Empress Theatre

dallasmovietheaters on November 29, 2020 at 6:01 am

The Empress facts are well documented but sadly not on this site. Just to clear up the key factual errors, the building was not converted to retail or was it demolished in 1956. It began as the primary “A” vaudeville theater in the city with a prestigious 99-year lease. Kinodrome motion picture shorts were featured at the outset with a projection booth from the beginning. But when the Globe opened a year later on August 27, 1911, it would get the “A” vaudeville bookings… but not before Charlie Chaplin wowed crowds with his pantomime act on the Empress stage in week-long runs in December of 1911 and June of 1912.

From there, things get fairly predictable as better theaters are built, the Empress slips rung by rung. Its 99-year prestige lease is renegotiated to fit a more common 30-year leasing cycles with low-priced front-end six-month and one-year financial incentives designed to fill the house quickly at each vacancy. That leasing pattern attracted lesser live plays, third-tier vaudeville and burlesque starting with the upper tier Mutual Burlesque. Then the burlesque became more tawdry with better burlesque moving to better venues. As a burley house, the Empress became a place where arrests and shake downs became common. If nothing else, it got the venue in the newspaper headlines.

True that in 1936, a scheduled 40-week vaudeville run shuttered after just 12 weeks. But things devolved further as the building was then equipped for the first time with sound film gear and became an exploitation film theater with adult-only films. Programmed by Richlynn Amusements, movies began on August 14, 1937 with continuous showings of the silent syphilis film “Damaged Goods” supported by the notorious sound documentary, “Killers of the Sea.” Things devolved further when the flagging theater went full grind house mode adding live African American burley shows in which stage help was recruited with classified ads requiring no previous stage experience (and no union card needed there, obviously). Shows began before noon and ran past midnight.

Union issues and censor board matters hounded the Richlynn’s short existence at the Empress. When the Royal was told not to run the film, “Ecstasy,” the Empress used its biggest ads yet to trumpet the film’s opening in February of 1938. The much needed scrutiny by the city and press did drum up clientele. The lightning rod film, “Baby is Born” was the next major hurdle as the city manager said the Empress could only show the more acceptable, “Birth of a Baby.” Richlynn moved on at the end of a one-year lease in August of 1938 wringing ever last quarter it could from the then-faded location.

The Empress’ reworked 30-year lease was up in 1940 and the building was razed by the Bonded Building Wreckers Inc. after it had a salvage sale. Even the sale seemed tawdry with blue, green and white marble offered cheap, glass beveled doors at ten bucks a throw, and brass railing at 20 cents a foot. The press even followed some pieces such as the theater’s ornate box office to its new location as the Empress still attracted some following. The building was demolished for parking in the Summer of 1940.

Don Lewis on May 12, 2012 at 4:19 pm

From the early 1900s a postcard view of the Empress in Kansas City.

Mike Gallagher on January 9, 2011 at 5:55 pm

Are there any interior pics of the Empress. As a young boy, I can remember seeing it being demolished while riding in a 12th Street Streetcar on several occasions. It was a very large theater and maybe even larger than the Tower on 12th Street.

adamrod on May 16, 2006 at 10:22 am

Charlie Chaplin’s last performance with the Karno Vaudville Company was at the Empress Theatre in Kansas City. Ealier, he had been contacted by Mack Sennett to join the Keystone Studios in Calf. Chaplin seperated from the Karno Company after the KC performance. We all know what happened after that !!!
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