Olympia Theatre at Gusman Center

The Olympia theatre opened on February 18th, 1926.

Olympia theatre opening Thu, Feb 18, 1926 – 66 · The Miami Herald (Miami, Florida) · Newspapers.com

David, the original HOBO TYPE on the OLYMPIA marquee was the ABC Florida State Theatres' trademark. Just look at the ads from the sixties and seventies.

The Main Library in downtown Miami has a videocassette (VHS) copy of a collection of short documentary films made locally in the mid-1980’s called “A Few Things I Know About Miami” (which I just noticed was first mentioned here by Al Alvarez in his comment dated May 24, 2005).

The first, about 6 minutes long, is called “On Flagler Street” featuring a former manager of the Olympia named Jimmy Barnett describing the heyday of the movie going experience along Flagler street which he feels lasted from the 1930’s to about 1955.

The film includes archival Movietone newsreel footage of the grand opening of the Miami Theater across the street and actor Jimmy Stewart arriving at the premier of “The Glenn Miller Story” at what might be the Miracle Theater in Coral Gables (it simultaneously premiered at the Miami and Carib), as well as historic still photo shots of various theaters in downtown Miami when they were open.

The film ends with Mr. Barnett inviting you to follow him on to the stage of the Olympia where he explains he had worked for 18 years, at one point as “captain of the balcony”, and becoming manager in December of 1950, while we see shots of the auditorium. He says the Olympia also hosted many shows and famous people during his tenure.

Olympia official website is now: http://www.olympiatheater.org/

Olympia Facebook page.

Olympia Twitter page.

The Olympia celebrated its 90th Anniversary on February 27th, 2016 with a showing of “Dick Tracy”.

Video and article: “Miami’s Most Beautiful Venue Is Getting Its Second Wind“.

Monthly free jazz concerts are held in the lobby.

In 2015 I took a tour of the Olympia. One interesting thing is there’s a collection of signatures of mostly famous performers and politicians who have appeared there on some doors just offstage on the left (from the audience’s point of view) of the stage.

On June 14th, 2015 I toured the Tampa Theater. I mentioned to the tour guide that parts of the interior, like the second floor lobby, looked something like the Olympia. After the tour, before the film began (“Key Largo”, as part of their Summer Classic Film Series), she found me in my seat to tell me she had found out the two theaters have the same architect, then left saying “Now I have to visit Miami”.

Ellegant, with its star-studded sky-ceiling, when it was a movie theater, the Olympia was the Miami counterpart of the Washington Heights RKO Coliseum. I now see the Olympia was originally a Paramount theater. I saw “Dr. No” there with Sean Connery and Urusula Andress and “How to Murder Your Wife” with Jack Lemmon and Virna Lisi. It has lost much of its grandeur.

This site has a number of photos of the theater as the Olympia as well as details of Elvis Presley’s appearance there in 1956: http://www.scottymoore.net/olympia.html

Here is a music video which was filmed in this majestic theater (note: song in spanish by international artist Chayanne):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJJbrBEZqy8

Here is a short ‘making of’…you can really appreciate the theater in this vid since its in glorious color.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arhgPlsevzg

Enjoy!

How the boxoffice used to face:

View photo

The mezzanine of the Olympia:

View photo

The city of Miami did not rename the Olympia. Maurice Gusman saved it from the wrecking ball, refurbished it into a concert hall and named it after himself. He then left it to the city when he passed away.

Sparks' Theatre News, 1932-33.

View link

Just visited this theater for the first time, yesterday, for a restored print of ‘Once Upon a Time in the West,’ presented by the Miami International Film Festival. Architecturally, it seems an exact replica of the Tampa Theatre, which is to say, it’s awesome. The presentation, however, is lacking. The screen does not appear to have proper movable masking, aperture shadow was present through some of the film, and the screen is not quite wide enough to fully convey 2.35:1. Worst of all, however, the acoustics are very bad. A large wooden stage extends from the screen, and there’s not enough carpeting in this cavernous space to absorb the sonic stuff, rendering all audio tinny and echoey. I couldn’t make out about 15% of the dialogue in the I was watching. Management seemed overworked and preoccupied.