond Ave - past the High School. I remember the Sat matinee - and for 75 cents you'd get to see two movies, news clips, cartoons and more. On Saturday (I think) during intermission, the house lights would come on, a guy (manager I guess) would come out on-stage with a brand new bicycle. The lights would dim, the projectionist would hit him with a spot light and he'd pull a mirror out of his pocket and face it to the audience. An ocean of kids as I remember. He would direct that bright reflection all around the theatre many times finally stopping on some lucky kid - who would win the bike. What a wonderful memory - so vivid after 45 years. My Mom used to usher there around 1950 I guess. Her name then was Bertha Perry. My gramma (Freddy Perry), my great Aunt (Peggy Lamar) and my mom used to do some vaudville type stage work there also. I will have to get the photo's from my Mom and post them here. Thanks, looking forward to any comments - Thank You for bring these memories back. Chuck Shuey

BrucieB: Thanks for sharing your stories about the Fox Redondo. I am interested in possibly purchasing several one-sheets if you have any left. Please email me at randiwaddell@gmail.com thanks!!!

1937, courtesy of the UCLA Digital Collection:

http://digital.library.ucla.edu/sclee/servlet/SCLeeServlet?ITEMID=0021401&FULLSIZE=y

Thanks for the new picture, ken mc. It's a beauty!

I ran out of things to say about the Fox a while back, but I still visit this site now and then, and I was just thinking about the Fox this evening while I listened to my soundtrack CD of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (a movie I never actually saw at the Fox but which must have been great there).

Still hoping to see the lobby again someday.

I'm still using a Fox interior shot for my computer screen. Thanks again for another photo for the collection! Scott S.

No theater in this picture, unfortunately, but the older Redondo Beach denizens should recognize the area (courtesy of the LA Library):

http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics31/00050120.jpg

THANKS, for all the great photos! WOW. The street pic conjures memories of THE DAILY BREEZE, NEPTUNE DAYS & "DANCING WATERS", HAMPTON PLAYERS, THE PENNY ARCADE, THE SURPRISE STORE & LEE'S BAZAAR. And of course, riding my bike down the hill to THE FOX to see THE BIRDS. Up the street to the right, on the left side, I wowed the world with my magic tapping feet via MELVIN KAISER'S DANCE ACADEMY (1963!) Imagine how charming this area would be had it been preserved. San Pedro has learned by Redondo's mistakes. The WARNER GRAND is the centerpiece of downtown 6TH STREET. Check it out. http://warnergrand.org/ Regards, Terrance

From the LA Public Library:

http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater3/00015691.jpg

http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater3/00015692.jpg

http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater3/00015699.jpg

http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater3/00015698.jpg

Wow, I haven't seen those guys in color since I was 12! Thanks, ken mc.

Ditto! SOMEWHERE there are pictures of the lobby!

More color:

http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater3/00015700.jpg

http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater3/00015697.jpg

http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater3/00015685.jpg

http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater3/00015686.jpg

I'm late on this one. As I scrolled through these messages I found some familiar names from more than 30 years ago, Mr. (Harry) K, Ed Haselwood, Jewel but I never saw the name of Ed Blahay. To those unfamiliar, Ed was one of the last projectionists at the Fox Redondo before it closed down. Ed was also a relief projectionist at the Strand then later at the Fox PV Twin until that theatre closed in 1978. In the Fall of 1973 as the Fox was playing "A Touch of Class" and "Breezy", I was sent to the Fox PV by business agent George Farley to see if I was projectionist material. I was 21 years old then and working at a Pup N Taco for $1.45 an hour. Ed had me thread up a Century model 'G' which I had never seen before in my life. Up until then I had threaded up 16mm projectors in high school but never anything like this. Ed left me alone and went back to his easy chair he had in the booth. As I was threading the film I remembered then that the film path was basically the same in most projectors. When Ed checked what I did he told me that he must have had about ten guys thread that machine but I was the only one who got it right except that my loops were a little small but it will run. Since then we became good friends and he often talked about the Fox Redondo which I had seen from the outside on my bike and skateboard trips from Wilmington in the early 70's but never been inside. Today I saw the inside for the first time in pictures. Ed helped me get a Los Angeles city projectionist license in 1974 (yes we had to be licensed to run a booth in Los Angeles) as he was on the executive board of Local 150 and had friends such as Hal Goldstein who administered the license written and practical tests. Hmmmmm! Just days after the Fox Redondo closed, workers were removing the projection booth equipment and were throwing out boxes filled with old dater and intermission strips, and cross plugs for many Fox theatres such as the Loyola, La Mar, Westlake and Westcoast. There was even a few old movie trailers for "Straw Dogs", "Tropic of Cancer" and "The Man". Ed rescued a few those boxes out of the trash and kept them in the Fox PV booth until that theatre closed. The next day I was helping Ed move his things out of the booth and he came across those boxes which he gave to me. To see and hear those strips with the cinemotion effects and marine marching band style music brings back tears and a lot of memories. Ed also gave me 35mm merchants ads and a ladies show trailer from the early 60's that ran at the Fox PV.

