Majestic Theatre

The Film Daily of May 25, 1933, reported that the Majestic Theatre in Los Angeles had been closed and dismantled.

I just noticed this photo too!
http://tinyurl.com/37kysro

Here is a section of a 1909 map:
http://tinyurl.com/6gh5wk

Here is a May 1910 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/2zn3bg

The Majestic was also known as Hamburger’s Majestic, referring to the owner, not to anything available at the concession stand.

ken mc: the Woodley/Victory/Mission was demolished to make way for the fourth Orpheum Theatre.

The Woodley theater opened on 9/25/13. It was on Broadway between 8th and 9th. It’s not the Majestic or the Garrick. What other theaters do we have on that block?

I don’t know if this has been posted, but i just found it on the new UCLA digital archive website.

View link

Joe, I’ll try to find out a little more on the Mozart and put it on its page. Here’s the rest of that Beau Deep article. He also mentions the Mason Operahouse:

…And the time at the old Mason Operahouse, when Lucile (Mrs. Walter) Leimert{I wonder if this is the Leimert Park Leimert-vokoban}, being almost younger and more enthusiastic than she is now, if such a thing were possible, came perilously close to slapping a total stranger because he was being too funny at the expense of one of Lucile’s favorite opera stars (Mary Garden, if you must know.) In fact, legend says that she actually did slap him…I rather hope she did…And do you remember the especially elegant and grand theater party that the Billy Dunns of blessed memory gave, and at which for the first and only time in all their exemplary lives Docky and Mrs. Ernest Bryant were frightfully late? That created almost as much of a sensation in our young lives as the recent bank holiday.

Sorry, my fingers were tired…I spelled remembrance incorrectly above.

This is a long article but I’m going to include it because it has a lot of great history…1933 style:

MAJESTIC THEATER’S HEYDAY RECALLED ON EVE OF RAZING
Golden, glamourous heydays of the once-proud Majestic Theater down near Ninth and Broadway, now about to be razed to make way for a parking station, are being recalled by old-time Los Angeles theatergoers. Built in September, 1908, the Majestic housed during its quarter-century of life many of the famous actors and plays of yesterday and today. In its earlier days it was run as a theater of touring attractions under the Schubert management. To it came William Faversham and Julie Opp in “The Fawn,” Mrs. Leslie Carter in “Two Women,” Florence Reed in “The Deep Purple;” to it came opera and dance spectacles, Gertrude Hoffman and her troupe in “Sumurun,” Mimi Aguglia in Italian repertoire and many others. Henry Savage’s production of the opera, “The Girl of the Golden West,” by Puccini, was given there. In this theater Ramon Novarro began his theatrical career-as an usher. Ramon still treasures two theater stubs given him by Charlie Chaplin. Later he was given bits, after that helped with stage management. Its golden era as a home of Los Angeles theater began shortly after the war. In the spring of 1919 the Wilkes brothers took it over and formed a stock company in which were Lewis Stone, Florence Oakley and David Hartford. In August of that year, having had little luck, the brothers turned the showhouse over to their sister, Wilhelmina Wilkes, who assembled a company which had Dickson Morgan as its stage manager. In this group were Edward Everett Horton, Evelyn Varden, Marie Curtis, Sara Sothern. The first play of this group to run more than two weeks was “The Willow Tree,” the second Oscar Wilde’s “The Ideal Husband.” Then came such plays as “The Nervous Wreck,” with Horton: “The Rear Car,” starring Franklin Pangborn; “The Fool,” by Channing Pollock. All three of these, successes later in the East, were started at the Majestic. Mary Newcomb became leading woman. Horton played “Clarence,” “Outward Bound” and “Beggar on Horseback.” And with Miss Newcomb became a theatrical idol of the town. Wilhelmina Wilkes died. Dickson Morgan, whose first production was “Oh, Boy,” a musical, went on as producer of plays. There were productions such as “Anna Christie,” with Pauline Lord; Shaw’s “Man and Superman,” with John Davidson featured, and Barrie’s “The Professor’s Love Story,” with Horton. Davidson substituted as leading man of the company one summer, while Horton was away on a vacation. Later days of the Majestic Theater found the Macloons presenting “The Desert Song,” “Hit the Deck” and “New Moon;” saw Eddie Horton come back from the Vine-street Theater and present “Serena Blandish” and “The Swan,” which gave Ralph Forbes great prestige. And during the last year or two-pictures and burlesque. Now it is to be razed.

From 1926 until 1932, the news is mostly about live shows at the Majestic with a few movies. Then it starts to get a little seedy. I guess this one is before myspace existed:

(June 15, 1932)
MORE LIGHT THROWN ON KIDNAP TALE
Questioning a taxi driver who drove the girl and her supposed abductor away and a companion of the mother and sister, police yesterday expressed the belief that Miss June McLaughlin, 16-year-old dancer known professionally as June DeVon, may have consented in her disappearance from in front of the Majestic Theater last Sunday night. The mother, Mrs. Louise McLaughlin, and sister Violet McLaughlin of 836 Sanborn avenue, originally reported to police that the dancer was forced by a former sailor admirer to accompany him. They declared, according to their report, that the so-called abduction took place immediately after they met the girl at the theater and after she told them the sailor had caused a disturbance which resulted in the loss of her position.

In the magazine section of the Feb. 19, 2006 Los Angeles Times (West; “The Most Fiendish Face in Movies”; p. 25), there is an article about the famous silent screen actor Lon Chaney, Sr.

Chaney Sr. had married a 16-year-old singer, Cleva Creighton, while touring in musical comedies. It was, however, a tough life and the marriage was apparently souring. The following paragraph is from yesterday’s article where the Majestic Theater comes in:

“The marriage became troubled, but no one expected what happened next. On April 30, 1913, during Chaney’s performance at the Majestic Theater in downtown Los Angeles, Cleva went into the wings and attempted suicide by swalling a vial of bichloride of mercury. She lived, but was never able to sing again.

“In a bout of fury, Chaney cut Cleva out of his life. He more than divorced her—he never saw or spoke of her again, left her all of $1 in his will and told their son [Lon, Jr.] that Cleva had not survived the poison. (Lon Jr. would not find out the truth until after his father died.) The actor then married a chorus girl named Hazel Hastings, herself divorced from a legless man who ran a San Francisco cigar counter and eventually let it be believed that she was Lon Jr.’s mother In the insular world of traveling theater, however, Cleva had caused enough of a scandal to make employment difficult for her former husband, which likely led to Chaney’s (Sr.) decision to try his hand at the movies.”

I’m surprised no one else in Los Angeles picked up on this story but me.

Gerry Curran