The Coliseum Theater, A Eulogy
January 13th, 2008 @ 2:26 am by Cliffe | Sorted Historic Buildings
Hot on the heels of our Remembering The Coliseum Theater recollection from former projectionist Mike Lewis, James Brock wrote in last week on the 102nd birthday of the theater. He wanted to share the eulogy he wrote for the theater after it closed in 1990. I’ve printed it in its entirety along with an image of the building today.
In late November 1989 I became the last manager of the Coliseum theatre located on the corner of Fifth and Pike in downtown Seattle. For years I had admired the old movie house and was happy to continue operations even though the salary was minute. The Coliseum was an important piece of Seattle history.
Although my time at the Coliseum was short, I came to love the building. The following piece was written based on research from newspapers of the opening era. It is sad that we will never see another single run movie palace of this grand scale again.
January 8, 1916. In Washington D.C. President Woodrow Wilson has recently shocked the nation by re marrying, only a year after the death of his first wife of 24 years. In November of this year he will be re elected and go on to lead America into World War I in two years.
Czar Nicholas rules the Russian empire.
In southern Spain Pablo Picasso is just experimenting with a new form a painting which will become known as cubism.
In Illinois a fifteen year old named Walter is still years from sketching a mouse he will call Mickey.
Women cannot vote.
At eleven AM on this day on the corner of fifth and Pike in Downtown Seattle the Coliseum Theatre opens.
For weeks The Seattle Times and Post Intelligencer newspapers have been running ads announcing the opening of the cities newest theatre. It will join the Alhambra (Westlake at Pike), the Liberty (First and Pike), the Strand (second at Seneca) and the Mission (fourth at Pike) to name but a few of the theatres which have opened in the last few years.
Hailed as the finest movie palace west of the Mississippi river the theatre will have 2, 800 seats. Regular seats are fifteen cents. Loge seats (love seat in size and style) for two are thirty cents. A mere telephone call to the theatre reserves a loge seat for fifty cents. The Coliseum boasts the world’s largest pipe organ, which it will remain until the opening of the Radio City Music Hall in New York City in 1933. An eight member orchestra waits to accompany the organ in carrying the musical drama of the pictures. Small hooded lights signal the end of each row of seats. A theatre first. Birds in cages hang in the lobby. Female attendants in the women’s room are dressed as Japanese Geishas.
The exterior of the Coliseum is studded with hundreds of electric lights on the neo classic design of bullocks and vases in terra cotta.
The eleven AM opening finds a line of Seattleites waiting to see the C.B. DeMille film “The Cheat”. Paramount Pictures, the theatres primary backer, has sent Miss Anita King and Miss Fannie Ward, two of their current star players as well as several lesser known motion picture players to the opening.
The dedications are made, the orchestra tunes with the pipe organ, the lights are dimmed and as the movie credits roll. With this first showing the Coliseum theatre becomes part of Seattle’s history.
World War I is ushered in with the films of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. The roaring twenties arrive with flappers in flivvers coming to swoon over the silent films of Rudolph Valentino.
The depression of the thirties brings an audience anxious to forget their concerns. They meet the new players to now talking pictures; Bette Davis, Jimmy Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck. Perhaps a young Frances Farmer becomes enthralled with the flickering fantasy world of the movies during this time in one of the plush loge seats.
With the outbreak of World War II movie tone news reels keep the busy shift workers at Boeing who come to the Coliseum abreast of the news around the country and world before each film.
Sometime in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s Marc Priteca is called back to the Coliseum for a renovation of the beginning to age facility. With great care and concern for the original inner trappings including the Byzantine stylized painting of Anthony and Cleopatra which is at the apex of the arch above the screen, the lavish ladies room with a mother’s room sound proofed to keep crying children from being heard and the marble lined men’s room, the designer adds false walls to cover the existing (hard to maintain) wall coverings. They also add double loge seats and upgrade the rest of the seating, lighting and carpet.
As the demand for better story/sound/action continues to grow the now non used orchestra pit is covered. The pipe organ is dismantled and packed into storage. The organ is later destroyed when the warehouse burns to the ground. The front doors of oak and brass with porthole windows are replaced with doors of clear glass. The marquee is replaced with a smaller revolving sign. Neon lights are added and the hundreds of lights on the façade removed.
It is now the 1950’s and double features, poodle skirts and thoughts of the cold war come to the Coliseum along with movies like The Thing and Swamp Creature.
