Vaudeville and Movie Theater in Glendale CA

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The City of Glendale consists of approximately 30 square miles located about 6 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, wedged between the San Fernando Valley to the west and the San Gabriel Valley to the east.

At the turn of the century, the business district was centered at Glendale Ave. and Third St. (now Wilson). The construction of an interurban railroad line connecting Glendale to Los Angeles was a catalyst for growth of a community of homes. A building boom in the 1920's is characterized by the first four-story business block at the corner of Brand Boulevard and Wilson Avenue By 1945 Glendale was almost entirely improved, with a commercial center at the intersection of Brand Boulevard and Broadway. Many civic, social and religious institutions were built in the 1920's and 1930's.

The city's first motion picture theater was the Glendale Theater which opened in 1910. The Majestic opened in 1912 in a storeroom of the Central Building at Broadway and Maryland Avenue. Both closed their doors shortly after the Palace Grand opened in 1914. Located at 131-133 North Brand Boulevard, the building was erected by H. C. Jensen to the cost of $30,000. The theater was replaced a few years later by commercial space and the building was renamed Jensen's Arcade. In 1919 another theater was constructed on South Brand Boulevard, it was named the Glendale. The Alex Theatre at 216 North Brand Boulevard opened in 1925 as a movie and vaudeville house. These motion picture theaters often doubled for civic events and performing arts venues until the Glendale Civic Auditorium was constructed in 1939 as a WPA project.

The 1926 Glendale City Directory lists seven theaters in Glendale: The Alexander, Cosmo, Glendale, and Lincoln, all on Brand Boulevard. By 1945, the Lincoln no longer appeared, but the California, Capitol, Roxy, Temple and Vogue are added to the directory. Of these, the Temple Theater was not a discrete structure, having been located inside the Masonic Temple Building at 234 S. Brand Boulevard. Currently, only the Alex, Glendale and Roxy theaters still exist. The Glendale has little residual integrity, having been subdivided into two movie theaters, repeatedly altered, and damaged by roof leaks since vacated; the structure is scheduled to be demolished for new commercial development in 1996 according to a recent report published in the Los Angeles Times. The Roxy has little residual integrity and no stage loft, and therefore is not comparable to the Alex as a vaudeville and motion picture house.

Manager Charles Jones staged a Red Cross benefit in 1931 for nationwide drought relief. Between five and six thousand Glendale women attended The Modern School of Gas Cookery cosponsored by the local newspaper and gas utility in 1938. During World War II, stars appeared at monthly war bond rallies. The $1,000,000 in bonds sold in Glendale, mostly at the Alex, qualified the City to have a frigate built in its name, the "Frigate Glendale." Local events included benefits, children's shows, fashion shows by Glendale merchants, car giveaways, and amateur nights.

The purchase and rehabilitation of the Alex Theatre by the City of Glendale makes possible the continued viable use of the building as a theater, in its original location, serving the same constituency, and encouraging the maintenance of the traditional center of commerce in which it stands. The 1925 grand opening night program stated in the dedication an objective that was clearly achieved, and has been renewed by the recent rehabilitation:

When the Alexander Theatre opened in 1925, patrons came to see live Vaudeville shows and silent films. Opening night organist Frank Lanterman was favored by silent for previews because of his skills. Lanterman, later a California State Assemblyman from La Canada, served the Alexander as staff organist from 1925-1928.

Fanchon and Marco prologues, musical productions featuring elaborate sets and costumes, were performed by a chorus of "Sunkist Beauties" at the Alexander Theatre between 1927 and 1931.

Each Prologue was a special unit and was given the name "Idea." The West Coast Theatre chain hired them and their "Ideas" for all their theatres, and Fanchon and Marco were given offices in Los Angeles. They became deeply engrossed in the staging of dance numbers in motion picture houses and presenting stage talent intact in picture theatres on the West Coast. Eventually, they spread from Coast to Coast assembling their units for traveling in cross-country tours for the Fox-Loew's State Theatres where they performed three or four times a day between their movie showings.

Before the tour began, the shows would open first in theatres in nearby towns such as Glendale, Santa Ana, Long Beach, and Pasadena. Here they would "iron out all the wrinkles" before taking the show on the road.

The Alex's location in a satellite suburban city and proximity to Hollywood made it a preferred venue for previews of major films. Previews were very important to moviemakers, who gauged audience reactions in deciding on final edits, sometimes reshooting scenes, and picking titles. Many films were previewed at the Alex from the 1920's through the 1950's, as reported in Variety. Among those films are "Flying Down to Rio," "Pennies From Heaven," "A Star Is Born," "Day At The Races," "Heidi," "National Velvet," and "Going My Way." Therefore, the Alex played an important role in the production of many significant films.

According to an assistant manager during the 1930's, "Jean Harlow and William Powell were always there."

