UNITED Theater on Broadway
929 S. Broadway,
Los Angeles,
CA
90015
929 S. Broadway,
Los Angeles,
CA
90015
44 people
favorited this theater
Showing 151 - 175 of 179 comments
A remarkable, dizzying view of the UA vertical sign from far up in the building:
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The removal of the mezzanine seems like quite a radical move for basic widescreen adaptation. Anamorphic processes like CinemaScope would not have required so much (vandalistic!) remodeling. Perhaps this has already been discussed, but I wonder, is there a possibility that there was an attempt to fit the house for Cinerama? That would entail quite a bit of alteration. Grauman’s Chinese across town has a very low level projection room. And S.L. ‘Roxy’ Rothafel had a tendency to have the projection rooms on the ground floor in his theatres. Even the mammoth Roxy in NYC had its projectors at mid-level.
And yes, I agree, the UA is nothing short of a triumph! There is something truly awesome about it, and maybe just a little bit of a forbidding quality, which only adds to the mystique. The facade looks like something out of ‘Citzen Kane’ – from Xanadu itself! It is an (undiscovered) national treasure. And to think that it still stands!
I totally agree with that!!
This is a house that, sadly, doesn’t seem to have a lot of “documentary evidence” that’s in the public domain. Virtually all of the pics at Reverend Gene’s site are meaningless because of the absence of context.
Seriously, I have a better idea of what the RKO Hillstreet looked like than the U.A.!
And, by the way, for what it’s worth, I think the Los Angeles United Artists surpasses the design of either the Chicago or Detroit venue of the same name and architect.
I assume the original projection box was in the normal postion in the rear of the balcony. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos looking back from the stage and can’t remember if I saw any portholes in the back wall of the balcony on my last visit there.
That is VERY interesting information, and the first I heard of it.
I found this pic on Dr. Gene’s website, which seems to illustrate what you describe.
http://www.drgenescott.org/CAT92.htm
Where was the projection booth located originally?
stevebob; When a new wide-screen process was installed in the 1950’s, the new screen was installed forward of the proscenium. Although little damage was done to the proscenium arch, the mezzanine balcony was totally removed to accomodate a new projection booth at the rear of the stalls which gave a straight throw onto the screen.
As far as I am aware, another theatre on Broadway that had two balconies is the Arcade Theatre (former Pantages).
I thought that the only theaters on Broadway that had two balconies were the Palace and the Los Angeles. (Just to be clear, I am referring to separate shelf balconies — NOT a single shelf that is divided into sections.)
In this beautiful picture of the auditorium’s side wall, it seems unmistakable that there is a separate balcony, or perhaps at least a shallower mezzanine level, under the main balcony.
http://www.forgottendetroit.com/uat/la-2.html
Can anyone confirm or deny? (And if it’s not what it looks like, what is it?)
A William Reagh photo:
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CALLING ALL THEATRE / MOVIE ENTHUSIASTS!!!
T'he Los Angeles Theatre' on South Broadway, LA is playing host to the UK television show ‘Dead Famous LIVE’. We are currently looking for people who would like to come along as part of the studio audience.
‘Dead Famous LIVE’ is a studio entertainment show all about Hollywood History and the paranormal. We will be welcoming celebrity guests on to the show and investigating famous locations around Hollywood which are rumoured to be haunted including the Los Angeles Theatre itself.
This is an invaluable chance to get access to the Los Angeles Theatre, the place where Charlie Chaplin’s ‘City Lights’ premiered in 1931 and to have a thoroughly great day out! (And its free!!)
We’re transmitting ‘Live’ back to the United Kingdom so expect it to be exciting and fun!
We will be filming on three days from 11th – 13th November between 11.30am – 4pm. If you are interested in coming on one or all of these days then email me for tickets!
.uk
I look forward to your responses!
