TheatreMonkey: How does one go about obtaining Hi-Res scans of some of the photos on the El Centro theatre web site for use in Wm. Krisel’s biography? My e-mail address is .com Thank you very much.
TheatreMonkey: I just got off the phone w/ Bill Krisel. He was elated!! with the El Centro Theatre web site. That is his Cadillac in front of the theatre on an opening night, not Sydney’s as the caption says in one of the photos. He said Sydney bummed a ride everywhere. Those are Krisel’s letters on the facade. He cut them out of plywood and mounted them. It is Bill bending over the bucket in the photo of the gang working outside to ready the theatre for opening night. I recognized him from his WWII army photos. Krisel said all of the actors shared the work to run the theater. Krisel designed the set for “Rain” depicted in one of the photos.
He couldn’t believe I found this stuff. He had just gotten off the phone w/ Sam Goldwyn, Jr. They had just spent 45 minutes reminiscing about Sydney whose obit was in today’s Times. Sydney and Sammy were the “Bad Boys” of Blacke-Fox Academy and both hated it. He said the obit got it right that it was just a dumping ground for movie star’s kids and Sydney dropped out after 8th grade or so.
Gloria Greer, current Palm Springs TV personality and Social Life Editor for Palm Springs Life Magazine, was then known as Gloria Grant and she is on the playbill for the first play to be performed in the theater. In the third photo from the bottom left she is the woman at the bar (Sydney is the bartender). She later married a man named Jim Greer whom Bill designed two small jobs for in the early 1960s. The one-year anniversary photo has whom Bill thinks is Paulette Goddard cutting the cake, Sydney in the back and Charlie on the left. Paulette used to go out w/ the Sydney, Carlie, Jr. and Bill in Charlie’s Rolls-Royce to cruise Sunset and Beverly Hills when the boys were just teenagers.
TheatreMonkey: I forgot to mention in my previous post that it would be fun to arrange a reunion of any living members from the Circle Theater’s founding days such as Gloria Greer and William Krisel. Krisel’s e-mail address is and Greer can be reached at Palm Springs Life. They could probably put you in touch with others from that era who may still be alive such as Sam Goldwyn, Jr. etc.
As architect William Krisel’s biographer I have some info to add to the history of the old Circle Theater. Bill was close boyhood friends with Sydney and Charlie Chaplin, Jr. His father represented Charlie, Sr., United Artists and other studios in the Far East and was based in Shanghai. When the Krisel’s moved back to the states in 1937 they moved directly across the street from the Chaplains and just down the street from PickFaiar and other Hollywood luminaries. Sydney founded the Circle Theater after World War II with some help from his father. Krisel, then an architecture student at USC, designed the stage and the outdoor signage for the theater and was a stand-in for absent actors from time to time. Another link to this period is former actress Gloria Greer, currently Social Life Editor at Palm Springs Life Magazine. She mentione fondly the old Circle Theater days at Krisel’s Palm Springs “Walk of Fame” induction ceremony last month.
TheatreMonkey: How does one go about obtaining Hi-Res scans of some of the photos on the El Centro theatre web site for use in Wm. Krisel’s biography? My e-mail address is .com Thank you very much.
TheatreMonkey: I just got off the phone w/ Bill Krisel. He was elated!! with the El Centro Theatre web site. That is his Cadillac in front of the theatre on an opening night, not Sydney’s as the caption says in one of the photos. He said Sydney bummed a ride everywhere. Those are Krisel’s letters on the facade. He cut them out of plywood and mounted them. It is Bill bending over the bucket in the photo of the gang working outside to ready the theatre for opening night. I recognized him from his WWII army photos. Krisel said all of the actors shared the work to run the theater. Krisel designed the set for “Rain” depicted in one of the photos.
He couldn’t believe I found this stuff. He had just gotten off the phone w/ Sam Goldwyn, Jr. They had just spent 45 minutes reminiscing about Sydney whose obit was in today’s Times. Sydney and Sammy were the “Bad Boys” of Blacke-Fox Academy and both hated it. He said the obit got it right that it was just a dumping ground for movie star’s kids and Sydney dropped out after 8th grade or so.
Gloria Greer, current Palm Springs TV personality and Social Life Editor for Palm Springs Life Magazine, was then known as Gloria Grant and she is on the playbill for the first play to be performed in the theater. In the third photo from the bottom left she is the woman at the bar (Sydney is the bartender). She later married a man named Jim Greer whom Bill designed two small jobs for in the early 1960s. The one-year anniversary photo has whom Bill thinks is Paulette Goddard cutting the cake, Sydney in the back and Charlie on the left. Paulette used to go out w/ the Sydney, Carlie, Jr. and Bill in Charlie’s Rolls-Royce to cruise Sunset and Beverly Hills when the boys were just teenagers.
TheatreMonkey: I forgot to mention in my previous post that it would be fun to arrange a reunion of any living members from the Circle Theater’s founding days such as Gloria Greer and William Krisel. Krisel’s e-mail address is and Greer can be reached at Palm Springs Life. They could probably put you in touch with others from that era who may still be alive such as Sam Goldwyn, Jr. etc.
As architect William Krisel’s biographer I have some info to add to the history of the old Circle Theater. Bill was close boyhood friends with Sydney and Charlie Chaplin, Jr. His father represented Charlie, Sr., United Artists and other studios in the Far East and was based in Shanghai. When the Krisel’s moved back to the states in 1937 they moved directly across the street from the Chaplains and just down the street from PickFaiar and other Hollywood luminaries. Sydney founded the Circle Theater after World War II with some help from his father. Krisel, then an architecture student at USC, designed the stage and the outdoor signage for the theater and was a stand-in for absent actors from time to time. Another link to this period is former actress Gloria Greer, currently Social Life Editor at Palm Springs Life Magazine. She mentione fondly the old Circle Theater days at Krisel’s Palm Springs “Walk of Fame” induction ceremony last month.