Burbank Theatre

Although I’ve never found any photos of the interior of the Burbank from its later years, and I was never inside the theater myself, friends who did go there in the early 1960s told me that the interior was still very old fashioned. I don’t think that the 1930s remodeling, or any later remodeling, made any significant stylistic change to the interior of the theater. Essentially all that was done was to slap a streamline modern facade onto the old building and clean up the lobby a bit.

A bit of the original interior style is revealed in the two photos I have found, both from 1898 (the proscenium and the men’s lounge) and though it’s possible that these were altered by one of the early 20th century remodelings, I’m quite sure that there was nothing particularly Art Deco about the place. Main Street was already in decline by the time the Art Deco style emerged in the 1920s, and nobody would have been spending money to update an old theater there with anything as costly as Art Deco. One advantage of Streamline Modern, emerging during the depression of the 1930s, was that it was simple and could be done on the cheap.

The original exterior was of course Romanesque Revival, but the early interior looks to have been that awkward Victorian pastiche of styles that, in America at least, often went by the misleading name Queen Anne, or sometimes the somewhat more appropriate name Eastlake, after the English architect and writer Charles Locke Eastlake, who promoted a somewhat similar style in Victorian Britain.

Harry Carr Los Angeles City of Dreams (Illustrated by E.H. Suydam), D. Appleton-Century Co.: NY, 1935, 402 pp.
“ …

Chapter XV Underneath the Surface
p. 173 When I got a job as a reporter on a newpaper it was like moving into a new city … a Los Angeles I had never dreamed of; like going from a drawing-room through a trapdoor into an exciting and mysterious sub-basement … a world of crooks, policemen, actors, politicians.
I was still little more than a schoolboy when I began to write for an evening paper. Before I was old enough to dry behind the ears I was appointed dramatic critic.
The movies had not yet happened. There were two stock companies, a vaudeville house, and an occasional road show at the De Lux Theeater.
Lillian Goldsmith was then a vaudevill headliner with her exquisite little playlets: George Fuller Golden was the star monologist; McIntyre and Heath … Papinta, a raw-boned Mexican girl who danced with rainbow flaring (p. 174) skirts over plate-glass flushed from below with colored lights.
The Burbank Theater on Main Street was under the management of Oliver Morosco, who had been a professional acrobat. His piece de resistance was Tim Frawley’s traveling stock company. To our unsophisticated little pueblo it was rather a tony affair and the elect bought tickets for the season.
At another house down Main Street was a ten-twenty-thirty house that was considered to be somewhat beneath our notice. It thrilled the galleries with heroines who were tied by villains to railroad tracks, to be rescued by the magnificient young hero just as a teetery prop train came roaring out of the wings. The death-defying hero was William Desmond, afterward of movie fame, and the innocent heroine was Laurette Taylor. Afterward Miss Taylor married a charming young Irishman named Hartley Manners. He wore the first monocle ever to over-awe our pueblo. Under his influence, Laurette stopped dodging buzz-saws and railroad trains and moved over to the more aristocratic Burbank.
Mail service was slow in those days. One time a mauscript failed to arrive for the next week’s show and I well remember the panic at the stock compandy. I happened to be standing in the lobby of the theater wtih Hartley Manners when Morosco came out and told of the disaster. He asked Manners if he could scratch together some kind of play to tide them over for just one night. Manners consented and the little make-shift play that he scrambled together was “Peg o’ My Heart”-one of the greatest bix-office gold mines in the history of American theatricals. It has been produced three times in the movies and hundreds of stock companies have played it all over the world. To his dying day, Hartley Manners was bitterly ashamed of it.
Morosco finally moved to a new theater over on Broad (p. 175)way where he never quite repeated his triumps, Still …
One day they got into another panic for lack of a play, and an actress named Ann Nichols filled the gap with a piece she had written. It did not make much impression upon our pueblo. It lasted a week. It was “Abie’s Irish Rose,” which holds all world’s records for continuous runs.
Another company that came periodically to the Burbank in those days was the Frank Bacon Stock Company. Frank was from somewhere up the state. He was periodically on the edge of going broke and I recall how we used to consult as to what kind o story I could write for the paper that would get enough money into the house to pay off the actors on Saturday night. He was never more than one jump ahead of the sheriff. His favorite play was “General Grant’s Picture” … which he had written himself. In the Bacon family was an old farm which he sold for a song to help out the weekly play-roll. He told me that anyhow the farm wasn’t any good-couldn’t be worked -one corner was all gummed with sticky stuff. When the purchaser made a huge fortune by drilling for oil in the sticky, worthless soil, Frank only rubbed his nose and laughed.
Years after, I spent an afternoon with him in New York. He was then playing in “Lightnin,’” which was finishing its third year at standing room only. We went aroung behind the scenes and he told me in a hoarse whisper the secret. “Just the same character I’ve been playing all my life,” he said … “Just Old Bill who was in those plays I used to write in California. They wouldn’t have him then; now he is packing them in. Sell-out for three years every night.” He looked around cautiously to be sure we were alone; then he said slyly, “Carr, let me tell you. This play “Lightnin’” isn’t any good. Shucks, it ain’t worth a damn. Never expected it to get over at all. Now “General Grant’s Picture” there was a play.”
p. 176 Two blocks down the street from the Burbank was another stock house called the Belasco. It was under the management of a cynical, charming young fellow named John Blackwood. He had brains and sophistication. Leading ladies came and went but the pueblo would never consent to the changing of the leading man;. he was Lewis Stone, who as a movie star has held a continuous place in the affections of the public for a longer period of time than any other actor. One of his leading ladies was Bessie Barriscale. Came a young playwright from the University of California. His name was Richar Walton Tully and he had play that concerned a goddess of a volcano in Hawaii; “Bird of Paradise” also became one of the great money-winners of theatrical history.
On east First Street was a little burlesque house-admission ten cents and you could bring your own garlic on your breath. The squalid girl show produced Blossom Seeley and other stars.
One of the girls in this show was crossed in love and, embittered, forsook the stage world. She went out to Antelope Valley; took up a government claim and, at the plow, yelling at her mules, wore out her theatrical costumes-ballet skirts and all.
There was another girl show in town. This was run by Pop Fisher on Spring Street. The leading lady was a blonde of some heft and a compelling charm, although she talked so loudly you could hear her on a clear day for a mile. She came nearly every night after the show to sit with the dramatic staff in the Times office. She was continually anxious for our opinions as to whether she was too fat to wear tights. At no other period of my life have I discussed legs so earnestly or with such critical analysis. The lady was Texas Guinan. Behin the scenes was an assistant stage director who was something of a genius at make-up. His job was to see that (p. 177)the scenery was ready, that the girls were ready and that they had their tights on straight. This was Lon Chaney, afterward the movie star. To his last day he never changed. His best friends as a movie star were the ham actors who had been with him in Pop Fisher’s stock house. When any of them came to his parties in evening dress, he tore off their shirts and gave them bath-robes in which to dine.
Even in the days of his glory, Chaney had qualities that few suspected. He had studied the human face so long and so carefully that he could see souls behind. One day we were sitting at the table in a studio cafe. “That girl over there,” he said, indicating a very beautiful girl at the next table,. “Well, I only know her to speak to; but I can tell you something about her. Do you notice how she has the air of cocking her head as though she were listening to some one behind her-like a nervous horse trying to watch the driver’s whip . Well, she goes home at night and somebody tells her that the director is all wrong. It is probably her mother. She will see her greatest days when she marries.” And that was exactly the truth and his prophecy was fulfilled. She is now one of the greatest stars in pictures.” p. 177

