Comments from wade1015

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wade1015
wade1015 commented about Fox Theatre Taft on Nov 7, 2008 at 1:07 am

Yes. The correct number of screens for the Taft Fox Theatre is three. My family owned the theatre and I was the general manager of the theatre when the two additional screens were added.

wade1015
wade1015 commented about Fox Theatre Taft on Sep 2, 2004 at 9:23 am

Well, I just did a google search on the Taft Fox Theatre and this was the first link listed. There doesn’t seem to be a lot listed about this theatre so let me see if I can help fill in some of the blanks. My family and I bought and restored the theatre in the 1995 and I was the General Manager of the theatre for over four years. The theatre started out as the Hippodrome, as listed above, in the early 20’s. After the fire the theatre reopened as the Fox in either 50 or 51 (used to have this knowledge on the tip of my tongue when I was running the place but it’s been several years now and the details are a little fuzzy). When we bought it in 1995, it was run down and had been closed for several years. We took about 9 months restoring it. We took out tons of asbestos, repaired seats, painted everything (I personally painted the entire marquee by hand), repaired neon, and did a lot of cleaning. The main auditorium originally would seat close to 1300 people I believe. We took out several rows of seats and added a much larger stage up front so we could have live performances. We also eventually took out several rows in back, added platforms, and put in leather recliners (talk about watching a movie in style). When we got done the seating capacity had been cut down to a mere 750. We reopened it in May, 1996. We originally showed only second-run movies, but eventually moved into some first-run stuff during the busy periods. After about a year and a half, we bought the empty lot next to the lobby and added two more smaller screens with about 300 seats between the two of them. We began running quite a bit more first-run movies then. After a few more years I left, but my family continued to operate it until September, 2003. There just wasn’t enough business to keep it open. The multiplexes of Bakersfield were just too close. The theatre was sold during the summer of 2004. I believe the current owners are planning to reopen it soon. It’s a beautiful theatre that I absolutely love. It was my life for a couple of years and they are years I look back on very fondly. I will do my best to get a picture posted so all can see what it looks like.