Yes, Denny, old Ed Blahay was quite a character and a good fellow, indeed. As the manager of the Fox Redondo during the last two years of its existence, I had a close association with Ed and recall him fondly. Good-humored and never easily ruffled, Ed's signature form and habit was his cheap glasses and seemingly fixed-in-his-mouth ever present cigarette with an inch of ashes ever ready to drop... and dropping on Ed or anything under him at the time. It is my conviction to this day that Ed worked at the Redondo, not because he couldn't get a better gig elsewhere, (his senority and status in the union certainly permitted him to 'bump' himself into a newer house with far more up-to-date equipment than the Fox Redondo), but because he liked that old theatre...and me, and the fact that here he was sincerely 'needed'. And god knows, those old 30s projectors at the Redondo needed the caring and expert hands of an old pro like Ed.
Not that Ed ever made demands on me, but I made sure he was provided with a little extra in bonuses by finding him 'maintenance
projects' and such. This required considerable creativity on my part, since in those days our payroll budgets were strictly, even ruthlessly controlled from home office. Whenever my district manager called me on the 'overtime' pay for Ed, I explained that, well... everything in that projectionist booth was from the silent era (close, but not quite) and how lucky we were to have a super projectionist like Ed to keep the show going...and the profits coming in. (The Fox Redondo, believe it or not, was for most of the time I was there the most profitable theatre in District 4). But, of course, I continued in an oily tone of voice, if Mann Theatres would rather get us some newer or more modern equipment...well, 'overtime' and 'maintenance' time for Ed could be curtailed. This is where my district manager usually changed the subject or had another call to take.
The week we ran The Godfather was, needless to say, a very busy one and I never got a chance to see the movie. Not to worry, Ed arranged a private screening one afternoon for me and my wife. It was really strange to sit there in the balcony front row-center in that big theatre all by ourselves.
It is fact...possibly a shocking fact to some, that in those days the Fox Redondo was a bit of a doper's haven. (Some will claim, a lot of a doper's haven; vehemently denied by management, of course). One of Ed's chief complaints was that on some nights marijuana smoke emanating from the patrons in the upper balcony was sucked into the projectionist booth by the ventillation fans in the booth, providing Ed with a mild buzz. Ed was always good-natured about the problem, which was a vexing one for me to solve. As you know, Denny, due to the high amount of carbon monoxide produced by carbon-arc projectors, the exhaust fans in the booth must be opperating at all
times and air 'in' (and smoke) was through the open projection window...and under the door. We never solved the problem completely and Ed the good soul he was joked about it more than complained.
What wouldn't I give to have a photo of long-faced, bespectacled, ashes-all-over-his-cardigan Ed Blahay. Thanks for reviving those great memories for me, Denny. But then, the Fox Redondo seems to have that effect on most who came under its spell. To this day, I thank my lucky star or guardian angel for having been part of its history and legacy. Ole Frandsen, former and last manager

Ole, such nice memories of a good man and one of a kind person.

I remember one time going to the Fox with a boy-friend and having my first kiss. Does anyone have any pictures of the skating rink. I would like to know also when it closed. It had to be in the 60's as I remember having to go to the rink on Rosecrans, I belive it was in Gardena. M.E.

I am searching for the strand theather that was on the coner of catalina and torrance blvd. When did it close?

It's listed under the Strand Theater.

http://cinematreasures.org/theater/2262/

The Strand Theater closed on Sept. 30, 1987, at the time it was known as the Marina 3.

And before that it was known as the Surf.

I really just joined to share a comment with you all about the Fox Redondo. My Great Uncle's mother, "owned" that theater. Or possibly more correct (though I'd have to write the family for sure), she financially backed the building of it? And hence my parents viewed her as the owner. Her last name was Fitzgerald, her first name escapes me, maybe Barbara. I was just wondering if any of the long time managers at the theater might recognize this information. Because of her tie with the theater, our family was invited every 4th of July to go up to the roof and watch the fireworks. This was in the early 60s, and I must've only been 10 or so.