Downtown still has a number of single screen movie houses at this time, however more people have scattered to the suburbs, where the Drive-In theatre is in vogue.
The theatre passed through many hands of ownership. By the 1960’s the upkeep of such a large single film house is great. Machinery is expensive to repair. By the 1970’s and 1980’s fewer people are willing to come to the once glorious palace. Concerns over the safety of coming down town coupled with the general deterioration of the old building, along with the showing of second and third run films continue to send the Coliseum into decline. Owners are not willing to invest in what is rapidly coming to be known as the white elephant of theatres.
Within a four month period in the late 1988 the theatre has a change of three managers and four owners. It becomes a discount house. The introduction of the .99 double feature signs the theatres death warrant.
March 9, 1990 the General Manager of ACT III theatres (the last company to own the rights to show movies in the 74 year old building) announces to the staff that ACT III will break the lease and shut down movie operations in the Coliseum.
Theatre employees are told to keep the closing quiet as the company is committing an illegal act by breaking the lease and wish that no public notice that this historic theatre (of which only the façade is preserved under the historic building preservation act) is ceasing operation.
Caring employees ignore the request and alert the media. Once again the Coliseum, in the heart of the city on the corner of Fifth and Pike street, is in the media headline. Both newspapers and four television stations cover the closing of the theatre.
March 11, 1990. George Herbert Walker Bush was the 41st. President of the United States.
Germany is in the flux of re unification after the felling of the Berlin Wall four months earlier.
In the last two months Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck have died.
At 9:15 PM that Sunday evening the Coliseum theatre played it’s last regularly scheduled film.
January 8, 1916: “The Cheat”
March 11, 1990: “Tremors”
Post Script:
A registry was kept on closing night. Here is the final entry.
“Perhaps I am the last one signing this precious book. As someone from the old world (I am an exchange student from West Germany) my heart cries to see that this wonderful place is shut down.
This nation, this generation, this town, erases one of the most historic lankmarks this country has. It’s just as if somebody wanted to tear down the Opera of Vienna of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Do I exaggerate? No. This is magnificent art, this movie palace. NOBODY EVER will spend the money to build something so magnificent and beautiful as this. None of your grandchildren will be able to feel and experience the atmosphere in which the first movies were run, accompanied by live orchestra and pipe organ. This is such a magnificent tribute to American film history. Thousands of people in this state and if each of them would step forward it could be saved, but each one thinks it is the responsibility of the other, which makes dictatorships here and everywhere. Stand up and act. The tiniest grain of hope is better than none.” Christian Roehr
Although my time at the Coliseum was short, I came to love the building. The following piece was written based on research from newspapers of the opening era. It is sad that we will never see another single run movie palace of this grand scale again.
January 8, 1916. In Washington D.C. President Woodrow Wilson has recently shocked the nation by re marrying, only a year after the death of his first wife of 24 years. In November of this year he will be re elected and go on to lead America into World War I in two years.
Czar Nicholas rules the Russian empire.
In southern Spain Pablo Picasso is just experimenting with a new form a painting which will become known as cubism.
In Illinois a fifteen year old named Walter is still years from sketching a mouse he will call Mickey.
Women cannot vote.
At eleven AM on this day on the corner of fifth and Pike in Downtown Seattle the Coliseum Theatre opens.
For weeks The Seattle Times and Post Intelligencer newspapers have been running ads announcing the opening of the cities newest theatre. It will join the Alhambra (Westlake at Pike), the Liberty (First and Pike), the Strand (second at Seneca) and the Mission (fourth at Pike) to name but a few of the theatres which have opened in the last few years.
Hailed as the finest movie palace west of the Mississippi river the theatre will have 2, 800 seats. Regular seats are fifteen cents. Loge seats (love seat in size and style) for two are thirty cents. A mere telephone call to the theatre reserves a loge seat for fifty cents. The Coliseum boasts the world’s largest pipe organ, which it will remain until the opening of the Radio City Music Hall in New York City in 1933. An eight member orchestra waits to accompany the organ in carrying the musical drama of the pictures. Small hooded lights signal the end of each row of seats. A theatre first. Birds in cages hang in the lobby. Female attendants in the women’s room are dressed as Japanese Geishas.
The exterior of the Coliseum is studded with hundreds of electric lights on the neo classic design of bullocks and vases in terra cotta.
