Grand Theatre
2 N. Portage Street,
Westfield,
NY
14787
2 N. Portage Street,
Westfield,
NY
14787
4 people
favorited this theater
Showing 76 - 100 of 170 comments
Sorry Patsy, I have no photos of the Grand.
Richard G: And if you can be of any help, please email me!
WDG: The Westfield Memorial Hospital Foundation is selling the first in a series of Christmas ornaments and I have suggested to the WMHF chairman that next year’s ornament feature the Grand Theatre. They need a photo (doesn’t have to be an original) to give the artist. If you can help in this matter, please post here or email me at
WDG: Would also like to communicate with you about the Grand via email. I’ve been in touch with the present town historian and she would like to feature the former town theatre in a future column.
WSL: From your Feb. 28, 2005…“I took pictures that I would be glad to share with you.” I hope you see this post and can send me your collection of Grand photos especially one that shows the original front doors and some interior photos. I truly enjoyed reading about your Grand memories! The Westfield Memorial Hospital Foundation is selling the first in a series of Christmas ornaments and I have suggested to the WMHF chairman that next year’s ornament feature the Grand Theatre. They need a photo (doesn’t have to be an original) to give the artist. If you can help in this matter, please post here or email me at
David Stear: Might you have a photo of this theatre with its original doors and not the ones present when the theatre was demolished?
Do you have to be a member of Flickr to view photos that are found there? I cut and pasted the 6 photos and inserted them into personal emails to residents and former residents of Westfield.
Lost Memory: I don’t know if any interior photos exist, but if anyone can find some…you can! Let me know!
Lost Memory: Well….you certainly made my day with these 6 b/w photos though I must ask you where you found them. I’ve never seen any interior photos, but remember it as this was my childhood theatre for many years. I recently spoke to the current Mayor and told him that the Grand is the one building that I truly miss being in the town. Had I lived in the community when these photos were taken I would have stepped up “to the plate” and saved this theatre by organizing a Save the Grand campaign. It is truly missed by so many (including Mayor David Carr) in that western NYS community!
“Some of her Hollywood friends and co-stars included Rudy Vallee, Errol Flynn, Marilyn Monroe, Al Jolson, Mervyn LeRoy, Lana Turner, Mickey Rooney, Mary Pickford, Humphrey Bogart, Paul Muni, Jimmy Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Ann Sheridan, Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Claudette Colbert, Billie Burke, Rock Hudson, Boris Karloff, Jack Warner. and many more. She appeared in such classic films as Little Big Shot, A Dream Comes True, The Great OMalley, The Littlest Diplomat, Comet Over Broadway, The Little Princess, etc.” Please comment on some of these stars and how it was to work with them. I see that Clark Gable is listed! I know a man who worked with Rock Hudson and knew him personally. Also, which Warner brother is on the cover of your book, My Fifteen Minutes? Through my travels and interest in the Warner Brothers I have met Cass Warner. She was in New Castle PA for the Silent Film Festival at the time I spoke with her and had a picture taken. What a delightful lady.
What was Erroll Flynn like and did you ever meet and work with Clark Gable? When you mentioned Lana Turner I always think of the movie, Imitation of Life with Sandra Dee and when I think of Bogart I think of the movie, Casablanca….“Here’s lookin' at you kid”.
Sybil: Thank you again for your wonderful posts as I don’t think that we have many former stars visit CT and to think you have chosen to post on the Grand Theater/Westfield NY site due to my comments about the movie, The Great O'Malley. I grew up in that area of western NYS and have to pick that theater as “my” theater as it holds so many wonderful memories for me. God Bless and I do plan to order your autobiography.
Just a little addendum to my last post. If anyone of you are interested in my book may I suggest you get the autobiography FIRST. Its called MY 15 MINUTES and my newest book is a continuum of the autobiography. Perhaps after reading My15min. you will be prompted to read my newest one 5 MINUTES MORE. Blessings Sybil J.
May I just say that Shirley and I are very good friends to this day. What the adults did were separate issues to our friendship later on in our lives. Shirley and I have great respect for ,each other and although we have shared many things in our past, one thing we both could have done without is this. My adored husband of almost 58 years passed away on July 17th.2005 after a brave battle with lung cancer and not 11 days later Charlie Black also passed away. ( Shirley’s husband) We have commiserated on that unhappy event and although I have never felt “whole” since Tony ( Drake) passed away I realise that he is out of pain and is at last at peace and that, after all, is what we all want for our loved ones. Charles Black was an extremely nice man and both Shirley and I were two fortunate women who found their soul mates. May all of you be that fortunate.
Blessings to you and your loved ones. As ever Sybil Jason
Below is a Amazon.com review of Sybil’s book….My Fifteen Minutes.
How often now are you going to get to read the real skinny about the Golden Age of Hollywood from one who starred opposite AL JOLSON and has plenty to say about him! Sadly most of his real life co-stars have passed away long ago but the children who knew him still remember him. Little Sybil Jason was a British charmer who made sixteen movies for Warner Brothers and Fox way back when (in the 1930s) and her memoirs are outstanding!
