Regency Mall Cinema I-II-III

Dave Poland was definitely not my favorite division manager…but that was a long time ago. You had asked me earlier what it was about Al Hernandez that made me and Barry put him on our “Hero Pedestal”…well, he just acted cool, and we were at the age when we thought it was real important to also be cool. He was a Doorman,and walked around cool, tore tickets cool, emptied trash cool…what a couple of dorks we were! Anyway, we stopped thinking Al was cool when we noticed how UN-cool he smelled!!! (Your stinky coat comment reminded me about that!) I figured good personal hygiene is a must for someone to be cool, right? Mike, how does someone go about checking out that coming attraction tag and looking at all those pictures you’ve put on? Speaking of those coming attractions, I remember when GCC had a Christmas sales promotion for the management that was one of the easiest things I’ve ever sold! Can’t remember the name of it, but it was essentially a 20-second “still picture” ad that a business could buy and it’d be placed on a screen, shown in a loop between shows. We presented it to the business by telling them that they’d have a “captured audience”, it’d reach hundreds/over a thousand people a day. AND…that’s not all folks…AND, they also would get something like 250 2-for-1 movie passes that they can use however they’d like for a promotion! I think of those whenever I go see a movie now..and watch all those commercials before the coming attractions!

While we’re talking Rocky Horror, I remember how the theater would be TRASHED after the show! We had to pay the janitors extra to get it cleaned up in time for the next day’s shows, and that was no easy feat! GCC had those seats where you could seperate the bottom cushion from the tray it fit into, but the janitors couldn’t take that much time to do that, so we had rice tinkling and shaking around in the seats whenever customers went to sit down or get up! The RHPS freaks would also throw stuff and spray water at the screen, which almost ruined a couple of spots on them. For you guys who don’t know much about Augusta, this theater was right down the street from a military post, Fort Gordon. It was the spot where most new guys in the Army would come right after boot camp…so, they were still pretty immature and liked to play, IMO. Anyway, some of those guys would really get in to RHPS, and they’d come in wearing water-filled backpacks, with battery-operated machine guy style squirt guns, and they’d have walkie-talkie headsets! They ended up helping out our 2 security guards that would patrol the theater during the movie…helping to spot the trouble-makers! The crowds would always ask me to come in and watch with them, but I told them “No way!” because I didn’t want to get my nice polyester jacket messed up!

Speaking of being up on the roof and Rocky Horror, I remember Zack making me go check the back of the Rocky Horror line (this is when we’d snake it outside after the mall was closed, and before the last regular show got out) to make sure that people who wanted to see another show wouldn’t be stuck, by mistake, in the wrong line. Anyway, the crowd knew who I was and gave me a hard time, and eventually they started squirting me with their water guns! I told them to stop or they’d “regret it”! Well, that just egged them on and they pelted me good! After running back inside, I went upstairs, grabbed one of those old water fire extinguishers, climbed thru the hatch up on to the roof, and went to the edge that overlooked…yup…overlooked the Rocky Horror freaks! I yelled “Hey! I told you not to mess with me!”, and then proceeded to rain streams of water on them! Man, looking back on that, I was lucky not to get fired and lucky that they were all pretty good natured about it! Course, in about 30 minutes, they were going to squirt each other anyway, right?

Speaking of Pizza Hut, I remember how Zacker made a trade-out deal with the manager of the Pizza Hut across the street from the mall. After the regular shows on the weekend (before Midnight Shows), we’d sometimes take a good-sized group over there and eat a TON of pizza and drink beer..it was alot of fun! I think Zack got the better end of the deal because he’d take several pizzas home to his family in exchange for the P.H. manager walking in to the theater…and the guy would still have to buy his own popcorn and coke!! Saw a picture earlier on here of the marquee. Regency had 2 along the road, both by highways. From what I remember, we had to use 2 ladders to get up there…one to go from the ground to the platform, and then a shorter one to use from the platform to the Cinema 1 portion of the marquee. Man, it got HIGH off the ground up there!! I hated doing the marquee because you had to sit there and figure out what letters you needed to get, and figure in the letters that were already being used up there, and then load all those letters in plastic bags, and then get your arms and hands all cut up because these letters had metal prongs on the back of them that affixed them to the signs! Aaaaaargggggh!! And then, once you’re up there, you then realize that you forgot 1 stinking letter, and had to go back and get it!! Yeah, sometimes the sign went up without that letter…just blamed it on the wind! Mike, you had mentioned Barry working at the theater. I remember when we were showing Star Trek, we’d get into the mall’s elevator and Barry would ALWAYS order “Bridge” (in his best deadpan Capt Kirk voice) to the elevator “computer”, as the doors closed! I also remember Barry and I, when we were ushers, putting one of the Doorman, named Al Hernandez, up on some sort of pedestal because we just thought he was the coolest guy. Well, he wasn’t at all, it turned out. I remember going in to Zacker’s office one day to get my paycheck, and after handing it to me and me just taking it without saying a word (thought I was being cool, like Al!), Zacker just lit into me!!! I’ll never forget it…he told me that I had changed for the worst and I was going down the wrong road. He yelled for quite awhile, me not saying a word. It hit me that he was right. For whatever reason, I truly believe that Zacker changed my life that afternoon, or the way I was going anyway. And I truly believe it was because he cared for me, like a son. Zack was a great man, a great boss. He was so intuitive about the theater business. He knew how to make money in the theater business, how to treat his employees, how to interact with the public. And he was a kid at heart! I remember one time, he was actually wrestling with me and Barry…Zack was a HUGE man! I escaped his office and ran into Cinema 1, taking a seat, thinking that I was free! Nope. Here comes Zacker down the aisle, and with a small weekday afternoon crowd in the theater, he bends down and says “I need a word with you.”, proceeds to pull me up out of my seat by my hair and lead me up the aisle and back upstairs to his office!! If he had been about a foot shorter and 100 pounds lighter, I think I would’ve kicked his butt for that one!!

