Meralta Theatre (I)

Joe Vogel on February 2, 2022 at 9:25 pm

My mother’s family moved from Phoenix to Culver City when she was about six or seven years old, which would have been 1921 or 1922. She remembered going to both the first and the second Meraltas. As she remembered it, theater owners Pearl Merrill and Laura Peralta were sisters, but she was apparently mistaken about that. Pearl and Laura must have been close friends as well as business partners and a vaudeville duo, as they lived together for many years in an apartment above the second Meralta.

One thing my mom remembered from the Meralta’s Saturday matinees, was that the partners, one of them playing the piano, would lead the audience, mostly children, in community sings.