White Beauty Drive-In
863 PA-507,
Greentown,
PA
18426
863 PA-507,
Greentown,
PA
18426
1 person
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Darn it, I did not plan to learn this much about the White Beauty. :) The resort was founded by Anita and Naldo Guccini, who owned the White Beauty View Restaurant by the 1930s. Looks like Richard was a son of the founders.
The last White Beauty Drive-In ad I could find in the Wayne Independent of Honesdale PA was on Sept. 22, 1977, with the showing of “Orca the Killer Whale” through Sept. 24.
The Scranton PA Tribune provided explanations to answer the last two posts.
The White Beauty View was a summer resort on Lake Wallenpaupack. It advertised for a cook “for the season” on May 23, 1949, and a chef’s 2005 obituary called it the “once famous” White Beauty View. (It changed its name to The Lakeside Resort in 1993.) The White Beauty Drive-In Theatre advertised its opening on June 30, 1949 at White Beauty View, so it might be that the resort folks started the drive-in.
The new question is why Motion Picture Herald and Billboard both thought that Richard Guccini opened his “new” White Beauty three years later. A 1955 note in the Tribune associated Guccini with the White Beauty View.
Opened in 1949 and closed in the 1980s.
Why the name White Beauty?
Billboard, June 14, 1952: “Richard Guccini recently opened his new 100-car White Beauty Drive-In at Greentown Pa”
A more accurate address for this theater is 863 PA-507, Greentown, PA 18426. This points to the drive in entrance. Only part of that road remains.
Please update.
Lake Wallenpaupack Road at Pine Hill Rd Greentown, PA 18426
The drive-in appears in various theatre listings from 1952-70.
It is visible on Historic Aerials using 1963 imagery.
My family had a mobile home at Norm’s Haven a few miles south of White Beauty View. We spent every weekend at the Drive In. We always sat in the “shed” and it was so much fun! I had my first kiss there. It was pretty wild in the shed because it was all teenagers and no supervision. I remember the older guys would sometimes set the seats on fire- and everyone would cheer. Like Jordan, we would walk to the rec room and play pool or hang out to see cute guys. I saw 2001 Space Odyssey there, and Sand Pebbles. I loved that place!
Wow, the White Beauty View Drive In! I have so many great memories of going there while growing up – the popcorn/snack stand, the one-armed guy that worked there, the speakers you’d put in the car window… A bunch of us would get dropped off by our parents and sit in the old “booth” in the front of all the parking spaces. After the cartoon (always either “Chilly Willy” or “Woody Woodpecker”) and the movie, we’d walk up to the gameroom and play “Space Invaders”,“Defender”,“Asteroids"or"Centipede”. When we were done, we’d use the pay phone in the parking lot across from the restaurant’s main entrance (Mom always gave us .25 cents to call home), then rearrange the letters on the Marquee sign to spell something dirty! What a trip down memory lane…
The Harmony D-I with 50 cars was the smallest.