Don’t think this one has been posted yet:
http://www.gmrnet.com/graphics/theatr1f.jpg
Also from the LA Conservancy tour in 2001: Pickford was very involved in the design, like, micromanaging the whole thing. The Spanish Gothic style was inspired by her obsession with European castles. High up on the side walls of the auditorium are two huge, dramatic, psychosexual murals by Anthony Heinsbergen, featuring Mary Pickford as a naked angel in chains, threatened by devils with the recognizable faces of evil studio executives on the left, rescued by Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin and other UA figures on flying-horseback to the right. To say these murals are self-aggrandizing is a wild understatement. And the lobby, which looks impossibly lavish, is full of architectural trickery. Most of the materials here are also clever fakes. The marble is painted plaster. The woodwork is shaped and painted plaster. It’s a regular encyclopedia of cheap architectural illusions. According to the docent the original lobby carpet was woven to include stained-glass shadow patterns â€" fake shadows. Pickford loved to point these things out because she knew you could let people in on the joke, and the joke would somehow still work. You know, just like Gene Scott.
glovedude, your adventures with the UA are wonderful – the stuff of dreams. Sort of reminds me when I worked at the late Music Hall in Seattle. The backer of the Vegas-style stage show which we worked defaulted, so we, the crew, ‘held’ the Music Hall for a couple days, hoping to get our pay (we never did get it), but there wasn’t one corner in that place we didn’t explore during that time. And we thought we already knew the place! At least the great UA is still standing. Post-Gene Scott, a renaissance of sorts still might occur there. Where’s Sid Grauman when we need him?
PS: what’s the ‘Harry Edwards’ script about? Any good?
Say, the script that I found had extensive notes on the last three pages which are signed , “Mack” or “Mick”, and some more writing on the back page signed “Harry Edwards” and someone named “Edendale” or “Edindele”. I wonder if this had anyhting to do with United Artists.
Dudes, that young thing was Gene Scotts wife??? Holy crap, I thought it was his daughter!!! Man, she has a really terrible singing voice! Yikes! You’d think the church would hire someone to punch up her vocals, or least equalize it or add some reverb or something. Man…its painful to watch.
We also used to project movies on to walls of the surrounding buildings with one of our 16mm projectors. That was a gas, watching movies on the 12th floor wall across the parking lot. Has anyone seen the gargoyles on the building?? Many of them are movie oriented. There are several characters from drama and literature, Dickens, I believe, and several gargoyles are seen cranking the old style box movie cameras. Everyone that came to visit me was reaaly blown away by those details. Right before Gene Scot came on the scene, several of the business owners( most of them were garment industry cutters , fashion designers, filmmakers and artists), banded together and tried to obtain the masterlease, myself included,but to no avail, it was a done deal. Religion trumps creativity and art once again. Too bad. I had envisioned a colony of filmmakers and animators there.I think Charlie, Douglas and Mary would have liked that.
Needleman Enterprises owned the masterlease but relinquished it in 1999 for private reasons( I suppose because they also owned the California and Orpheum theatres, along with several other properties downtown). Metropolitan then sold the masterlease out to Gene Scott, who then propmtly evicted a few hundred business owners to make way for his church. I myself had an animation studio on the 12th floor, and during my time there I explored the building and theatre top to bottom with friends and fellow animators. I even lurked about inside the hollow tower. Once , when they tore down a wall on the tenth floor to upgrade the electricals, I fished around inside several feet of wall and pulled out a full unopened can of MJB coffee, several newspapers from 1927, a brass plumbob, a can of Hills Brothers coffee filled with buffalo nickels, a book of matches, and a partial script for a movie, and five brand-new old baseball gloves still in their original boxes, one of them with a cool black and white photo pasted on the box of someone named Mordecai Brown and another with a guy named Frank Baker. One of the old-timers that had been there since the 1930s told me that there had been a sporting goods company on the 11th floor. One of my other neighbors there also told me that one of the workmen fished out three circa 1920 brass flashlights from a 9th floor wall. I really missed that place, I had great views of the Eastern building and old downtown on one side, and from my side window I could see the new skyscraper skyline. I dont know if Metropolitan sold out to Scott or what.
Please excuse the typo in the previous message: for Heart’s read Hearst’s
Yes, the Examiner building’s turquoise-clad exterior (if I’m not mistaken) makes a compelling mate to the UA’s more solemn appearance. And the lively City Library not far away enhances the neighborhood even more. Many readers no doubt know that Julia Morgan was Wm Randolph Heart’s favorite architect, who got the plum job of designing San Simeon, a theatrical building is there ever was one.