I remember seeing many a James Bond movies there, Endless Summer, Tora, Tora, Tora, Haley Mills films and many more. There was a time when it only cost 50 cents to get in, and we called it "The 50-center", then it went up to 75 cents, and it took forever to get used to saying that. Then, it got torn down some years later. Such a loss, and part of my personal family history gone.

Here is an expanded version of the photo at the top of the page, along with a few other LAPL photos which weren't posted previously:
http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater3/00015690.jpg
http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater3/00015694.jpg
http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater3/00015693.jpg
http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater3/00015689.jpg
http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater3/00015688.jpg

Thanks, ken mc! http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater3/0015693.jpg is the best picture I've seen so far of those two guys on the wall.

THANK YOU BRUCIE B.. My name is Joe Hall I saw my very first movie at the old Fox Redondo, I don't recall the title but I think it was a Disney movie about some young boys who somehow became bears, it was NOT animated. It could have been as early as 1960. My brother Jim is 11 yrs. older and he may well have known you. He went there often and worked at the pier for Big Gordie McRae way back in the day. My father James M. Hall was a prominent attorney who was sadly responsible for the urban renewal project.
Bruce you did what I always dreamed of doing, I knew that theater held many mysteries and you saw them all. I recall vividly that HUGE grate in the ceiling and to a kid we thought it weighed tons and we were always wondering when it would fall. The mice problem I remember well, oh btw the other smell from the ocean you mentioned was due to all the red tides the South Bay used to have back when the Monitor was still shipwrecked off of PV near the light house. Thanks to all who provided the great pics. I would have loved to have seen the old Vaudeville dressing rooms. I think Dive N' Surf also used to be located next to the theater before the Meistrells's moved to their present location. I also recall loving the balcony where we would sit a drop Milk Duds on the kids below. I also recall a William Castle movie called the Haunted House with Vincent Price and they hooked up a skeleton on a wired to "float" down above the seats. My brother recalled once that another Castle movie called "The Tingler" showed there and the seats were wired to shock the audience another Castle innovation to help scare the audience. There was a movie made with John Goodman about him as a film promoter who took the cheap films in his trunk and sold them to theaters for a cut. The theater in the movie reminded me of the old Fox but w/out the grandeur. I too remember the old Strand theater that got chopped into 3 small theaters with the one in the back around the corner showing adult films before it closed. It also looked like it used trampolines for screens and they were NOT friendly there. During those days I always went to the movies. The UA Torrance, Rolling Hills theater, Palos Verdes theaters, Hermosa's Bijou, occasionally San Pedro's grand palace The Grand.
Bruce what was that huge grate in the ceiling for anyway? What kept it from falling? Great times past.

I have some of my earliest memories at the FOX Redondo. My mother used to take us there, and I remember that I saw Walt Disney's "Blackbeard The Pirate" there, aslo "Swiss Family Robinson".

As a young teen, I can remember, also getting snuck into the back door, by either my brother, or a friend, so we could save the 75 cents for popcorn.

It was a very sad day for Redondo Beach when the FOX closed it's doors permanently.

I'll never forget that beautiful "Mermaid" mosaic that was over the front doors. Also, I recall there was a drive to save the mosaic, and last I heard it had been kept somewhere in storage, to be restored in some new location. Does anybody know what ever happened to it?

By the way, O.C.,

I remember the great 60's & 70's television personality, Tom Frandsen. Any relation of your's? Also, back in the early 70's I went to a church on Grant Ave. where Tom's son also attended.

Thanks a lot Big Mike

Here is a 1970 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/255p4o

Thanks, ken mc! 1970 is my favorite Fox Redondo year. But when I go to the page, I get a message that says "Page not found." Any idea what's wrong?

I deleted some recent entries on photobucket by mistake. Later on I will have to go back and reenter those. Give me a few days.

Here is a repost of the 1970 ad:
http://tinyurl.com/2xewej

Here are some items from the LA Times archive. The news articles are dated 1929, 1959 and 1979, respectively:
http://tinyurl.com/2m4aya
http://tinyurl.com/33ysdy
http://tinyurl.com/32k8vh
http://tinyurl.com/3cb7ks
http://tinyurl.com/33lucc
http://tinyurl.com/2nd85u

Thanks, ken mc! I hope Marl Protasel will visit this site someday. That DRACULA HAS RISEN.../FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED double feature was my first time seeing a horror movie in a theater. DRACULA HAS RISEN... was rated G for some reason, so my Dad took me to see it on a weekend afternoon. We only saw about eight minutes before I got too scared and we had to leave the theater. I've seen the scene that scared me since, and Dracula's being seductive in it and this barmaid he's about to bite is much aroused, but to me as a kid she seemed to be smiling from fright. Absolutely one of my top Fox Theater memories. Later I tried the double feature again, with my sister and a friend of hers, and when Dracula died at the end we were all teary-eyed with horror and compassion. FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED seemed kind of dull at the time, but I think it's the better movie now.