You owe it to yourself to read her account of making her very first American movie LITTLE BIG SHOT (1935) with Glenda Farrell and Ward Bond! As she tells the story, Michael Curtiz set one of the scenes at a real life Hollywood orphanage and, in the interests of realism, recruited real orphans to mingle with the child actors. Thus did you know that little Marilyn Monroe can be glimpsed in LITTLE BIG SHOT a dozen years before her first “officially recognized role”? It’s just one of hundreds of startling facts you’ll find in this book.
Little Sybil had her favorites, and she’s not afraid to name names if someone hurt her back then. She has some beuatiful tributes to Jack Warner, Roddy McDowall, Peggy Ann Garner, Judy Garland, etc. She was there when, after starving herself all day, Judy was denied food at a Hollywood party by a MGM flunky who was assigned to take food out of her hands if she should try to eat something! No wonder Judy G. was troubled. Barbara Stanwyck comes off as self-absorbed, Errol Flynn as charming, even to children.
William Dieterle was the type of director a child feared, and Bogart thought of a way to punish him for his many cruelties! In this book Sybil Jason reveals that during a scene together Bogart unbuttoned his flies and hauled out his “equipment” while the cameras were rolling just to prevent William Dieterle from filming him when he was not ready. Poor Sybil, I think, saw an eyeful that day and she wasn’t even 10 years old.
That film footage would be interesting viewing today.
Shirley Temple’s mother ruined poor Sybil’s career, merely by telling Fox bosses that it was either Sybil or Shirley. After Sybil ran away with the notices for THE LITTLE PRINCESS and THE BLUE BIRD, Ma Temple made sure that Sybil never worked again!
Sybil was also very good playing Kay Francis' artistically inclined daughter in the superb James-Wong-Howe-lensed COMET OVER BROADWAY. She makes you laugh and makes you cry, often within a single frame.
Sybil: It’s rare when someone gets an opportunity to chat with a child movie star and can tell us through the pages of a book (or here) what it was like to work with and personally know such Hollywood names as Humphrey Bogart, Judy Garland, Lana Turner and Shirley Temple (everyone’s favorite child star)so I thank you for posting on CT and saying hello. Visit often!
Sybil: I just went on a discount book site, www.abebooks.com and found your book, My Fifteen Minutes. I will now look for Five Minutes More. Thanks for telling the CT members about these books as I’m sure many members would love to read them.
I just read about the cast of The Great O'Malley and plot. I see that you played Barbara “Babs” Phillips and Humphrey Bogart played John Phillips. “Officer O'Malley arrests John Phillips for a traffic violation and costs him a chance at a good job. Phillips has a wife and crippled child, so he commits robbery and O'Malley sends him to prison. After this O'Malley becomes closer to Phillips'family.”
wbkid2: It’s always exciting to find a post on this link and I thank you for yours, Sybil Jason! The marquee that I was referring to in my Dec. 11, ‘04 post was from the former Grand Theatre and not the one I remember from my childhood days.
Hello Patsy: I am brand new to Cinema Treasures and am enjoying it very much. Before I became a member I posted a message to you but I don’t think it was printed. It was rather long so I will try to repeat it here as best as I can. You mentioned quite some time ago ( Listed as December 11th 2004 about the Grand theatre) that you saw a photo advertising one of the WB movies that I starred in THE GREAT O'MALLEY on their marquee. How wonderful!!! I think if you are interested in rare photos you should read my autobiography which was rated best of 2005 and given a rave review by Leonard Maltin called MY FIFTEEN MINUTES. In fact he book became quite popular and is still selling very well but the readers also asked for another book by me. Voila…on October 1st FIVE MINUTES MORE became available and I am very happy to report at this early date it is also doing very well.There are my personal stories about ..to name just a few…. Judy Garland, Errol Flynn,Lana Turner,Humphrey Bogart,Al Jolson,Shirley Temple ( After I left Warners I portrayed BECKY in THE LITTLE PRINCESS and Angela Berlingot in THE BLUE BIRD) ad infinitum. I even have a chapter on the gentleman who was my bodyguard for a short while…the real Eliot Ness. There are over a hundred rare photos to go with the stories so I think if you are a movie buff of the Golden Era you will get a kick out of this.
Many Blessings to you and yours. Sybil Jason
WDG: Would love to hear from you again. My email is
I never visited Mrs. Mascaro and don’t know if she is still alive. I do know that the former theatre location where the Lincoln/Bedell statues stand is undergoing complete commemorative brick work. Though the statues were very well done there is not a time that I enter that intersection that I don’t wish the Grand Theatre were still with us. It’s demise was untimely because I feel if the theatre could have “hung on” a few more years either the historical society or private citizens such as myself would have launched a SAVE THE GRAND campaign! Unfortunately, I was not living in the area during demolition and therefore my efforts now are in vane.
Well, a year later I never heard back from Mrs. Mascaro but I do hope to pay her a visit since I didn’t meet her this past summer.
WDG: Happy New Year! I’ve just written and sent a letter to Mrs. Mascaro whose late husband, Bob was a former Grand theatre manager and I hope to meet with her this summer.
WDG: What a beautiful story and thank you so very much for sharing it with CT. BTW, did Tom T. work at the theatre during the time that this young man worked for the theatre so did he know him before his untimely passing?