Hollywood Theatre

The 500-seat Hollywood Theatre opened its doors on May 27, 1937 with Jean Harlow in “Personal Property” and Richard Alexander in “The Public Pays” along with Disney’s Mickey Mouse cartoon “The Band Concert”.

Information about this Streamline Moderne style-designed theater goes as follows: The interior, ceiling, and walls are made out of sound-proofing temlock in a mixed colors of ash, buff, and walnut, with the marquee representing a diagonal block design. Inside the theater features the foyer and stage attractively streamlined in chromium, while the interior woodwork was finished in walnut. More front information has some more detail. The entirety of the front was finished in California white stucco. Rounded pilasters that flank the entrance and the marquee. The original lighting scheme there is carried out in red, amber, and green.

The theater originally housed 500 seats as of 1937, and its original sound system is RCA Victor High Fidelity hooked with a giant loudspeaker. Semi-indirect rainbow lighting illuminates the foyer and the theater auditorium. The chrome-finished emergency lighting fixtures are located in the ceiling. It was fireproof all around the theater itself, completely walled off from the rest of the structure with concrete and block construction. Finally, there is the ventilation. Ventilators and a motor driven fan provided air circulation in the theater at all times, including safety devices being installed to insure maximum safety for every employee and patron in the theater.

Last operated with 475 seats, the Hollywood Theatre closed for the final time on May 3, 1969 with John Wayne in “Hellfighters”, but continued to operate as a special events theater afterward.

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