It's been most enjoyable reading everyone's comments on the Fox, a theatre I visited several times while living in Hermosa Beach between 1963 and 1971. I saw "Mary Poppins" there, and my parents saw some of the James Bond movies there along the same time. It was a fine place, and I also remember it well as a landmark as we took walks in the area or I rode my StingRay bicycle around.

My dad grew up in Manhattan Beach and went to Redondo Beach High School between 1948 and 1952. I'm sure he has memories of the Fox also, since he mentioned roller skating at a rink he says was nearby.

I have one of our pictures from 1970 which shows the Fox theatre, although it is not the best quality, at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bcgreeneiv/1835561344/

It was a sad thing, all the changes that happened in Redondo in the late 1960's thru 1971 when we left the area. I remember it seeming like every other old house could have been a stand-in for the Addam's Family house! Too bad I don't have more photos of that time!

Thanks, B. Greene, that picture's just beautiful.

DITTO! Are there any lobby photos out there? I saw the opening of THE BIRDS (1963) there. The PR was v. cool, with big crow cutouts swarming all around on the entrance's pavement outside. B. Greene...The water area in your photo used to be a gentle, paved incline. The Roller Rink was to the left of the photographer, facing that street. There was also a penny arcade.

Terrance,

The roller rink was where my dad met my mom, I think.. I don't remember anything but water being there, myself, but I heard from my dad about how it used to be in the 1940's and 1950's. It would be cool to see a picture taken from the same place before the harbor was there.
Bill

BG...There's some good photos here, incl the FOX. The theater was located to the left of THE PLUNGE photo. The rink was upstairs, and the penny arcade was on the same thoroughfare. http://www.redondo.org/in_the_city/history/pictures_online.asp

Wow, it's wonderful to see so much posted about this wonderful theater! My granmother lived ¼ mile above there, on Lucia Ave. My cousin, my brother & I took turns staying with her during the summers, and a trip to the Strand was always included. I saw the original run of "Forbidden Planet" and Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much," among many others, usually at the Saturday morning matinee. The pictures people have posted bring back many memories. I guess there are lots of us who loved the old place.

Dear Mr. Frandsen, As A former MGR for Fox West Coast/ National General and Mann Theatres,in the San Francisco Bay Area from the early 60's to mid 70's I can truly greive with you as to what Ted Mann did to the nations largest theatre chain. I truly believe he only bought it for real estate purposes only. He closed every theatre from San Francisco to San Jose (sold, I mean) so fast it would make your head spin! So many of the theatres he closed were making money head over heels, but he closed them anyway. It did not matter whether they were new or old, he closed them.If it had not been for him I would still be with that company and it is now 2008!!

Here is a 1938 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/2yn7zs

Wow! That's a beauty!

Hold That Co-ed was released in September of 1938.

If you look at some of the later photos, the ice cream shop later became headquarters for the Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce.

FYI... since 103 Diamond Street no longer exists, I've updated the address with the nearest existing street address. That way, people will be able to find the approximate location.

Do you believe in magic? Well, I believe theirs some kind of magic in this life. The other morning while watching a music video called The Story, which takes place in an old grand style movie theater, I started noticing similarities with the Fox Redondo. I thought wow, deja vu all over again; both had similar balconies, ornate ceilings, and those huge curtains. That thought left me with a curious fascination that felt as if I had been dipped into liquid memories. The memory of the Fox Redondo had been long gone and I found myself wanting to recall more about the Fox in Redondo where I spent much of my youth. So with a flick of the wrist and Google I found this web site. And like all of you who left your memories here I to possess some truly terrific times that took place in that majestic Fox.

I want to find out some details about the stairs going up to the balcony. I'm hoping those details will help me remember some of those precious memories. I remember the basic stories I have but not all the details. I should remember the little things like the stain on the carpet where I sat all the time in the balcony or how sticky the side of the armrest was or how someone scratched the side of that armrest with their fingernails down to the bare wood. I know I'm fishing for titbits like I use to fish for Bonitos in the breakwater but who knows what will surface in that head of mine if I read the correct words. I do however, remember the mark or little tear on the screen.

