I was born in 1945 and grew up in the neighborhood around Washington and Vermont. My father had a drugstore on the northeast corner. From the time I was five years old I spent a fair amount of my childhood in the Boulevard Theater, first going with my older brothers or my mother and later, by the time I was eight or nine, going by myself or with schoolmates and neighborhood friends. Saturdays at the Boulevard were a regular routine. The program started in the late morning with ads for local businesses, like the Gin Gin Inn (Chinese food), trailers (previews of coming attractions), ads for the snack counter, and numerous cartoons followed by a double feature. There were also special Friday the 13th late night “spook shows†with mini-marathons of scary movies like The Creature from the Black Lagoon. I must have run into Pat Howard (ushering from 1952-57) numerous times but I don’t think I knew him by name. There was another usher, Cody Fishburne, whom I knew because he was a friend of my brothers.
I appreciate Pat’s descriptions of the offices of Fox West Coast Theaters. While I never got to see them myself, my father occasionally played poker with Charles Skouras and his cronies in the penthouse. My dad’s descriptions of the palatial layout were similar to Pat’s with added emphasis on the variety and quality of the food and refreshments served on those occasions. When the property was acquired by Thriftimart my father seems to have been “grandfathered†in since he continued to play poker with the new management, headed by Roger Laverty.
I was born in 1945 and grew up in the neighborhood around Washington and Vermont. My father had a drugstore on the northeast corner. From the time I was five years old I spent a fair amount of my childhood in the Boulevard Theater, first going with my older brothers or my mother and later, by the time I was eight or nine, going by myself or with schoolmates and neighborhood friends. Saturdays at the Boulevard were a regular routine. The program started in the late morning with ads for local businesses, like the Gin Gin Inn (Chinese food), trailers (previews of coming attractions), ads for the snack counter, and numerous cartoons followed by a double feature. There were also special Friday the 13th late night “spook shows†with mini-marathons of scary movies like The Creature from the Black Lagoon. I must have run into Pat Howard (ushering from 1952-57) numerous times but I don’t think I knew him by name. There was another usher, Cody Fishburne, whom I knew because he was a friend of my brothers.
I appreciate Pat’s descriptions of the offices of Fox West Coast Theaters. While I never got to see them myself, my father occasionally played poker with Charles Skouras and his cronies in the penthouse. My dad’s descriptions of the palatial layout were similar to Pat’s with added emphasis on the variety and quality of the food and refreshments served on those occasions. When the property was acquired by Thriftimart my father seems to have been “grandfathered†in since he continued to play poker with the new management, headed by Roger Laverty.