El Rey Theatre
3520 San Pablo Avenue,
Oakland,
CA
94608
3520 San Pablo Avenue,
Oakland,
CA
94608
1 person
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previous Names: Plaza Theatre, World Theatre
Nearby Theaters
The Plaza Theatre was opened in 1927. In 1937 it was renamed El Rey Theatre, and in 1939, it was renamed World Theatre. In 1941 it went back to the El Rey Theatre name and operated as a burlesque theatre, with movies as part of the program. The El Rey Theatre was closed in July 1957.
Contributed by
William Gabel
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Recent comments (view all 15 comments)
Anton LaVey was playing organ there at the time Russ Meyer made his French Peep Show movie.
A 1957 photo of the El Rey from the Oakland Public Library.
This is from the 9/11/56 edition of the Oakland Tribune:
Pete De Cenzie, the gentleman who guides the destinies of Oakland’s El Rey theater, called to
our attention the fact that his theater was only closed for one right, two weeks ago when Miss Evelyn West was deemed by the police department to be a little TOO generous with her “treasure
Chest” exhibitions. Says Mr. De Cenzie, “That whole matter was straightened out at once. But people evidently had the impression that we had been shut down permanently. Nothing could be further from the facts. Right now we are featuring a movie called “Crimes of the Gestapo†and a stage show with Vallkyra who although she is six foot three qualifies as being exotic.”
Here is an April 1950 ad from the Oakland Tribune:
http://tinyurl.com/25xsfc
Prior to The El Rey Theater operating on a burlesque format, it was a movie theater featuring films that were less than new releases. As an enticement to patrons, they gave away one piece of chinaware to all women patrons on Monday Nights. You can collect a whole set if you frequent the theater during the promotion period. S. Taw
This for Robert Campbell. I danced at the El Rey beginning in the fall of 1949 as Colette the Beaucoup Girl.I also worked in skits with the two comics, Bruce & forgot the other chaps name. His wife was Bonnie. I couldn’t sew (I was on the college track @ El Cerrito High & not yet 18)so I became the 1st stripper (other than Lily St. Cyr) to strip out of street clothes. I became Jackie the Coed.I don’t recall your dad but I sure remember the ugly “butcher” Charlie who sold the french photos & crackerjacks! And of course, Pete D.& his lovely blonde wife, Yvonne. The Follies brought me to LA & Temptest was sent to the El Rey, a much smaller venue. Before she left LA, I did watch her being taught to walk the T-Bar by Miss Lillian Hunt. A few years back I ran into Tempest @ Neiman Marcus in Newport Beach. Now she works the retirement communities but has sever sight problems. Still red-heades and busty!
@jackiethecoed. Thank you for the great story! My dad Charles “Eddie” Green, sadly passed a few years ago. He would have enjoyed your reply. He used to live at the Roxy Hotel up the street from the theater. One hot summer day, he decided to walk to the El Rey without a shirt, and got arrested for indecent exposure. Yvonne bailed him out.
It appears that this theater was only called World Theater for two years — shouldn’t it be listed here as the El Rey, the name it held for the longest time, and what it was called when it closed?
http://goo.gl/77cIU7
I live about a mile away from the site of the El Rey. It was demolished years ago for I-580, which connects the San Francisco Bay Bridge with Oakland and suburbs to the east. Historically our neighborhood of West Oakland was the “Harlem of the West,” home to a thriving African American middle class supported by the Pullman Porters union and the Port of Oakland. Across the street from the El Rey/580 still stands the California Hotel, now Section 8 housing but in the 50s one of the only four-star hotels west of the Mississippi you could stay at if you weren’t white (and all the great entertainers stayed there). A neighbor of mine was doing some work on his house and in the walls he found fragments of movie posters from 1929/30 from the Plaza Theater, which I’ve since learned was the El Rey’s original incarnation.
i lived a few blocks from the El Rey and one day walked to the North Oakland Library at 35th and San Pablo. Near the Ttheater, I found an 8 X 10 glossy of Tempest storm. She was posing on a bearskin rug and and wearing a leopard-skin outfit.