Lucas Theater

DonLewis on March 15, 2009 at 11:37 pm

An old movie theater ad from 1949 for the Lucas Theater.

Joe Vogel on June 22, 2010 at 3:00 am

This house was the Encore after it was the Lucas. The earliest mention of the Lucas I’ve found in Boxoffice is in the classified section of the issue of August 17, 1946. The ad was placed by someone whose name appears to be Rey Lampkin (the scan is very blurry) who said that he had just sold the Lucas Theatre in Dallas and was looking to buy another theater, preferably in north Texas.

L. R. Robertson was apparently the buyer of the Lucas, as either L. R. Robertson or Mrs. L. R. Robertson are mentioned as operators of the Lucas in Boxoffice items in 1947 and 1948.

Then in 1949, the October 1 issue of Boxoffice reported that the Lucas Theatre had been sold to Alfred and Lester Sack. The October 22 issue said that the Lucas Theatre would close for remodeling, and would reopen as the Encore in November with a revival policy.

The most interesting item about the theater appears in Boxoffice of November 26, 1949, which said that the Sack brothers' Encore Theatre had opened on Thanksgiving Day, with Mrs. Ethel Garland, Judy Garland’s mother, as manager (the former Mrs. Gumm had apparently married her daughter’s career and taken its name.)

Perhaps Mrs. Garland was not a good manager, as Boxoffice of May 13, 1950, said that G. L. and J. W. Griffin had bought the Encore Theatre from Alfred Sack. I’ve been unable to trace the history of the theater beyond that. Perhaps the name was changed again and that’s why I can’t find any more mentions of it in Boxoffice.