Deer Park Theater

Zephyrscribe on June 11, 2026 at 8:28 pm

𝗠𝗨𝗦𝗜𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗦𝗔𝗨𝗟 𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗜𝗞𝗦 owned the Deer Park Theater in the late 1960s. Saul was a Detroit native and onetime piano prodigy whose publicity materials boasted that he’d played three times with the Detroit Symphony at age 9.

His greatest success came as a pianist and singer with Somethin' Smith and the Redheads, an easy-listening trio that achieved modest national success in the Fifties. Saul co-founded the band as a music major at UCLA with two fellow students, banjoist Robert Hugh “Red” Robinson (aka “Somethin' Smith”) and violinist / bassist Major Short.

The group’s peak hit, a jaunty version of Billy Mayhew’s “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie,” was released by Epic Records in 1955 and reached No. 7 on Billboard’s chart. Another cover, “In a Shanty in Old Shanty Town,” cracked the Top 30 a year later. The band appeared on the nationally televised 𝘋𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘬 𝘚𝘩𝘰𝘸 in September 1958, a broadcast that included Fabian and Johnny Nash.

Also during the 1950s, Saul and his wife, Tulsa native Neva Thane Striks, operated Chez Neva, a lodge for touring actors and other theater personnel. The inn sat in Newport, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.

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𝗦𝗔𝗨𝗟 𝗦𝗨𝗙𝗙𝗘𝗥𝗘𝗗 critical injuries in November 1959 while piloting a private plane that crashed near Bloomington, Indiana, leaving him unable to tour or even play piano for a lengthy period. In the mid-‘60s, with the Somethin’ Smith band dissolved, he formed a duo called the Saloonatics with Ralph Guenther, Cincinnati-area banjoist and former bassist for King Records.

Together they released one album, 1969’s 𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘻𝘺 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘻𝘺 𝘛𝘶𝘯𝘦𝘴 on Bethlehem Records. Its liner notes, attributed to Dick Clark, announced that “Here are two experienced professionals finally getting the recognition they deserve.”

The men also shared business investments. Ralph, like Saul, was a WWII veteran and entrepreneur. As a lithographer, Ralph had founded Advance Litho Plate Co. in 1949. His partnership with Saul included buying The Old Saloon, a tavern in the Kenwood neighborhood near Deer Park, where the Saloonatics often entertained. Over the years the bar changed hands and was demolished in the mid 2010s. Ralph died in 2006 at age 88.

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𝗦𝗔𝗨𝗟 𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗗 three times. He wed Neva in 1949, three years after his Navy service ended. They divorced and she died in 2001 at age 76. His second wife Mae Striks co-owned the Deer Park Theater with him. He was married to Deborah J. Pinkerton from 1977 until his death.

That death arrived on December 3, 1979, after a heart attack in a Chicago hotel. Saul was 54. He was in town to pitch his manuscript about music education methods to a prospective publisher and died only hours before that appointment. Saul’s remains were buried at Rest Haven Memorial Park in Cincinnati’s Evendale suburb.

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In the photo section I’ve attached Saul’s obituary from 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪 𝘌𝘯𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘳, along with some other Saul memorabilia. I cobbled this mini-bio from various Internet sources and sidestepped details where threadbare accounts differed, so corrections and additions are most welcome.

rivest266 on June 13, 2022 at 9:00 pm

The Deer Park theater opened with “Do You Love Me” on December 17th, 1946 and closed (or stopped placing its ads) in 1962.

Brian Gordon on March 22, 2011 at 1:40 am

Reopened as the Beacon Hill in ‘69 or '70, showing art films and revivals. A real zoo in the kiddie matinee days of the sixties, with a real crabby woman (the owner?) who worked the candy stand. When they showed Hard Day’s Night she ran into the theatre yelling when all the girls started screaming.