WikiPortallus: Roxy Theatre (New York City).html

The Roxy Theatre in New York City was a 5,920¹ seat movie theater at 153 West 50th Street at 7th Avenue. It opened on March 11, 1927 with the silent film The Love of Sunya, produced by and starring Gloria Swanson. The huge movie palace was a leading Broadway film showcase through the 1950s and was also noted for its lavish stage shows. It closed and was demolished in 1960.

Early History

The Roxy Theatre was conceived by film producer Herbert Lubin (nephew of film pioneer Siegmund Lubin) in mid-1925 as the world's largest and finest motion picture palace. To realize his dream, he brought in the successful and innovative theater operator Samuel L. Rothafel, aka "Roxy", to bring it to fruition,² enticing him with a large salary, percentage of the profits, stock options and offering to name the theatre after him.³ It was to be the first of several planned Roxy Theatres in the New York area.

Roxy determined to make his theater the summit of his career and in it realize all of his theatrical design and production ideas. He worked with Chicago architect Walter W. Ahlschlager and decorator Harold Rambusch of Rambusch Decorating Company on every aspect of the theatre's design and furnishings. Ahlschlager succeeded in an efficient plan for the irregular plot of land, which utilized every bit of space, and featured a diagonal auditorium plan with the stage in one corner of the lot. The design maximized the theater's size and seating capacity but compromised the function of its triangular stage.

Roxy's lavish ideas and his many changes ran up costs dramatically. Shortly after the theater's opening, Lubin, who was $2.5 million over budget and near bankruptcy, sold his controlling interest to movie mogul and theater owner William Fox for $12-15 million.⁴ With Lubin's exit, Roxy's dreams of his own theater circuit also ended. Only one of the projected Roxy chain was built, the planned Roxy Midway Theatre on Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, also designed by Ahlschlager. The nearly complete theater was sold to Warner Brothers who opened it as Warner's Beacon in 1929.

Design and innovation

Known as the "Cathedral of the Motion Picture," the Roxy's design by Ahlschlager featured a soaring golden, Spanish-inspired auditorium, and a lobby in the form of a large columned rotunda called the "Grand Foyer," which featured "the world's largest woven rug." Off the rotunda was a long entrance lobby, with its own pipe organ. This led to the theater's main entrance which was located at the corner of Seventh Ave. and W. 50th St. in the adjacent Hotel Taft building.

In addition to the enormous public areas, the theater also boasted two stories of private dressing rooms, three floors of chorus dressing rooms, huge rehearsal rooms, a costume department, dry-cleaning and laundry rooms, a barber shop and hairdresser, a completely equipped infirmary, dining room, and a menagerie for show animals. There were also myriad offices, a private screening room seating 100, and massive engine rooms for the electrical, ventilating and heating machinery. The Roxy's large staff enjoyed a cafeteria, gymnasium, billiard room, nap room, library and showers.⁵

The theater's stage innovations included a rising orchestra pit which could accommodate an orchestra of 110 and a Kimball theater pipe organ with three consoles which could be played simultaneously. The film projection booth was recessed into the front of the balcony to prevent film distortion caused by the usual angled projection from the top rear wall of a theater. This enabled the Roxy to have the sharpest film image for its time.

Courteous service to the patron was part of the Roxy formula. The theater's uniformed corps of male ushers were known for their polite manner, efficiency and military bearing. They underwent rigorous training, daily inspections and drill. The ushers were even immortalized by Cole Porter in a verse of the song You're the Top in 1932.

The Roxy presented major Hollywood films in programs that also included a 110-member symphony orchestra (the world's largest permanent orchestra at that time), a solo theater pipe organ, a male chorus, a ballet company and a famous line of female precision dancers, the "Roxyettes". Elaborate stage spectacles were created each week to accompany the feature film, all under the supervision of Rothafel. The theater's orchestra and performers were also featured in an NBC Radio program with Roxy himself as host. The Roxy Hour, was broadcast live weekly from the theater's own radio studio. Thanks to this exposure, the Roxy was known to radio listeners nation wide as the country's most celebrated movie venue.⁶

The Roxy after "Roxy"

In spite of the theater's fame and success, the financial problems of its majority owner, the Fox Film Corporation, destabilized the Roxy's operations and it was often saddled with inferior films. In 1932, Rothafel left the theater named for him to open the new Radio City Music Hall. Most of the Roxy's performers and artistic staff moved with him, including producer Leon Leonidoff, choreographer Russell Markert, and conductor Erno Rapee⁷. The Roxyettes went on to greater fame at the Music Hall, becoming the Rockettes, as they are still known today.⁸