Does any one out there remember what the highest price for a ticket was before the price fell to 75 cents? Would any one remember how many stair treads there are going up to the balcony? I should know those things because I've been up those stairs enough times but I just can't remember right now. I do remember some odd little things I use to do from that time. Sometimes other than riding my bike I would walk from our house on 2nd street in Hermosa up to PCH, down past the King Harbor arch, the down to the Thrifty Drug store to buy a scoop of cherry vanilla and a balsa wood glider. On my way there I would count things like the cracks in the sidewalk, or my foot steps, out of state plates, or anything else that caught my attention, and yes the stair treads going up to the balcony. Well, with a little help I'm sure some of those details will come to mind to help write a short story or two.

As a kid and from about the early sixties tell the doors closed for the last time in the early seventies would be my memories of the Fox redondo. I think this is so unreal without a doubt, all this desire to write from a music video. How cool is that?

You know, all across our country on any given Friday or saturday night there are movies in the park or movies in the dark. I bet it wouldn't be too difficult to organize a small event like that. The event could take place right on the same spot the Fox Redondo stood. I went to Redondo High and finished in 72. Cruising was a big part of that time for me. We would all gather at Captain's Corner (parking lot by the salt-water pool). Now on a Friday in that same parking lot theirs Ruby's Dinner, they host a weekly car show with cars from the 30s to the early70s. Organizing a movie event with a car show seems like a no brainier to me. And I wouldn't be surprised to find a story there. Well, just an idea to think about.

I went back to Redondo, about eight months ago, after not having seen it for about 45 years. The things that have changed outnumer the things that are the same, but my Grandma's house, up the hill on Lucia Avenue, is still there, a different color now, but otherwise the same as I remembered. I missed the last days of the Fox, and of the Strand Theater too. It really is good to share some of the memories everyone has left here. Thanks to the people who run this website and to all you folks who remember the Fox as fondly as I do.

Schrader and BrucieB, I happened across your posting regarding Dan Ashcraft and his daughters. I happen to live down the street from them for a few years and dated Lisa while I was there. I thought Dan was an exceptional man and I was honored to know him at the time. Lisa and I traveled back and forth to my home town Lake Havasu City a few times and played around the beach are until i left the area. We have kept in touch on occasion and I believe she may still live in Westminster, CA. i believe Dan still lives in Fallbrook, CA near the golf coarse. While we haven’t spoken in a while I happened upon a mutual acquaintance and asked to pass my best regards on to the family. I can recall most all the theaters along the beach area as i was growing up there in the 60's before heading to Lake Havasu for a few years. I have fond memories of staring at the Dominator as it sat lifeless on the shore breaking up with every wave.

Schrader and BrucieB, I happened across your posting regarding Dan Ashcraft and his daughters. I happen to live down the street from them for a few years and dated Lisa while I was there. I thought Dan was an exceptional man and I was honored to know him at the time. Lisa and I traveled back and forth to my home town Lake Havasu City a few times and played around the beach are until i left the area. We have kept in touch on occasion and I believe she may still live in Westminster, CA. i believe Dan still lives in Fallbrook, CA near the golf coarse. While we haven’t spoken in a while I happened upon a mutual acquaintance and asked to pass my best regards on to the family. I can recall most all the theaters along the beach area as i was growing up there in the 60's before heading to Lake Havasu for a few years. I have fond memories of staring at the Dominator as it sat lifeless on the shore breaking up with every wave.

Thanks, Redondo Theater. I've passed the news about Dan on to my Dad; he always thought highly of the Ashcrafts.

Wow, what a site I just discovered. I too sat thru movies at the Fox in late 50's thru about '64. The last show I remember seeing there was "Mondo Cane" late '62 or early '63. I also remember Battle of the Bands across the street at the Library grounds, the Squires, Bel Airs and even a new act Sonny & Cher played there. About the Fox, I remember the Sat. matinee shows and "sailing popcorn boxes" at the stage. Also with my friends we loved to harass the "makeouts" from the balcony. We also had a way of "sneaking in" to the strand, one guy paid I think 50 cents, went upstairs and opened the fire escape door when the ushers were busy, we boosted each other up onto the exterior ladder and we were "In." I remember seeing "Journey to the Center of the Earth" there- 1959.
Redondo was an ideallic place to growup in the early 60's, the Pier fishing for Bonito like a previous post or from the Sacramento Barge, surfing Ainsworth, Saphire, C Street, Burnout and Haggerty's Cove. Remember King Harbor being constructed. The "Surprise Store", delivering the Daily Breeze, etc. I lived 1/2 block from RUHS on Juanita Street, the house is still there,unlike the Fox, The Strand, Central Elementary and our Little League field & recreation center which was located where the current Redondo Police station is. Does anyone remember the Canteen Dances?
Curious,
BillS

I was in Hansel and Gretel at the Hampton Players, Christmas 1962. Anyone remember that?