Grand Theater
6177 Beach Boulevard,
Buena Park,
CA
90621
6177 Beach Boulevard,
Buena Park,
CA
90621
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Here is some more information on a previous post:
Long before the Pussycat controversy, the then named Valuskis Theatre was the scene of a much sadder episode. On May 19, 1951, a 10-year-old girl who attended the Saturday matinee went missing. Her body was discovered five days later in Live Oak Canyon in the Santa Ana Mountains. All of the evidence pointed to a 34-year-old serial child molester who was placed at the theatre that day. Witnesses say he was bothering other children. The killer was convicted after two trials and many delays of execution; he was executed in the San Quentin gas chamber in 1954. This case made nation-wide news and was covered extensively by television. Unfortunately it was after the fact that the Police Commission invited theater owners to get together to make plan on how to safeguard children at Saturday matinees or other occasions. (Local coverage and details of this story can be found in the Santa Ana Register, the Los Angeles Times and the Long Beach Press-Telegram from 1951-54.) Also the Orange County Public Library (ocpl.org) under “Historical Images Collection†has photos of Patty Jean Hull’s family, the police and the killer. Search for: Henry Ford McCracken.
Demolished; now a Ford dealership.
A couple photos of the Grand Theatre.
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1983 photo of the Pussycat Theatre.
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Here is part of an LA Times article dated 9/20/73:
BUENA PARK-The Pussycat Theater resumed showing sex films Wednesday night after vice officers made their 14th arrest and seizure of films there this year. The latest raid was launched Tuesday night during the showing of “Beyond the Commission’s Report on Obscenity and Pornography”.
Officers seized a print of the film, advertising posters and schedules of its showing. They also arrested the manager, Edward Lee Bailey, 28, of Los Angeles.
New book-length Pussycat Theatre history from the San Diego Reader:
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If the theater was shuttered in the early 90s then it must have been showing movies in the car lot that’s been there since the 80s.
There’s a cover article in today’s San Diego Reader, detailing the histories of all the downtown theaters once run by Vince Miranda, at one time co-owner of California’s Pussycat Theatre chain. This is one of the theaters chronicled in the piece, which is built from a series of email interviews with Cinema Treasures contribs Dan Whitehead and Tim David (David is Miranda’s godson). Unfortunately, the online version doesn’t have any of the great photos and graphics seen in the printed version – I wrote the piece and will probably put scans of the graphics on my own webpage before much longer, after the next issue comes out. Here’s a link to the article on the Reader site:
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This is our second major feature on southern CA theaters in about a year (the other, “Field Of Screens,” is just on San Diego drive-ins and can be found on the Reader site with the search bar). If anyone here likes the article(s) and would like to encourage the publisher to greenlight more, feel free to leave your thoughts about the piece in the comment section after article. The paper really pays attention to reader comments!
http://www.sdreader.com/ed/cover/
Here is a direct link to the article first posted by scottfavareille. It concerns a young girl that disappeared from this theater in May of 1951 and was later found dead.
Valuskis should be put in the aka line. Here is an article dated ¼/74 about the Pussycat Theater:
‘Red light’ suit hits porno movies
Claiming she has been “offended and outraged” by the operation of the Pussycat Theatre in Buena Park, Mrs. Donna Bagley decided Thursday it should be closed â€" and she filed suit under the state’s Red Light Abatement Act. Her action in Santa Ana Superior Court is the first under the Red Light Abatement Act to be brought by a private citizen, although Dist. Atty. Cecil Hicks has used it with some success against bars and restaurants featuring nude entertainment.
Mrs. Bagley, who lives at 5962 Stanton Ave., Buena Park, contended in her petition she has been “significantly offended, outraged and has suffered shame, embarrassment and emotional distress as a result of the public scandal caused by the continuous and daily presence, advertisement and public exhibition of patent hard-core pornography” at the Pussycat Theatre, 6177 Beach Blvd. She said the theater is close to the area where she resides and works and that it attracts “criminal elements, undesirables, deviates and dropouts” and lures “immoral persons” into the area.
Her suit against Pussycat Theatre also names Vincent Miranda of Hollywood, its operator; and Walnut Properties, Inc., believed to be the owners of the building which for years was Buena Park’s only theater. However, the theater was converted to X-rated films only a short time ago, and since then has had a running battle with Buena Park police who have seized dozens of prints of what they insisted were hard-core pornography. Their last raids shut down a highly advertised showing of the moneymaking “Deep Throat.”
Santa Ana Superior Court Judge Mark Soden set Jan. 21 as date for hearing arguments on an order to show cause why an injunction should not be issued against the theater. This is a civil proceeding, first drawn into law in California to cope with the notorious Barbary Coast in San Francisco. Its major penalty is closure of “places of assignation†and a court order to auction the assets of the places involved. The Orange County district attorney used the act in eight prosecutions. He won them all and most assets have already been sold from the various bars which were closed. This is the first against a theater.
TYPO ABOVE: of course I meant; Do a Google search on “Valuskis Theater” to find the cached page.
From the USC digital archives, a 1951 photograph of the Valuskis Theatre.
scottfavareille’s 2004 link to the interesting (if somewhat lurid) OC Weekly article about the 1951 kidnapping and murder related to this theatre no longer works, but if you want to read it it’s available from Google’s cache. Do a Google search on “Velaskis Theater” and the link to the cached article “Live Noir” will be among the handful of results.
I came across a record about two years ago in a local store by some obscure modern punk band that had a photo of The Pussycat on the cover. Unfortunately I didn’t buy it!
Hello from Colorado!
My God Father owned the Pussycat chain.I have been putting together a collection of ANYTHING Pussycat befor all is lost. I would really like to locate a Pussycat Marquee. You know, the oval w/ the Ms. pussycat and “It’s a Pussycat Theatre”. I would like to find photos of each theatre as well. I have only been able to find photos of the New View and the Tiki. If you have ANY info..even storys…please let me know.
Thanks!
Tim David
970.309.3991
This was once the Valuskis theater. In May, 1951, a young girl disappeared from this theater and was later found dead. A sex offender who lived down the street did it. See www.ocweekly.com/link/02/45/cover-callahan.php for more.
Apparently after this, business died until it became Pussycat.
The Pussycat chain largely disappeared after Miranda’s death. Large IRS back tax bills was a major factor.
Are any Pussycats still in operation or has the chain/name completely disappeared from the landscape?
Pussycat reportably operated 750 theaters. Ironically, I read an article called Empire of the Pussycat, which stated that the owner of the Pussycat (from the early 1970’s until its close, that was Vince Miranda) failed to copyright the name of Pussycat Theater outside of California. (CA had 47 theaters at its peak.) The Pussycat Theaters outside of CA were operated by different individuals and thus, because of not properly copyrighting the name, Miranda lost out on many millions of dollars.
Does anyone know how big Pussycat was, in it’s prime? We had a few of them in Manhattan but never in the outer boros as far as I know.
This theatre was located at 6177 Beach Boulevard and may have been called the Valuskis Theatre at one point. A long time ago on a Cinema Treasures board far far away, someone wrote: “manwithnoname > May 27, 2003 8:33 PM EDT
The theatre was demolished some years ago. Another reason for its demise was competition from the Studio Adult Theatre just down the street. Where the Pussycat was dirty and staff unfriendly, the Studio was just the opposite. It, too, has closed and is now a retail store. ”