Just found this page. Brings back memories. I was a young lad from Montana who moved to New Orleans for a year – Feb. 1978 thru Fat Tuesday 1979. The comment earlier is true – cops were on strike that year and it was WILD in the quarter. Had the time of my life – mostly around our favorite haunt, The Chart Room. I didn’t make it to the Toulouse Theater that day but wish I did. I did however volunteer there most of the summer and fall and winter ‘78-'79. Remember the little bar up front and an aged lady in a pixie costume doing handsprings in the bar on Halloween! What a howl! I do remember Russell (and his nice looking girl in a tiger outfit). I helped with mailings and hung around the projection room. One night I agreed to sub for the regular projectionist who had a date. It was a rare film as I recall – old – and the film broke in half (after going through lens) and started spilling all over the floor. I tried to find the splicer but it was not in its usual spot and so I panicked. With film going all over the floor I ran downstairs to the bar and yelled out for help. The bartender said the projectionist and his date were in the theater (which was still on) and so we ran in and found him and got him to come upstairs to the projection room. Film was all over the floor. He found the splicer and I had to reel the film back onto the spool as fast I could before the 2nd showing of the film. I was sweating bullets and said I would NEVER be a projectionist again. But my love of theaters was born. Today, I am on the board of one of the best independent theaters in the country – the Hollywood Theater in Portland, Oregon. Those were fun, crazy times back in New Orleans. With the Toulouse were still around today. RIP!
Just found this page. Brings back memories. I was a young lad from Montana who moved to New Orleans for a year – Feb. 1978 thru Fat Tuesday 1979. The comment earlier is true – cops were on strike that year and it was WILD in the quarter. Had the time of my life – mostly around our favorite haunt, The Chart Room. I didn’t make it to the Toulouse Theater that day but wish I did. I did however volunteer there most of the summer and fall and winter ‘78-'79. Remember the little bar up front and an aged lady in a pixie costume doing handsprings in the bar on Halloween! What a howl! I do remember Russell (and his nice looking girl in a tiger outfit). I helped with mailings and hung around the projection room. One night I agreed to sub for the regular projectionist who had a date. It was a rare film as I recall – old – and the film broke in half (after going through lens) and started spilling all over the floor. I tried to find the splicer but it was not in its usual spot and so I panicked. With film going all over the floor I ran downstairs to the bar and yelled out for help. The bartender said the projectionist and his date were in the theater (which was still on) and so we ran in and found him and got him to come upstairs to the projection room. Film was all over the floor. He found the splicer and I had to reel the film back onto the spool as fast I could before the 2nd showing of the film. I was sweating bullets and said I would NEVER be a projectionist again. But my love of theaters was born. Today, I am on the board of one of the best independent theaters in the country – the Hollywood Theater in Portland, Oregon. Those were fun, crazy times back in New Orleans. With the Toulouse were still around today. RIP!