The Roxy never quite regained its former glory but remained a leading New York showcase for film and stage variety shows through the 1950s. Many noted performers of the era, such as the Nicholas Brothers, Carmen Cavallaro, and The Harmonicats appeared at the Roxy. Even classical ballet dancers, such as Leonide Massine, performed there. In 1950 the New York Philharmonic along with soprano Eileen Farrell appeared for two weeks at the the theater, playing an abbreviated concert program with showings of the feature film.⁹

The Roxy's stage was rebuilt twice, in 1948 and 1952, to add an ice surface for skating shows. During the latter refurbishing the stage was extended out into the house over the orchestra pit and had colored neon embedded in the ice.¹⁰ Ice shows were presented, along with the feature film, on and off through the 1950s. In January 1956, skating star Sonja Henie brought her revue to the Roxy in her final New York appearance.¹¹¹²

Widescreen CinemaScope was introduced to New York at the Roxy with the premiere in 1953 of The Robe. The Roxy had also introduced the original 70mm widescreen format "Fox Grandeur" in 1930 with the premiere of Fox's Happy Days. Due to the Great Depression, however, the Roxy was one of only two theaters equipped for 70mm Grandeur and it never caught on (Grauman's Chinese was the other).¹³ Another widescreen format, the three-projector Cinemiracle debuted at the Roxy as well on a curved 110-foot screen with the 1958 film Windjammer.

One of the last big combined shows was in 1959 with feature film This Earth is Mine starring Rock Hudson and Jean Simmons, followed by The Big Circus. On the Roxy stage were Gretchen Wyler, The Blackburn Twins, Jerry Collins, and The Roxy Orchestra. Managing Director, since 1955, was Robert C. Rothafel, the original Roxy's son. By this time the Roxy's appearance was altered considerably from its golden 1920s design. Part of the proscenium and side walls had been removed to accommodate the huge Cinemiracle screen and most of the rest of the auditorium was covered in heavy garish drapes. The big orchestra pit was mostly covered by the stage extension with the organ consoles removed. The elegant lobby areas, however, remained largely intact.¹⁴

The Roxy closed in 1960 after being acquired by Rockefeller Center, and was demolished. The theater's prime real estate was now more valuable than the income of a movie theater could justify.¹⁵Gloria Swanson was photographed on October 14, 1960 for Life Magazine by photographer Eliot Elisofon in the midst of the ruins during the theater's demolition.

The spectacular stage and screen programming ideas of the Roxy's founder continued at Radio City Music Hall into the 1970s. The Music Hall itself was saved from demolition by a consortium of preservation and commercial interests in 1979 and it remains one of New York's entertainment landmarks today.

References

^ Note: Original advertised capacity of 6,214 was never actually true. The theater's blue prints, as published in American Theatres of Today. (1927), reveal the true seating capacity as 5,920.
^ Melnick, Ross. Rethinking Rothafel: Roxy's Forgotten Legacy, The Moving Image 3:2, Fall 2003, pp 62-95.
^ Bloom, Ken. Broadway: Its History, People, and Places: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge, 2004. p.462
^ Bloom. pp.462-463
^ Bloom. p.464
^ Ben M. Hall, The Best Remaining Seats. New York: Clarkson N. Potter (1961)
^ Obituary: Leon Leonidoff, 95 by Richard F. Shepard, The New York Times, August 1, 1989.
^ Ben M. Hall, The Best Remaining Seats. New York: Clarkson N. Potter (1961)
^ Howard Taubman, "Symohony Opens Run at the Roxy". New York Times, September 2, 1950.
^ "Ice Shows and Sousa Mark Roxy Reopening". New York Times, December 23, 1952.
^ Bosley Crowther, "Screen: 'The Lieutenant Wore Skirts". New York Times, January 12, 1956.
^ Raymond Strait and Leif Henie: Queen of Ice, Queen of Shadows: The Unsuspected Life of Sonja Henie. Scarborough House (January 25, 1990), ISBN 0-8128-8518-X.
^ David Coles, "Magnified Grandeur". 70mm.com. March 2001.
^ Ben M. Hall, The Best Remaining Seats. New York: Clarkson N. Potter (1961)
^ "Curtains for the Roxy" TIME, February 29, 1960

Roxy Theatre (New York City).html

Contents

Early History

Design and innovation

The Roxy after "Roxy"

References

Sources

External links

History and commentary

Painting and photos