Movie promotions! Man, that brought back a bunch of memories! Remember when we did “Sharkey’s Machine”, and we had 3 of the local models that had appeared in the movie with Burt Reynolds come up on opening night? April Reid was one of them…she was gorgeous, but kind of psycho, telling us she “LOVED Burt”, and meant it! “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and all I can remember (thanks for the memory jog, Mike) was when that one blonde concession girl wore that skimpy little “whore” outfit! WOW! I remember the loooooooong lines we had for Schwarzanegger (sp?) movie “Commando”, and I would go up and down the waiting lines giving away the military-type promo nametags if anyone could spell Arnold’s last name. “Empire Strikes Back” (when I first got hired) and I would dress up like Darth Vader, and get kicked by umpteen little brats out in the mall! I really wanted to smack them upside the head with the Force!! I remember doing a promo myself (when I was an asst) for Stallone’s movie “Cobra”, and I got a fake/stuffed cobra that someone had in a “strike” position. I entered the promotion in a contest and won! I lied and said that the cobra was “trained” to make that pose whenever the handler got it to, and of course the only picture I sent along with the entry was the cobra striking! Glad the division manager never learned the truth about that one! On Mother’s Day, we would give out free carnations to the moms, and also a free little apple pie that we traded-out with a local taco restaurant. Don’t remember the movie, but one of the prizes that we had on display was a nice 10-speed bike. I’d ride that bike everynight to the inside bank that was on the opposite side of the mall! Better than walking!! Mike, you mentioned Dixie Dooley doing magic tricks for some midnight shows….well, remember when Dixie would put up a display of some magic trick he was going to perform the following midnight show, and we’d have all week to check it out and figure out how he did it? Yeah…I guess I had a better time working at the theater than I had thought! LOL!

Russell,It was Pepsi at GCC,the only downer working for them.

Russell,I certainly Hooked up with one.I MARRIED HER.What was i thinking.Did get four beautiful GGC by-products{KIDS}.I am sending some pictures down to a friend to put on CT.One is SHERRY in her underwear promotion on"BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE".

Mike, I spent many, many, many hours poppping popcorn up in that little closet of a room upstairs! I loved it! Give me a big old cup of coke, and all the popcorn I could shovel into my mouth, listening to the radio, and I was a happy guy! Spent a couple of years as an usher and doorman, before working my way up to chief-of-staff and then asst. mgr, well, and then years later became the manager. Funny how we all remember the good times, but seem to forget all the bad times there. I guess that’s a good thing, huh? Remember how we’d have our favorite concession girl or cashier to work with? I had a strict policy of hiring the prettiest girls we could…I guess that was to help us get over working those long hours. If I had to work, it might as well be while being surrounded by a bunch of pretty girls! I can honestly say that I NEVER hooked up with any of them though, not while they worked there anyway. Mike, I promise that I’ll try to be on here more often with some old memories.

We did the Will Rogers fund at our theatres also,I never liked it too,good thing it only happened about once a year.

Tommy Capers and projectionist Chuck Dray pose with Mike Rogers in front poster display cases at bottom of stairs near entrance in 1987:
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“JASON’S LYRIC” rated R is playing date and date at Masters 7.

One of the biggest bombs ever, “THE LEGEND OF THE LONE RANGER” opens 05-20-81 here.Rated PG,but no one came.

Hoping Robin will print the picture I had of the Box office.