Starlight Six Drive-In

Mikeoaklandpark on May 15, 2012 at 10:57 am

We were in Atlanta a few months backa nd the drive in marquee is amazing. I couldn’t see any of the screens from the street.

AndyCallahanMajorMajor on March 29, 2012 at 1:10 pm

Here are my pictures of the Starlight Six from March 2012. The drive-in appears to be in excellent condition and the marquee is stunning.

WHITEFIELD on April 17, 2011 at 12:28 pm

Here is a movie ad showing Thunder Road.
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lostmemory on September 1, 2009 at 5:30 pm

A recent night photo is here.

StanMalone on May 26, 2009 at 12:55 pm

Newspaper ad and write up on the feature opening August 5, 1964 on the South field:

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lostmemory on August 17, 2008 at 7:15 pm

Here is a 2008 night view.

lostmemory on November 30, 2007 at 6:04 pm

This is another photo of the Starlight Six Drive-In.

StanMalone on August 9, 2007 at 8:08 am

The Starlight has been proclaimed as Atlanta’s first drive in though that may be drawing a fine distinction as to just what constitutes a drive in. I have some old newspapers from the late 30’s that have ads for the Piedmont Auto Park. I have read that an auto park was a drive in with a few big speakers blasting the lot with sound, so perhaps the Starlight was the first in Atlanta with individual speakers. At any rate, the Starlight opened in 1949 as a single screen. The long driveway off of Moreland Avenue led to a double box office which was located in front of the managers house. Behind that was the field with the screen on the north end. About four years later, the success of this location led to the addition of a new field located in a ravine just to the north of the existing field. The new field was designated the North, and held about 750 cars. The old field became the South and held about 600. The location was marketed under the name Twin Starlight, and the newspaper ads would indicate which program was playing on which field.

When the North was added, two big improvements were incorporated into its design. The driveway from the box office to the field was routed so that the cars entered the field from the rear thus avoiding the problem of the headlights from the new arrivals shinning on the cars already parked on the lot. On the South, the cars entered in the left front corner of the field just as they do to this day. The second improvement was to split the projection booth off from the concession stand. In those days the booth was located near the front of the lot, and on the South, it was located in the same building as the snack bar. This meant that the snack bar was located on the third row and was, and still is, a big distraction to all of the cars parked behind it, which in those days amounted to about 80% of the spaces. On the new North field the booth was placed in its own building near the screen and the snack bar was located well to the rear of the lot.

I do not claim to know the entire history of this great place, but I can relate some of its major events. In 1956, the manager, Mr. Partee died and was replaced by the manager of the recently constructed South Expressway Drive In, Mr. Tom Pike. Mr. Partee’s widow, Sylvia, stayed with the company and managed the Bankhead Drive In until it closed in 1983. Mr. Pike managed the Starlight for 10 years, and these years and perhaps the next 8 or so were the true glory days of this period of Starlight history. Although downtown Atlanta can be seen from the South field, in those days a movie coming to the Starlight from the first run theatres downtown was like a fresh opening in a small town. The only real competition was the Euclid and the Little Five Points, about 5 miles up Moreland Avenue, and the Plaza and Hilan, about 2 miles further north. All area drive ins operated year round in those days, and any weekend, especially warm weather ones could be expected to bring in a full field of cars. The Starlight was certainly the king of all of the Georgia Theatre Company drive ins and was easily the equal of the Piedmont, Stewart Avenue, or Fulton Industrial Blvd. locations of the Dixie and Storey chains.

In 1967 Mr. Pike, a fine man who I would work for during most of the 70’s and 80’s, left the Starlight to manage the Lenox Square Theatre, the flagship of the GTC chain. He would later become the city manager and still later, General Manager of the company. His place was taken by his assistant manager, Mr. Roy Knowles who also had a 10 year run here. The Starlight was truly fortunate to have 20 solid years of such good management. During this time the upkeep and operation of the place was as good as anyone could ask for, and the appearance of the Starlight was the equal of any theatre in town. In 1973 things began to slip a little. The area around the theatre started going downhill, and the massive South Expressway Drive In was twinned. I well remember a managers meeting in the late summer of 1974 when the manager of the South Expressway brought in a paper titled “The King Is Dead.” On it was a listing of the identical programs that the South Expressway and Twin Starlight were playing and a listing of the grosses for each feature. The South had beaten the Starlight every night for each movie and in the concession stand as well. That was a big event at that time within the company.

