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Taken on: July 16, 2023

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Ascot Theatre 1205 Botany Road, Sydney, NSW

Photo - Photograph source Bayside Council Library Services

Paul Brennan writes - The Ascot Theatre closed in March 1960 with the double feature “A Private’s Affair” and “Tunnel of Love”

This allowed for all screen process to get a last airing, one film CinemaScope/colour the other WideScreen/ b/w. 1960 was a disaster year in Sydney cinema with about 80 cinemas shutting/closing permanently/demolished. The Marina Theatre reopened 6 months later on Saturday nights and was somewhat reinvented in 1961, but without any renovations easily obtained from the Ascot Theatre’s excellent fittings.

The Ascot Theatre in 1961 was gutted

The Ascot Theatre in 1961 was gutted and became a shopping arcade and indoor market with little cabins on a floor grid where the stalls once were. The stage and back wall were removed for a huge access roller door. Bags of cabbages and potatoes now stood where Yvette and her jazz ballet corp had so recently danced to Jimmy Parkinson’s orchestra. A metaphor for the times indeed.

The whole building was engulfed in flame

The Ascot Theatre balcony level became a hairdressers and offices, with a wall from the balcony to the roof. This operated until late-1964 when mid-night the whole building was engulfed in flames, the massive heat and subsequent fumes sending sheets of flying molten roofing frisbeeing across the roofs of the shopping strip and houses, igniting ‘meteor shower’ fires everywhere. Revenge indeed for a broken hearted cinema abandoned for tiny TV, one which served it’s community for 31 years. Going up in a bonfire of fury and trying to set the nearby houses on fire as the residents watched “Gunsmoke” on a ten inch screen.

Contributed by Greg Lynch -