Here is a 1908 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/cyxd49

Well, I just did the same thing as someone else in a previous post. Got my whole comment done here, forgot to log in and lost the post.
I’ll re-do it later.

Yes, I saw it. It was kind of hard to tell, but it did look kind of vacant. There’s another movie on that disc called A Piece Of The Action that I haven’t watched yet. I don’t know if it was filmed in Los Angeles.

I’m reading a book called City Of Night, written by John Rechy in 1963 and a major part of the book takes place on Main street near the Burbank. Even though its not mentioned by name, there are a few references to the bars and theaters around there. I had no idea that this area was the gay ghetto back then. Also, after reading this book, Pershing Square takes on a whole different meaning when I look into the now ‘dead’ park.

I parked on the bones of the Burbank today:
http://tinyurl.com/c5nerj

Thareen Aurora and Mimi Reed were my grandmothers. They both worked at the Burbank in a show with Betty Rowland.
I have some pics from back stage.
I would love to hear from KDG if she remembers them…..

Were these links useful, redundant or irrelevant? Should I keep looking?

The establishing shots during the opening credits are of another city, but the street scenes were filmed downtown.

In the 1974 film “Uptown Saturday Night”, the by then closed Burbank is visible in several shots, towards the beginning of the film.

LA Times reported a major fire at the Burbank on June 5, 1897. The theater was gutted, but plans were made to rebuild the structure with improvements.