In 1978, Mr. Knowles left to take over management of the South Expressway, and his place at the Starlight was taken by his assistant, Mr. Murphy. Everyone expected the good management streak to continue, but sadly Mr. Murphy died of a heart attack a year later. My knowledge of Starlight gets a little hazy here as I was not working for the company at this time and did not know any of the parade of managers who passed through for the next 5 years or so. The next big event occurred during the winter of 1982-83 when the snack bar on the South field caught on fire. Although heavily damaged, the building itself, unfortunately, did not burn down, making it possible to rebuild in the same poor location. Even worse, the decision was made at this time to triple the South field.

The best thing to do would have been to build a new two story snack bar / projection booth combo at the junction of the fields in their new layout. However, as with many such GTC projects, it was done “on the cheap” and the result was truly pathetic. A new projection booth was built in the center of the lot and new screens were added to the east and west so that the projectors would shoot out of the booth in a T shape. The snack bar was left in its original spot, far away from the new fields and still spoiling the view for most of what was left of the old field. Also, the new screens, which I was told came from closed down drive ins, are noticeably smaller than the original South screen and the cinemascope picture on both is badly cropped. Even worse, if possible, the ramps on the rear two thirds of the field were flattened, but the field itself, which slanted downhill towards the original screen, was left as is. So, not only are there no ramps, but when you park on the fields for the new screens, your car tilts to the left or right, depending on which way you are pointing. This situation was made even worse a few years later with the advent of the mini van and SUV. These models, which have become the official vehicle of the majority of Starlight customers, usually park with the rear towards the screen with the back gate open. This is not a problem on the part of the field that was untouched and serves the original screen, but on the flat fields for the new screens the open back doors of these cars can block the view of people sitting in small cars behind them. As for the booth itself, the two Simplex projectors from 1949 were combined with another Simplex from the bottomless pit of used GTC equipment to complete the new 3 projector set up. Having learned the hard way at the South Expressway that platters are not really suitable for a drive in, especially one with a one hour runback policy for the first show, double sided Cinemeccanica towers were used for the film feeding system. Although it is an aggravation to have to rewind, at least there is no such thing as a brain wrap anymore.

The only good thing to come out of this mess was the installation of radio sound which more than any single factor is responsible for the survival of whatever drive ins are left in America. The old speaker, hanging on a post was for decades the bane of discriminating customers and frustrated drive in managers. The sound quality was terrible although not too bad when considering the circumstances. For the manager, it was a never-ending struggle to replace missing speakers and to check those that were in place to make sure that they were working. I can remember when the old Northeast Expressway Drive In devoted half of the space in the base of the massive screen to speaker repair and storage. The broadcasting of a less than 1 watt AM signal from a transmitter in the booth allowed everyone on the field to pick up the sound for their respective screen. Later, the addition of a FM stereo signal allowed people to enjoy a sound limited only by the quality of their in car system. Since most cars today have better sound systems than any theatre, the drive in is truly the place to find the best sound in town.

With the reopening of the South field triple, the Starlight entered a short phase as a quad. The change in booking patterns for movies from single theatre exclusives to wide break first runs had really put a dent into the business of the neighborhood theatres since the new releases were now available to everyone citywide on opening day. By the time a movie got to the second run theatres, dollar houses, and drive ins, most people had seen them. The solution was the same as with the indoor theatres, get as many screens as possible. Within a year or so, the North field had been tripled as well.

