Below is a December 6, 2008 article from the Tacoma News Tribune that provides some history of the Cameo Theatre:
The Cameo Theatre began as a Turkish bath belonging to two of Tacoma’s most notorious vice kingpins â€" Peter Sandberg and Vito Cuttone â€" during different generations.
Sandberg from the early days and Cuttone, who ran the Italian mob after the (second) world. Sandberg ran Tacoma’s prostitution business around the turn of the century. His payoffs of police and elected leaders eventually won passage of a City Council ordinance requiring the cops to round up prostitutes from the nice areas of downtown and segregate them in Sandberg’s properties between Pacific Avenue and A Street at South 14th Street, according to Sullivan and news accounts. Sandberg bought Tacoma Baths in 1901, added three floors and reopened in 1902 to much civic fanfare as The Kentucky Liquor Co. His full-page newspaper advertisements boasted “the largest, finest and most complete assortment of the best known brands of Wines, Liquors and Cigars ever offered on Puget Sound.â€
By 1920, however, a morals movement and the U.S. period of alcohol prohibition, hit Sandberg hard. He died destitute in 1931 â€" about the time of the rise of Vito Cuttone’s influence.
Cuttone bought Sandberg’s old address in 1940 and rebuilt it into the 400-seat Cameo Theater. The theater’s inaugural motion picture, “Hard Guy,†starred Jack La Rue as a racketeer who ran a nightclub where the working girls married the rich blueblood customers, then blackmailed them into annulments and cash settlements.
Cuttone, meanwhile, ran a protection racket for a range of illegal operations, Sullivan said. If you wanted Tacoma’s cops to avoid your illegal gambling operation, you rented a pinball machine from Cuttone’s company.
“You might make $100 a month on the pinball machine, but you had to pay Cuttone $300 a month to rent it. For that money, Cuttone’s people would come by and make sure the cops did not break you up,†Sullivan said.
Cuttone’s control of Tacoma’s commissioner for public safety eventually inspired citizens in 1952 to throw out their form of government in favor of the council-manager form.
By 1960, the City of Tacoma bought Cuttone’s abandoned Cameo Theater building, tore it down and built the nation’s first moving sidewalk between Pacific Avenue and Commerce Street. The Escalade won Tacoma a national award for urban progress.
Below is a December 6, 2008 article from the Tacoma News Tribune that provides some history of the Cameo Theatre:
The Cameo Theatre began as a Turkish bath belonging to two of Tacoma’s most notorious vice kingpins â€" Peter Sandberg and Vito Cuttone â€" during different generations.
Sandberg from the early days and Cuttone, who ran the Italian mob after the (second) world. Sandberg ran Tacoma’s prostitution business around the turn of the century. His payoffs of police and elected leaders eventually won passage of a City Council ordinance requiring the cops to round up prostitutes from the nice areas of downtown and segregate them in Sandberg’s properties between Pacific Avenue and A Street at South 14th Street, according to Sullivan and news accounts. Sandberg bought Tacoma Baths in 1901, added three floors and reopened in 1902 to much civic fanfare as The Kentucky Liquor Co. His full-page newspaper advertisements boasted “the largest, finest and most complete assortment of the best known brands of Wines, Liquors and Cigars ever offered on Puget Sound.â€
By 1920, however, a morals movement and the U.S. period of alcohol prohibition, hit Sandberg hard. He died destitute in 1931 â€" about the time of the rise of Vito Cuttone’s influence.
Cuttone bought Sandberg’s old address in 1940 and rebuilt it into the 400-seat Cameo Theater. The theater’s inaugural motion picture, “Hard Guy,†starred Jack La Rue as a racketeer who ran a nightclub where the working girls married the rich blueblood customers, then blackmailed them into annulments and cash settlements.
Cuttone, meanwhile, ran a protection racket for a range of illegal operations, Sullivan said. If you wanted Tacoma’s cops to avoid your illegal gambling operation, you rented a pinball machine from Cuttone’s company.
“You might make $100 a month on the pinball machine, but you had to pay Cuttone $300 a month to rent it. For that money, Cuttone’s people would come by and make sure the cops did not break you up,†Sullivan said.
Cuttone’s control of Tacoma’s commissioner for public safety eventually inspired citizens in 1952 to throw out their form of government in favor of the council-manager form.
By 1960, the City of Tacoma bought Cuttone’s abandoned Cameo Theater building, tore it down and built the nation’s first moving sidewalk between Pacific Avenue and Commerce Street. The Escalade won Tacoma a national award for urban progress.