Arthur G. Lindley, Charles R. Selkirk, Associates, designers of the original theater structure of 1925, received a number of notable commissions in Glendale, having completed the Masonic Temple, Methodist Church alterations, the Glendale Hotel, the Harrower Foundation Clinic school, Grand View Library, and City Hall annex. Lindley was a long time resident of Glendale and active member of the community. Lindley designed more than 30 Methodist Churches, and facilities for other denominations as well. In addition to the Alexander, three of the firm's surviving buildings were included in Heumann, Gleye, and Associates' Glendale Architectural and Historical Survey Final Report. The firm was significant in reference to the Los Angeles area and particularly significant with reference to the public buildings and community of Glendale.

The Alexander was one of few theaters built with an outdoor forecourt. The Egyptian Theatre (1922) in Hollywood with its long, narrow forecourt predates the Alexander. Grauman's Chinese Theatre (1927) utilizes a forecourt but its character and proportion create an enveloped outdoor courtyard rather than a processional space.

The Alexander interiors were executed by Robert E. Power Studios, then of San Francisco and Los Angeles. The firm was credited in that era with having decorated the majority of theaters in Southern California.

The theater's auditorium was designed as an "atmospherium," or atmospheric theater in a style made popular in the early 1920s by Chicago architect John Eberson. From the seminal Orpheum in Wichita, Kansas of 1922, Eberson became one of the most prominent theater architects among the second generation of movie palace architects by replacing "the standard ornate ceiling dome with a star-covered blue plaster sky." "The open-air illusion was enhanced by the stage-set walls encircling the auditorium, creating the feeling of being enclosed in an ancient garden". The Alex Theatre is one of few atmospheric theatres which were constructed in Southern California, and one still of the few that remain.

S. Charles Lee, designer of the forecourt structures, stands among the most prominent American theater architects. After working with a nationally prominent Chicago theater architect, Lee came to Los Angeles, the birthplace of the motion picture industry, where he helped to define and develop the movie theater as a building type. Lee designed more than 400 movie theaters, and more than 15,000 other structures. During his lifetime he was recognized and lauded not only as an important architect but also as a prominent member of the international business community.

S. Charles Lee is strongly associated with the evolution of the movie theater building type and the associated styles, in particular the transition from classicism to Art Deco and Modernism. Among the first pure art deco theaters in California was the Fox Wilshire (1930) in Los Angeles, by architect S. Charles Lee.

Lee designed several theaters with a theme tower, each unique; this genre represents a small and noteworthy period of his work. The Alex design is unique among Lee tower schemes and unusual among all theaters in the composition of a tower, outdoor ticketing lobby, and two-sided marquee.

Building Description

The Alex Theatre is a two-story reinforced concrete Vaudeville and movie house completed in 1925 with a reinforced concrete and steel-framed marquee and decorative tower added in 1940. The 1925 structure has a steel framed roof and decoratively painted plaster finishes on the west (entrance) facade. The marquee and tower structure stands to the west, with painted concrete and sheet metal finishes, and decorative neon and incandescent lighting, forming an elongated forecourt in front of the earlier theater structure. The 1925 lobby and atmospheric auditorium are decorated with Greek, Roman, and Egyptian revival style elements. The 1940 marquee and tower has Art Deco motifs painted in bright tropical colors which follow the palette of decorative terrazzo at the sidewalk, though the simple supporting concrete structure exhibits Modernist style. The building fronts on Brand Boulevard, the main commercial street in the City of Glendale. Major interior renovations to the lobby and auditorium were made in 1948 after a minor stagehouse fire; those alterations were reversed during the rehabilitation and restoration work completed in 1993.

Brief Construction History

• 1923 Architects Arthur G. Lindley and Charles R. Selkirk, Associates, prepared architectural and structural construction drawings for the Alexander Theatre, a Vaudeville and motion picture house with Greek and Egyptian motifs, seating 1958 on the main floor and balcony.

• 1925 The theater opens on Friday, September Fourth.

• 1940 S. Charles Lee, Architect, completed architectural drawings for the addition of a marquee, tower, and canopy with Art Deco, Streamline Moderne, and modernist motifs which was built in the forecourt space between the Brand Boulevard sidewalk and the front of the 1925 theater structure. While the theater building was not altered, a two-story retail and office building on the south half of the 50 ft. wide forecourt lot was demolished.

• 1948 A stage house fire on August 23^rd causes smoke and heat damage in the auditorium. Fox West Coast Theaters completed a major redecoration in three weeks, reopening the theater on September 16th. The redecoration included generous use of drapery at the proscenium and ante-proscenia; all new seating; refinishing and raising the top of the auditorium side walls; addition of large round murals in the auditorium; and refinishing and adding murals to the lobby walls.