Some improvements over the job done on the south were made. The screens were located in the back corners of the field so that the booth shoots out in a Y shape. This allowed the continued use of the ramps and though they do not really point towards the new screens the situation is still much better than having a flat field. The booth was left where it was and expanded to the absolute minimum space (and not one square inch more) necessary to hold the two new projectors and towers. In its new layout the field was divided at the front of the concession stand porch with everything to the front aimed at the original screen and everything to the back split between the new ones. The big problem here is that the projector beam from the booth to the new screens shoots over the heads, and in the face of, the people parked behind the booth who are watching the original screen. O well. Quality of presentation has never been a priority for any theatre twinning, tripling, or quading, that I have been involved in, indoor or out. Just get more screens any way you can. A new driveway was cut from the box office, straight down the hill to feed into the back of the field for the origonal screen. The old driveways which fed into the back of the lot now entered the new fields next to the screen, bringing back the problem of headlights from the new arrivals. The new screens as in the case of the south, used and much smaller th

In its new, and current, layout, the Starlight consists of 6 different fields. On the north lot are 1, 2, and 3 (the original North screen.) The south lot holds 4, 5 (the original South screen) and 6. The entrance and exit driveways are the same as when the place was built and continue to handle the load, but the driveways and exits from the fields themselves were not really designed to handle 6 different fields at once.

About the time of the dividing of the north field, another in the line of good managers, Mr. Ron Bacon, took over. I do not know, and would not try to explain if I did, the convoluted ownership setup at the Starlight. Put simply, it was a partnership of DeAnza, a California company, and Georgia Theatre Company, with GTC providing the management function. Georgia Theatre was a big operator of both drive ins and indoor theatres in the Atlanta area, and to the general public the Starlight was just another one of their locations. Mr. Bacon was the first manager, during my time at least, to come from DeAnza in California instead of being hired locally by GTC. With his arrival, the Starlight started another 10 or so good years of care.

In 1987, GTC sold out, in every way, to United Artists Theatres. After all of the lawyering that went into the transaction the Starlight emerged as an independent DeAnza owned property. Lucky for them since by 2000 UA had destroyed every GTC location included in the sale. The Starlight put an end to the one hour runback and started showing three full shows a night per screen, the prime show, the co-feature, and the prime show again. Occasionally, when a movie approaches 3 hours, only two shows are run, either the prime show twice or once each for the prime and co- feature. Also, the bookings are now entirely first run which allows the Starlight to compete with any theatre in town. Given time and the right circumstances, many depressed areas will rebound, and that is what is happening to the Moreland Avenue area at this time. That is good but hopefully it will not improve to the point that the 40 acre Starlight property becomes attractive to Home Depot, Wal-Mart, or any of the other big box drive in killers who now have stores sitting on once fine drive in sites in this town and across the country. Indeed, despite the great business that it is still doing to this day, the real reason that the Starlight survives at Atlanta’s only drive in is that the light industrial truck line dominated area it is located in is not attractive to developers. As it stands now, the Starlight is bordered on the north by a truck line, to the east by a construction landfill, and to the south by a cemetery, none of which are likely to complain about noise, light, or traffic pollution.

Sadly, I never worked at the Twin Starlight Drive In. Most of my work with Georgia Theatre Company was in indoor theatres. I did work briefly at the NE Expressway when it was a single, and at the South Expressway as a projectionist after it was tripled. I first worked at the Starlight shortly after the north field was tripled and have worked there many times over the years. It is not perfect, but the people are friendly, the ownership treats you well, and if you love drive ins it is the only show in town unless you are willing to drive to the Swan in Blue Ridge, the Tiger in Tiger, or over to Anniston Alabama. Although I have seen the place packed full in January, some years they close down the South field during the winter. But at least one field with three screens is open year round, and with the Atlanta weather, you can count on at least 8 good months of pleasant drive in viewing per year.

lostmemory on February 3, 2007 at 1:57 pm

Here is another photo of the Starlight Six Drive-In.

lostmemory on May 25, 2005 at 11:55 am

A 1950’s photo of the Starlight Drive-In when it was a Twin and a more recent photo can be seen here:
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RobertR on May 11, 2005 at 1:48 pm

Great web site, this is everything a drive-in should be !!!!!!!!!!