Mayan

August 15th, 1927 grand opening ad in photo section.

If anyone has any stories about going to/ working at this threatre, I would love to hear them. I am chronicling the histories of adult theatres in the US. Please contact me at Thanks!

A photograph my husband took recently of the blade sign (daytime) can be seen here:
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I finally got to tour the inside of the Mayan Theater last Thursday night and am thrilled to say it looks as great inside as it does outside. Although converted to a nightclub, the Mayan is in great shape and still looks like a theater inside (okay, minus 1,400 seats or so). The auditorium and chandelier in particular are definitely something to see. I was surprised at the small restrooms located on the mezzanine level. They seemed way too tiny to service 1,400+ audience members. The nightclub has more restrooms backstage and under the stage, but those would have been inaccessible when this operated as a theater. Are there some “lost” restrooms located behind a false wall somewhere in or underneath the Mayan lobby?

Here is a January 1940 ad from the LAT:
http://tinyurl.com/ooqeml

Here is a July 1943 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/lldyot

“Contrary to the description, the Mayan hasn’t been used for the Last Remaining Seats series, at least not since I started attending in the late ‘80s or early '90s.”

I asked Connie Humberger about this tonight; she was there from the beginning. And yes, the Mayan was used for the LRS series, back when it was a porn house. They had to go in and clean the place up.

Also, the description as it appears now, refers to the book “Last Remaining Seats,” not the film program.

There’s something interesting in the basement of the Mayan that I haven’t seen mentioned here: in one of the mechanical spaces, someone kept a running tally of the shows in pencil on the wall. The top entry is “Grand Opening August 15, 1927.” Then:

1 – O-Kay – Elsie Janis – 8 weeks – musical – Aug 15, 1927
2 – Twinkle Twinkle – Joe E. Brown Nancy Welford – 6 “ – musical – Oct 10, 1927

and so on into the early 1930s. There’s a sheet of Plexiglas protecting it.

Here is a March 1969 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/quyrue

Some touchup work in 1965. Already showing adult films:
http://jpg2.lapl.org/theater2/00015389.jpg

Ah, I didn’t see that. Well, even if they were just 1950s soft core porn movies, I think that should qualify the Belasco for a page. Lots of little store front porn houses from the 1970s are listed, and the Belasco is certainly more interesting as a theater than they are.

LawMann, do you know the general period in which the Belasco ran movies? They surely would have been advertised in the L.A. Times, and somebody who has access to the Times archives at the L.A. Library could probably find some of those ads if they knew where to look.

If the place did run movies for a couple of years, or even a few months, then it certainly deserves a page here. Somehow, the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium got a page, and all they ever did was four-wall an occasional surf or ski movie, and a few of the Hollywood beach movies of the 1960s, long after they’d had their theatrical runs. (By those standards, practically every civic auditorium in the country should qualify.)