UNITED Theater on Broadway
929 S. Broadway,
Los Angeles,
CA
90015
929 S. Broadway,
Los Angeles,
CA
90015
44 people
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After 9/11 the “church” that occupies the United Artists Theater closed the theater to Broadway theater tours. I was fortunate enough to see the interior during a tour in 1995. It is a grand old movie palace.
I am a union projectionist for United Artists theaters on Long Island, NY. Well, we are actually a division of Regal Entertainment Group. Anyway, when I ask other employees where the original UA Theater is, they look at me with confussion. I explain to them where it is and describe what it was like to work there, as opposed to multi-plexes today.
When the United Artists Downtown Theatre opened in 1927. It had a Wurlitzer Theatre organ (opus#1731) style 260SP, in was installed 9/7/1927.
The United Artists was the only theatre on Broadway built as a flagship house by a major studio.
It is a grand picture palace in the flamboyant Spanish Gothic style, with a dummy tower to circumvent the local height restriction of the time. The tower is a detached 50 foot high sign erected on stilts. The United Artist/Texaco building was the city’s tallest privately owned building for 20 years. The theatre was financed by Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks & Charlie Chaplin whose portraits appear on the interior murals inside the auditorium. Mary Pickford, enchanted with European castles, played a major role in the design of the building. It was her favorite theatre. Gothic tracery shoots vertically up the building’s facade, accented by pointed Gothic arches. Grotesqueries appear in the terra cotta ornament, depicting the film industry. The narrow lobby continues the Spanish Cathedral form, with vaults and frescoes painted by Anthony Heinsbergen.
The ornate stained glass window patterns were originally repeated in the carpet design. The auditorium drips with gothic tracery, whose dazzling effect is enhanced by tiny glass mirrors and hanging prisms. In the mid 50’s, the United Artists theatre became the Downtown outlet for the TODD-AO films. TODD-AO was Mike Todd’s answer to CinemaScope. The Egyptian theatre in Hollywood was Todd-AO house #2 and UA was house #3. The United Artists was the only theatre that was equipped for 70mm projection in Downtown Los Angeles. In the early 60’s the United Artists theatre had a open and closed policy. During the 60’s the business was more near the 6th and 7th street. During that time it became a Spanish house till it closed. Dr. Gene Scott’s church returned the United Artists theatre back to it’s original 1927 look.