Gooper;
I would love to share pictures with you, or any one else who cares to contact me. My e-mail adddress is on my profile, mail me and I will send you some pic’s. I have 11 of them so hope you have enough space to accomodate them!
It will be interesting to see what happens — Dr. Scott’s church has a large and active congregation (I happen to know someone who’s a member) and I doubt they will suddenly vanish overnight.
That part of Broadway is very interesting because it’s sitting at the very edge of the garment/fabric district. There really are large number of small businesses in the area, but they’re also transient in nature, opening and closing on short notice. That’s contributed to leaving the area in a somewhat run-down condition because there are economic interests who don’t necessarily want the area to be revitalized because the rents would go up.
This area, by the way, is also home to the old Examiner Building, designed by Julia Morgan, which has been shuttered since the Herald-Examiner closed in the late 80’s.
Having heard this morning of the passing of Gene Scott, I wonder, what now for the great United Artists? The above messages have helped. I’m very glad to see so many caring people following the status of this and many other houses.
I was lucky enough as a kid to wander through the old Orpheum in Seattle as they were just beginning to strip it for demolition. I worked in the same city’s Paramount in the 1970s (live concerts) and the late Music Hall (aka John Hamrick’s Music Hall, Seattle 7th Avenue, etc.) in the 1980s. It was the Music Hall’s final hurrah, a Vegas-type revue called ‘Music Hallelujah’. A chunk of gilded plaster, handed to me by a sympathetic workman, is about all I have left, besides the memories!
So, after seeing so many fine houses vanish in an uncaring Seattle, I was bowled over by LA’s Broadway parade of stunning picture palaces. Haven’t been there since ‘87, but from the Million Dollar all the way down to the UA, I thought, thank heavens that Broadway is a tad run down, otherwise these houses would not still be standing. To me the UA is the most awe-inspiring. The mass of its mysterious frontage, and that Gothic-screened water tank on the roof made powerful impressions. This was during its Latino film phase, and I didn’t have time to buy a ticket just to see the interior, as I would have happily done. I was just amazied and comforted that the old babe was still there at all, given the heartless attitude I was familiar with in Seattle. Naturally, not going in has added to the building’s mystique to me over the years.
KenRoe, any possibility that we can see any of your pictures of this ‘Roxy of the West’?
Many thanks.
I believe the church own the building. I would imagine that Dr. Gene Scott’s wife will take over the Ministry for a while at least.
The church have maintained the building very well and it does look as good today as when first opened as a movie palace. I remember wandering into the lobby back in the late 1970’s when it was screening Spanish language movies. There were coin-slot machines lining the walls, the place looked really dirty and run down.
I took the LA Conservancy ‘Broadway Theatres Tour’ on several occasions, but was only lucky enough on one occasion to get inside the U.A. Dr. Gene Scott seemed to blow ‘hot & cold’ with the Conservancy about allowing groups to tour the building.
When I was organising a tour of Los Angeles theatres for the Cinema Theatre Association in 2002, I was told that it would be ‘touch and go’ whether we would be allowed into the U.A. In the end, and with a little persuasion (and possibly because we were British and had come all that distance ‘just to see that magnificent building’) LOL, we got approved to be allowed in. Our guide was most friendly and charming and led us (in a group of 55 people) all around the building on a 2 hour tour.
Taking photographs was allowed, we saw a demonstation of the ‘light show’ which apparently heralds the start of a service at the church, in which multi-coloured beams of light are played onto the mirrors and prisms set into the ceiling dome. Our guide told us about the painted curtain which now hangs as a back drop on the stage. This was rescued by Dr Gene Scott from the Carthay Circle Theatre just prior to its demolition. We were shown the priceless collection of ancient Bibles which were housed in a room in the basement that was originally Mary Pickford’s private screening room.
It would be great if the United Artist’s could be opened up for other events so the general public could see inside this wonderful theatre building again (the Reverend Ike’s ‘church’ in the former Loew’s 175th St, Manhatten, NYC does from time to time).
Gene Scott just died today. What does that mean for this theatre?
One thing i remeber about all these old theatres are the restrooms they were huge and beautiful alomost scary. I remember this theatre looking the same as it did when i was a kid. Too bad i cant see it.