Miller's Theater

The address of Miller's Theatre was 842 S. Main Street. It was still in operation in 1924, when it and Miller's California Theatre up the block were both taken over by Loew's.

Miller's Theatre can be seen at the far right (with a sunburst decorating its marquee) in this c1917 photograph from the USC digital archives. An ad for the theatre can also be seen on the wall of the tall building at the center of the picture. Before the USC site did away with its zoom feature it was possible to get a closer view of the marquee and see that it advertised "Wm. Fox Photoplays".

By 1919, Miller's Theater was called Ray's Garden, for reasons unknown.

There was a story in the LA Times about a theater robbery on April 12, 1931. The Triangle Theater was located at 832 S. Main in downtown Los Angeles. As this would wedge the theater in between the California at 810 and Millers at 842, I'm thinking that this may be an aka for Millers.

Here's another USC photo dated 1917. You can see the sign pointing moviegoers to the theater:
http://tinyurl.com/2axnw3

Listed as the Roosevelt Theater in the 1939 city directory.

Here are some more city directory listings for this address. Does your source for Ray's Garden give the address? I'd like to add it to my list if the address is given. LAT=Los Angeles Times Article...other dates are from los angeles city directories.

Miller’s [1914 LAT, 1915, 1916, 1920, 1925]
Triangle [1930]

Rays was advertised at the 842 S. Main address.

Good...Is that from the LA Times?

You can move Ray's Garden up a year or back a year, I guess, to 1918:

Dec. 4, 1918
Ray's Garden Theater, formerly Miller's, does not belie its name. It is now as new and nice, as spick and span as the painter, the varnisher and the decorator can make it. Moreover, it is presenting, this week, an expurgated edition of a Theda Bara vamp story.

Here is an October 1915 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/2xf92d

The Family Stain with Frederick Perry and Dixie Compton was released in October of 1915.

Here is a July 1919 ad:
http://tinyurl.com/2y4bsr

Here is a 1923 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/2kuvzw

Blood and Sand with Rudolph Valentino and Rosa Rosanova was released in August of 1922.

Here's a program for Miller's Theater from January, 1925 here. The same program was also for the California Theatre in Los Angeles, plus on the flip side was a program for the Loew's State in Eureka, California. All three were owned by the same group.

The LA Times announced the sale of Miller's Theater on 7/12/24 to Loew's and Metro-Goldwyn Distributing. They asked Fred Miller to stay and manage the theater, but he declined and retired.

Why isn't Loew's included as an aka name above.

I'm not sure if it was called Loew's after they bought it. We know it was the Roosevelt by 1939.

How many theaters did Loew's own that didn't have the name Loew's on it.

I don't know. I will check the LA Times database to see if there any stories about Millers post-sale.

Here is a timeline:

7/27/24: Still Miller's
9/7/24: Still Miller's
December 1924: Miller's
March 1925: Miller's
March 1926: Miller's

After that Miller's is not mentioned. A search for Loew's turns up only references to the State on Broadway. No mention of the Roosevelt on Main between 1924 and 1939.

During the mid 20's Loew's was going to start operating more theatres in the West but that plan never was finished. So the only two Loew's houses operating in California were the Loew's State (Downtown Los Angeles) and the Loew's Warfield (San Francisco). Both theatres were operated under a partnership with Fox West Coast Theatres.

There is no Miller's or Roosevelt listed in the 1930 Film Daily. Maybe this theater had another name after 1926.

This June 1918 ad notes that Miller's is under the direction of Carl Ray's Amusement Enterprises. That may be where the Ray's Garden came from.
http://tinyurl.com/67fzs9

Something else that is interesting in that ad. 500 seats at ten cents each. The seat count of 211 above seems to be on the low side.

The rest of it says "A few at 20 cents, some at 30 cents", so probably somewhere between 500 and 600.

Exactly. This theater was larger than 211 seats. The theater organ list has two Miller theaters. One is the Miller's California Theater and the other is the Miller's aka Triangle Theater. Is the Triangle a different theater than this one?

The Triangel was listed at 832 S. Main. Many years later, in the 1960s, the Platt Music Store was advertised at that address. I think the Triangle was a separate theater.

Your right. The organ was installed in 1919 so it couldn't be this theater since this theater was advertised as Ray's Garden in 1919. I don't see the Miller's/Triangle Theater listed on here.

No, I never added it because I only saw one or two references. I also wasn't sure if it was an earlier incarnation of Miller's.

Miller’s [1914 LAT, 1915, 1916, 1920, 1925]
Triangle [1930]

From the city directory.

The way it is listed on the organ list, it would have been Miller's Theater in 1919 and Triangle at some later date. Probably 1930 as vokoban just posted.

I had my doubts if there were ever three theaters on S. Main between 8th and 9th, which would have been the case if you had Miller's at 842, Triangle at 832 and California at 810. Presumably Triangle refers to the intersection where Main, Spring and 9th meet in that geometric arrangement.

Funny that you should mention that intersection. Check
this link. Notice the year given of 1914. Matches the year that vokoban gave.

The 1929 L.A. City Directory has the Triangle Theatre listed at 842 S. Main. It's an aka. I suspect that the address of 832 S. Main in that 1931 Times article (cited in the third comment at top) was a reporter's typo.

If Fred Miller retired after selling this house to Loew's, he didn't stay retired for long. He built the Figueroa Theatre in 1925, and was connected in some way with the Carthay Circle between 1926 and 1929 (see my comment of May 28, 2007 on the Alhambra Theatre page.)

With regard to Miller's 1924 deal with Loew's, note that the January 10, 1925 Screen News flyer for the California and Miller's Theatres that silentfilm linked to on June 12, 2008, above, names Fox West Coast Theatres as the operator of the theaters.

The ca.1917 photo (panel two of a three-photo panorama) I linked to in the comment at the top of this page has been moved. For now it's right here. I'm thinking that, if the theater had more than 500 seats, then there must have been a long lobby under the hotel, and the auditorium was probably at right angles to it, behind the hotel. Look at this photo, which is the third panel in the panorama. There's no way that 500+ seats could have been squeezed into the ground floor of the hotel itself, what with the need for columns to support the floors above. The back building (with all the mushroom vents on the roof) looks to have been at least 50' by 100' and could have accommodated that many seats.

Here's a 1939 shot that shows this theatre as being the Roosevelt. Apparently the "Roosevelt" name had migrated down from another theatre located on the 200 block of S Main shortly before this shot was taken... and sometime in the coming decade the "Roosevelt" name would once again return to the 200 block.

http://digarc.usc.edu/assetserver/controller/view/search/DW-B5-52B-21-ISLA

You can see the California Theatre also in the picture on the left side behind the cleaners sign.

This is an LA Times item from April 1947:

Two events are announced by three Spanish-language theaters-the California, Mason and Roosevelt, for the next several weeks. Starting tomorrow the first showing in America of the beautiful Adriana Lamar in "Memorias de una Vampiresa" is scheduled.

For Mexico's Independence Day-Cinco de Mayo-May 5, Mexico's idol Jorge Negrete has been booked in "El Ahijado de la Muerte" (Death's Godchild).