4 Star Theatre

Here is a November 1974 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/r7a5kb

Here is part of the injunction from 1976:

Four Star Theatre is a theatre and related property located on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. The property is leased by its owners to United Artists Theatres of California, Inc., and subleased by United Artists to James and Artie Mitchell and corporations controlled by them. The sublease calls for rent of $48,000 per year, runs to August 30, 1977, is for the purpose of conducting a theatre, covers furniture, fixtures and equipment, and vests the right of possession in the sublessee.

The Mitchell group operates the theatre, catering to devotees of “X-rated” films. During the calendar year 1974, officers of the Los Angeles Police Department observed over 30 acts of public masturbation by patrons of the theatre. Employees of the Mitchell group were instructed to cause a warning of the presence of officers in the theatre to be flashed on the screen whenever their presence was known. While ushers sometimes patrolled the aisles, the patrol was sporadic at best except when police officers were known to be present.

Here is part of an LA Times article dated 1/27/76:

The controversial Four Star Theater has resumed operations under a state Supreme Court stay of a Los Angeles Superior Court injunction which closed its doors last December 2. Superior Judge Harry Hupp had shut down the theater at the request of the Los Angeles city attorney’s office under the state’s 1913 Red Light Abatement Act, designed to combat “lewdness or prostitution”.

The theater at 5112 Wilshire Boulevard is owned by Chief U.S. District Judge Albert Lee Stephens, Jr. and two of his daughters. However, it is leased to a theater chain and subleased over the Stephens' family’s protests to a group which is showing X-rated movies.

Police chief Edward M. Davis has complained of numerous arrests for lewd conduct in the theater. Hupp emphasized his decision was based on lewd activity and not the content of the movies.

From the LA Times, June 1, 1939:

A pedestrial bandit yesterday held up Maurice Sherman, assistant manager of the Four Star Theater, 5112 Wilshire Boulevard, as he was walking to a nearby bank, and robbed him of $90. Sherman said the bandit fled south on Sycamore Avenue after warning him to continue walking east on Wilshire Boulevard.

Very interesting. Thanks for the information

I’m no film historian, but I think 1947 was one of the last years where television had not put a dent in movie attendance. Probably through 1950 or so, then the decline began.

William,

Yes, for one thing, the “nearly naked” woman was on the left panel, not the right as at Pasadena. I think perhaps her arms were upraised as well, and the pose less “stiff”. And even if this particular relief panel had an exact duplicate somewhere else, that still doesn’t give those who bought the building a right to destroy it. Do you think there are high quality photos somewhere? It’s a shame that with the terabytes and petabytes of mostly worthless photos on the Web, that what images I’ve seen of these disappearing treasures are grainy JPEGs compressed to about 70Kb. With the price of storage these days, that’s like selling sand by the teaspoon and gravel by the individual pebble. It’s entirely possible that whatever photos were scanned once at low resolution, a decade ago, are themselves forever lost (how may documents are scanned so the original can be destroyed?) Some of our preservation efforts should be directed not at the buildings themselves, but the images and newspaper clippings that recorded them in their heyday.

As it is, the best image I have of the Four Star, as inaccurate as it may be, is the one in my head. As you might surmise from my first entry, perhaps the one in my head is more beautiful than the original ever was. But I kinda doubt it. And at least the builting itself wasn’t demolished. Despite the perhaps unwitting “architectural crime” committed by the “owners”, at least the building is being maintained structurally, and vagrants and vandals kept out.

-Brett

William,

I looked at the pics of the UA Pasadena, and while definitely similar, I think the Four Star on Wilshire was possibly different. It might truly have been one of a kind… the UA Pasadena looks a bit “stiffer” stylistically than I recall the Wilshire example. But it’s been a long time, and memory plays tricks with the details. Now I’m curious! Unfortunately, unless we can dig up some fairly high resolution photographs, we won’t know.

-Brett

Those muses were standard on a few UA theatres of that era. So they are not one of a kind items. You can still the muses on the former UA Theatre in Pasadena (retail) and the former UA Alamenda in East Los Angeles (retail).

Ron,

I wish I knew… and I literally RAN back to my office and tried to find out if there was someone I could call. But I didn’t know how to find information fast enough to put a stop to the destruction. The mason I referred to was a middle-aged Mexican who spoke no English. He was just putting food on his table, and probably had no larger view of what he was doing. It was all over in an afternoon. If it was illegal, they got away with it.

Strangely, I later met and became friends one of the contractors who was involved in this unfortunate affair. He had a “yard” in my neighborhood, filled with interesting “junk”. I paid him thousands of dollars to refurbish my house before I sold it. At one point, touring his yard, I came across some interesting iron grill-work. “Art Deco?” I asked. “Yes, from the Four Star Theater on Wilshire”, he replied. He’s a very nice guy and a deeply Christian. I didn’t hold it against him, whatever was his part in diminishing the Four Star. At least he saved the grillwork -he could see it had beauty and didn’t deserve “recycling” as mere iron.

-Brett

The Oasis Christian Center is responsible for (literally) defacing this iconic landmark when they purchased the building. I work nearby, and used to walk that stretch of Wilshire Boulevard daily during lunch break. I always looked up at the Four Star to admire its perfect Art Deco styling (fairly common along the Miracle Mile), and most especially its exceptional bas-relief sculpture (unmatched on the Miracle Mile, and perhaps the finest I’ve ever seen). One day, I was horrified to find that the surface had been sand-blasted to the point of unrecognizability, and a mason was now chipping-in with a chisel and then troweling mortar into what remained.

The problem? Nipples. A muse, a goddess, I’m not sure what she was, but lovely and lithe, she graced the central panel, her nudity barely concealed behind a diaphanous drapery pressed up against her slender form by an invisible zephyr. On that same breeze, a banner floated, bearing a slogan of some sort in Latin or Greek I think, about art meeting science (and referring to cinema). It was all very tasteful to a person of civilized upbringing, the effect Grecian and Classical. But to the prurient-minded, the tips of her nipples, hardly noticeable to the rest of us, were just too… impertinent. This so deeply offended the puritanical instincts of the new “owners” of the building, that without asking permission, or even considering less drastic measures, such as troweling-in a removable plaster or simply covering it with some kind of sheathing, in a single afternoon these self-proclaimed soul-savers destroyed the soul of an architectural monument.

I was horrified. I was certain that an architectural crime had been committed, but it was, at that point, too late. My own distaste for all forms of organized religion was greatly increased on that day. Soon, the “owners” placed a “Hollywood Walk of Fame” star (of sorts), in “honor” of Jesus, into the sidewalk at the entrance. The star is unsymmetrical, unpretty, and quite frankly tacky (the whole idea is tacky). I have to admit that I’ve been secretly delighted, on many of my usual strolls down this stretch, to find this star is evidently the deliberate target of spillers-of-Coke, droppers-of-chewing-gum and whatnot, mostly from the Burger King next door. (“Whatnot” includes French-fries, chocolate malts, and liquids that best remain undescribed). It is not that I don’t admire Jesus and his teachings. It’s just the symmetric irony visited upon the oh-so-earnest pinheads who destroyed the Four Star: too thick-headed and zealous to recognize beauty, they deface a landmark. In the same spirit of not seeing the blatantly obvious, they prove too thick-headed to recognize the implicit insult of putting their Savior’s name underfoot. Then they fight an ongoing war with a broom and a mop, against the legions of people who can’t resist showing a little bit of their own disrespect.

-Brett S.

Looks like it is both a church and a theatre, from that link.