The eleven AM opening finds a line of Seattleites waiting to see the C.B. DeMille film “The Cheat”. Paramount Pictures, the theatres primary backer, has sent Miss Anita King and Miss Fannie Ward, two of their current star players as well as several lesser known motion picture players to the opening.
The dedications are made, the orchestra tunes with the pipe organ, the lights are dimmed and as the movie credits roll. With this first showing the Coliseum theatre becomes part of Seattle’s history.
World War I is ushered in with the films of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. The roaring twenties arrive with flappers in flivvers coming to swoon over the silent films of Rudolph Valentino.
The depression of the thirties brings an audience anxious to forget their concerns. They meet the new players to now talking pictures; Bette Davis, Jimmy Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck. Perhaps a young Frances Farmer becomes enthralled with the flickering fantasy world of the movies during this time in one of the plush loge seats.
With the outbreak of World War II movie tone news reels keep the busy shift workers at Boeing who come to the Coliseum abreast of the news around the country and world before each film.
Sometime in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s Marc Priteca is called back to the Coliseum for a renovation of the beginning to age facility. With great care and concern for the original inner trappings including the Byzantine stylized painting of Anthony and Cleopatra which is at the apex of the arch above the screen, the lavish ladies room with a mother’s room sound proofed to keep crying children from being heard and the marble lined men’s room, the designer adds false walls to cover the existing (hard to maintain) wall coverings. They also add double loge seats and upgrade the rest of the seating, lighting and carpet.
As the demand for better story/sound/action continues to grow the now non used orchestra pit is covered. The pipe organ is dismantled and packed into storage. The organ is later destroyed when the warehouse burns to the ground. The front doors of oak and brass with porthole windows are replaced with doors of clear glass. The marquee is replaced with a smaller revolving sign. Neon lights are added and the hundreds of lights on the façade removed.
It is now the 1950’s and double features, poodle skirts and thoughts of the cold war come to the Coliseum along with movies like The Thing and Swamp Creature.
Downtown still has a number of single screen movie houses at this time, however more people have scattered to the suburbs, where the Drive-In theatre is in vogue.
The theatre passed through many hands of ownership. By the 1960’s the upkeep of such a large single film house is great. Machinery is expensive to repair. By the 1970’s and 1980’s fewer people are willing to come to the once glorious palace. Concerns over the safety of coming down town coupled with the general deterioration of the old building, along with the showing of second and third run films continue to send the Coliseum into decline. Owners are not willing to invest in what is rapidly coming to be known as the white elephant of theatres.
Within a four month period in the late 1988 the theatre has a change of three managers and four owners. It becomes a discount house. The introduction of the .99 double feature signs the theatres death warrant.
March 9, 1990 the General Manager of ACT III theatres (the last company to own the rights to show movies in the 74 year old building) announces to the staff that ACT III will break the lease and shut down movie operations in the Coliseum.
Theatre employees are told to keep the closing quiet as the company is committing an illegal act by breaking the lease and wish that no public notice that this historic theatre (of which only the façade is preserved under the historic building preservation act) is ceasing operation.
Caring employees ignore the request and alert the media. Once again the Coliseum, in the heart of the city on the corner of Fifth and Pike street, is in the media headline. Both newspapers and four television stations cover the closing of the theatre.
March 11, 1990. George Herbert Walker Bush was the 41st. President of the United States.
Germany is in the flux of re unification after the felling of the Berlin Wall four months earlier.
In the last two months Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck have died.
At 9:15 PM that Sunday evening the Coliseum theatre played it’s last regularly scheduled film.
January 8, 1916: “The Cheat”
March 11, 1990: “Tremors”
Post Script:
A registry was kept on closing night. Here is the final entry.
“Perhaps I am the last one signing this precious book. As someone from the old world (I am an exchange student from West Germany) my heart cries to see that this wonderful place is shut down.
This nation, this generation, this town, erases one of the most historic lankmarks this country has. It’s just as if somebody wanted to tear down the Opera of Vienna of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Do I exaggerate? No. This is magnificent art, this movie palace. NOBODY EVER will spend the money to build something so magnificent and beautiful as this. None of your grandchildren will be able to feel and experience the atmosphere in which the first movies were run, accompanied by live orchestra and pipe organ. This is such a magnificent tribute to American film history. Thousands of people in this state and if each of them would step forward it could be saved, but each one thinks it is the responsibility of the other, which makes dictatorships here and everywhere. Stand up and act. The tiniest grain of hope is better than none.” Christian Roehr
|
| The Coliseum Theater Building as it stands today. |