• 1993 A major rehabilitation was completed, including restoration and adaptation for functional requirements of a live presentation theater. Movie projection equipment is restored; a movie projection screen which flies into the stage house is installed, thereby replicating the original "flying screen" capacity.

Detailed Description

The original Alexander is stylistically ambitious architecture, well executed in terms of structure, decorative arts, function, and urban context. The primarily Greek (with some Roman and Egyptian) characteristics, though adapted to new elements and relationships, reveal skillful and scholarly historicism employed in a theatrical manner. The theater was developed by theater magnate C. L. Langley in order to, in his words, "provide a good place of entertainment to keep Glendalians from going to Los Angeles and Hollywood." Langley named the theater after his young son, Alexander. Langley was interested in and wrote about Greek art history, resulting in speculation that the Greek-Egyptian motifs were inspired by a romantic image of Hellenic Alexandria, Egypt, and a nominal association with the young Alexander Langley.

The storefront scale of the forecourt entrance at the sidewalk, the forecourt processional space, and the monumental western facade successfully complemented Brand Boulevard's character as the "main street" of a commercial district of a growing community, while providing an experience of anticipation and arrival at an important place. The eastern facade of the Alexander, which is the rear wall of the stage house, was designed with a pediment-shaped parapet, paneled stage doors, and painted ornament.

The auditorium is designed in the atmospheric style. The ceiling of the auditorium is shaped, painted, and lit to provide the impression of being seated outside under the sky at twilight.

Character-defining decorative features include: entrance facade with two Doric columns supporting the architrave which are archaic in simplicity and proportion; stepped pyramidal roof similar to early Egyptian royal tombs and Babylonian ziggurats; repeating stenciled anthemia at the facade; cast stone tripods and replicated cresting at the entrance parapet; cast stone portico on the Maryland Ave. stage doors modeled after the Erechtheion's north portico doorway; plated iron medallions mounted high on the walls of the west and east elevations; interior ashlar walls rendered in plaster with glazed painted finishes; plaster tripods punctuating atmospheric auditorium walls; plaster coffers with polychrome

moldings in the foyer and mezzanine; pairs of staff Doric columns flanking the proscenium forming ante-proscenia and flanking organ grilles and niches; antaefixae over Greek fret at the proscenium, and a strongly Egyptian proscenium arch with a central solar disk flanked by griffins, below solar rays extending onto the ceiling. The midnight blue ceiling overhead warms to burnt orange as it disappears behind the side "garden" walls and Greek garden landscape murals.

The theater came to be known by patrons as the "Alex" in the 1930's. There were no significant alterations before 1940, when plans were drawn by S. Charles Lee for a new marquee, 100 feet tall illuminated tower, canopy, and walkway to replace the original forecourt paving, fountain, and two-story commercial structure. The new illuminated marquee letters read "Alex," manifesting the commonly used name.

The architecture of the Alex forecourt has characteristics of Art Deco as observed in the crisp geometric patterns and stylized naturalistic forms of the fluted tower with leafy base and terrazzo paving patterns. The forecourt also exhibits Streamline Moderne, a later style that often incorporated Art Deco motifs, and can be seen in the curves and horizontal lines of the ticket booth. The influence of the International Style is observed in the simple, bold, punctured concrete forms and upturned plane at the base of the tower.

A fire in the stage house on August 23^rd, 1948 was confined by the fire curtain, but caused smoke and heat damage in the auditorium. Fox West Coast Theatres took the opportunity to provide a "new decoration job," in dealing with the "out of style" decor.

1925 Opening night program (1925)

West elevation, view east (original construction; view of forecourt and 2-story commercial building with theater facade beyond) (1925)

West elevation, view east (original construction; view of forecourt and 2-story commercial building with theater facade beyond) (1926)

West elevation, view northeast (original construction; partial view of forecourt and theater facade beyond) (1926)

West elevation, view northeast (original construction; view of forecourt and 2-story commercial building with west theater wall beyond) (1939)

West elevation, view northeast (S. Charles Lee-designed marquee and tower with theater facade and theater wall beyond) (1940)

West elevation, view east (S. Charles Lee-designed marquee and tower with forecourt and forecourt canopy beyond) (1940)

West elevation, view east (Marquee and tower on day of grand re-opening after the fire) (1948)

West elevation, view northeast (Marquee' and tower on day of grand re-opening after the fire; night view) (1948)

West elevation, view east (Marquee and tower) (1992)

West elevation, view east (Marquee and tower) (1993)

Forecourt, west end, view east (S. Charles Lee designed terrazzo-paving intact) (1970)

Forecourt, west end, view east (S. Charles Lee designed terrazzo removed to building line by sidewalk replacement in 1970s) (1992)

Marquee and tower, east elevation, view west (rear marquee sign; east elevation of ticket kiosk) (1992)