Empress Theatre
6226 S. Halsted Street,
Chicago,
IL
60621
6226 S. Halsted Street,
Chicago,
IL
60621
2 people
favorited this theater
The Empress opened in 1913, located in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago, one of a handful of theaters in the South Halsted Street and 63rd Street business district, including the Englewood, National (Ace) and Stratford Theatres. The architect was J.E.O. Pridmore.
Originally a legitimate theater, it later turned to vaudeville and finally switched over to movies by the 20s, and it would remain a movie house until closing in the 70s.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft, Ray Martinez
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Recent comments (view all 19 comments)
GerryC, in response to your 9/13/07 email, the Avenue Theatre was the original name of the Ace Theatre (which was also known as the National).
I wonder if the Empress Theater was originally owned by the Sullivan and Considine nation burleskque chain, as all of their theaters were named Empress across the country.
To Bryan Krefft:
You are correct. I researched it a little more and found that this theater’s first name was the Avenue Theater. (See my posting for today, November 28, 2007.) I should have seen it wasn’t the Empress just by the address: the Empress was on the west side of Halsted Street with an even-numbered address, while the Avenue had an odd-number address.
From a website I ran into by chance, there is mention of a rather prominent painter (for the time) commissioned to do murals at the Empress Theatre. His name was Edgar Payne. The website address is:
http://rattlesnakecanyon.org/bio/edgarpayne.lasso
It’s worth a look.
(I don’t remember seeing any murals at the Empress but I was a kid who kept his eye on the screen, not the walls.)
In the ads from the 1930 Southtown Economist, the Empress advertised their Thursday night boxing matches in addition to their regularly-scheduled burlesque shows.
Don’t know quite what to make of this one:
From the front page of the January 30, 1911 edition of the Englewood Economist (precursor to the Southtown Economist),there are three short blurbs regarding upcoming acts at local theaters. They list three: the Linden, the Marlowe (63d/Stewart), and the Empress. The first graf reads:
“The master ventriloquist, "Trovello,” is bringing to the Empress (formerly Trevett) theater next week a spectacular scenic ventriloquist novelty entitled “The Little Chauffer at the Boston Road Inn,” which will eclipse any production of this kind ever seen in vaudeville… . “ It then further describes Trovello.
My question is: What was this Trevett (theater) that was around two years before the Empress opened?
There is also a news brief of the same newspaper but from June 1907 that headlines: “Vaudette Still Open” Under that, in parentheses it reads: “Sixty-third street near Halsted)” It goes to describe the bill at the theater. Never heard of this one either. Anybody? Bryan? I’m very curious. If I find out anything else, I’ll post it.
The address is inconsistent. Besides the various street numbers provided above, the 1960 yellow pages listed the Empress at 6228 S. Halsted.
Here is a March 1923 ad from the Suburbanite Economist:
http://tinyurl.com/ofc22h
The ad is Page 5 from the Friday, March 9, 1923 edition of the Englewood Times, a forerunner to the Southtown Economist. Also on that page you would have seen the columns that were written for the Englewood Theater and the Empress Theatre. In the column on the former you’d have seen a notice about the upcoming vaudeville bill. It would’ve included a mention of the comedy team of Billy Frawley and his wife Edna Louise. Billy Frawley would later become known as character actor William Frawley, who played Fred Mertz on the I Love Lucy show some 30 years later.
A 1919 postcard view of the Empress Theater can be seen here.