Warner Bros. Hollywood Theatre – 6433 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA – 1937

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Warner Bros. Hollywood Theatre – 6433 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA – 1937

PHOTO – LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY

Notes by : by Howard B. Haas, Ken Roe … The Warner Bros. Hollywood Theatre opened April 26, 1928, with Conrad Nagel and Dolores Costello in “Glorious Betsy”. The theatre was built within an office building and the auditorium is located on a diagonal axis facing north-east at the rear There was a second entrance to the west of the theatre on Wilcox Street. Other movie palaces built in Los Angeles designed by G. Albert Lansburgh included the current downtown Orpheum Theatre (1926) and the Wiltern Theatre.

This opulent movie palace was as close to an Atmospheric style theatre as Los Angeles ever had. It was built in a semi-Atmospheric style without the twinkling stars and clouds. A colonnade of wide Italianite style arches on the auditorium side walls contained painted scenes of exotic landscapes on the walls between the arches, giving a sense of being in an open garden. The original painted asbestos safety curtain by famous artist John B. Smeraldi had ‘a fanciful scene of birds of paradise performing a mating dance in a forest of delicate trees and blossoms, painted over gold leaf’. Design styles included Renaissance Revival, Rococo, and Moorish. The theatre had a seating capacity of 2,756 in orchestra and balcony.

Contributed by Greg Lynch –