Starlight Drive-In
4300 E. Platte Avenue,
Colorado Springs,
CO
80916
4300 E. Platte Avenue,
Colorado Springs,
CO
80916
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Additional Info
Previous Names: Starlite Drive-In
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Touted as “Colorado Springs finest and largest drive-in theatre–conveniently located east on U. S. Highway 24, the 1,000 car capacity was "where big pictures play”. The Starlight Drive-In opened on June 25, 1948 with Don Ameche in “That’s My Man”. It was closed at the end of the 1964 season.
Contributed by
Anthony L. Vazquez-Hernandez
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Recent comments (view all 8 comments)
Found it. The drive-in sat on the NE corner at the intersection of East Platte Ave & North Murray Blvd. (535 N Murray) Google. Today, there are several retail stores that take up the property and no trace of the drive-in is left.
https://goo.gl/maps/3vT3Z
A more accurate address for this theater is 4300 E Platte Ave, Colorado Springs, CO 80915. This points directly to the entrance road. North Murray Blvd. did not exist when this drive in opened.
Please update.
“COLORADO SPRINGS – The $100,000 Starlight Drive-In Theatre was opened here recently after three and a half months of construction work. The 650-car drive-in was equipped with Simplex projectors, and complete modern facilities. Paul Rothman of Colorado Springs is manager of the new ozoner.” —BoxOffice, July 17, 1948
Motion Picture Herald, June 19, 1948: “Cy Lee and Paul Rothman will, on June 25, open their Starlight, a $115,000, 650-car drive-in, at Colorado Springs, Colo.”
Motion Picture Herald, May 10, 1952: “Lee Theatres … have announced they are enlarging the Starlight from 650 cars to 1,000 cars, after which they will compete for first run product.”
The Gazette, July 29, 1990: “The drive-in debuted in Colorado Springs on June 30, 1948, when The Starlite opened with "That’s My Man,” a horse-racing flick starring Don Ameche. It had a capacity of 650 cars on 30 acres, 2 ½ miles east of town on U.S. Highway 24. It proudly boasted a screen atop a tower fashioned from 54 tons of steel – enough to build a 50-room hotel, according to slick-tongued promoters."
Anthony L. Vazquez-Hernandez and more recently moviejs1944 uploaded images of a postcard with text and a photo of the sign all showing Starlight spelled correctly. That undated postcard must have been from 1952 or later because it mentioned the expanded 1000-car capacity and specified two-cent postage. Yet the mostly reliable Theatre Catalog switched its spelling from Starlight (1949-50 edition) to the Starlite (1952-56 editions). The Motion Picture Almanacs always called it the Starlight, but the Film Daily Year Book always showed Starlite.
What did the Colorado Springs Gazette say? In a word, both. The first reference I could find was March 27, 1948, quoted 50 years later as Starlight. The theater’s ads in 1960 occasionally said Starlight but were mostly Starlite, and all later editorial references spelled it that way. Did the sign in the photo ever get changed?
The Grand Opening ads in the local Gazette Telegraph add another vote for “Starlight,” the spelling they all used.
In addition to “That’s My Man,” the Starlight’s opening program promised the 1947 Technicolor short “Sweet and Low,” which included a young Sammy Davis Jr. as part of the Will Maston Trio.
The Starlight closed at the end of the 1964 season.