Lawton Theatre

By 1965, the Lawton Theatre was operated by the Video Independent chain. August 4, 1976 was the last show at the house.

Boxoffice, Dec. 17, 1973: “Video (Theatres)’s Lawton manager Clyde Walker reports that a wave of downtown urban renewal in Lawton is about to sweep away three circuit houses there - the Diana, Rita and Lawton. The latter has been closed for more than a year.”

Listings for this cinema stopped in 1976.

Screen star Joan Crawford (Lucille Fay LeSueur) resided in Lawton as a child, where her stepfather, Henry Cassin, managed the Lawton Theatre.
Following bio is courtesy of wiki;
“Crawford’s mother subsequently married Henry J. Cassin. The family lived in Lawton, Oklahoma, where Cassin ran a movie theater. Crawford was unaware that Cassin was not her birth father until her brother Hal told her. The 1910 federal census for Comanche County, Oklahoma, enumerated on April 20, showed Henry and Anna living at 910 "D” Street in Lawton. Crawford was listed as five years old, thus showing 1905 as her likely year of birth.
Crawford preferred the nickname “Billie” as a child and she loved watching vaudeville acts performed on the stage of her stepfather’s theater. The instability of her family life impacted on her education and her level of schooling never really progressed beyond the fourth grade. Her ambition was to be a dancer. However, in an attempt to escape piano lessons to run and play with friends, she leaped from the front porch of her home and cut her foot deeply on a broken milk bottle. Crawford had three operations and was unable to attend elementary school for a year and a half. She eventually fully recovered and returned to dancing …"

A 1960s picture of the Lawton Theatre can be viewed on these pages
http://www.roadsideoklahoma.com/node/427

Close inspection of this vintage postcard air view of business district, downtown Lawton, will reveal several theatre structures, including the Lawton Theatre,
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and this color postcard of Fort Sill Theatre, still showing free movies to those in uniform who serve our country,
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