Hollywood Pacific Theatre facts for kids
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Warner Bros. Theatre,
Warner Hollywood Theatre, Warner Cinerama |
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The Hollywood Pacific Theatre in 2010
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| Address | 6433 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood, Los Angeles, California USA |
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| Capacity | 1,500 |
| Construction | |
| Opened | April 26, 1928 |
| Closed | 1994 |
| Years active | 1928–1994 |
| Architect | G. Albert Lansburgh |
| Designated: | February 9, 1993 |
| Reference #: | 572 |
The Hollywood Pacific Theatre is a famous movie theater in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. You can find it on Hollywood Boulevard, right on the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame. It has a rich history, from showing early "talking pictures" to huge widescreen films.
Contents
History of the Theatre
Early Days of the Warner Bros. Theatre
This theater first opened on April 26, 1928. It was called the Warner Bros. Theatre or Warner Hollywood Theatre. A famous architect named G. Albert Lansburgh designed it. It had about 2,700 seats! The first movie shown was Glorious Betsy. This was a special "talking film" using something called Vitaphone. Back then, most movies didn't have sound.
The Warner Bros. company also put their radio station, KFWB, on top of the building. The radio towers are still there today. If you look closely inside the towers, you can still see the old "WARNERS" letters.
Big Screens and New Names
In the 1950s, TVs became popular. Movie theaters needed to offer something special to bring people in. So, the Warner Hollywood Theatre was changed to show huge, widescreen movies. It reopened on April 29, 1953, as the Warner Cinerama. The first movie shown was This is Cinerama.
The new screen was enormous, about 28 feet tall and 76 feet wide! To fit this giant screen, the number of seats was reduced to about 1,500. This is Cinerama was very popular and played for 115 weeks. Other Cinerama films like Cinerama Holiday and Seven Wonders of the World also played for a long time.
In 1961, the theater was updated to show 70mm films and regular 35mm films. One of the last big Cinerama movies shown was How the West Was Won in 1963 and 1964. In 1968, a company called Pacific Theatres bought the building. They changed its name to the Hollywood Pacific Theatre.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, two famous movies by Stanley Kubrick played for a very long time here. These were 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange.
In 1978, the theater closed for a short time for more changes. They added two smaller screens in the balcony area. This cost $1.2 million! It reopened in May 1978 with new movies like Thank God It's Friday.
Closing Its Doors as a Cinema
The Hollywood Pacific Theatre stopped showing movies full-time on August 15, 1994. This happened partly because of water damage from the building of the Red Line Hollywood Subway. There was also damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Because of safety concerns, the balcony sections are still closed today. The theater has been named a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. This means it's an important historical building.
Carol Burnett's Star on the Walk of Fame
In the 1950s, a young Carol Burnett worked as an usherette at this theater. One day, she told two people arriving late for a movie to wait for the next showing. She didn't want them to miss the ending of Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. The manager saw this and fired her!
Years later, after Carol Burnett became a TV star, she was offered a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She asked for her star to be placed right in front of where the old Warner Brothers Theater was. So, her star is at 6439 Hollywood Blvd., very close to the theater.
Digital Cinema Lab Experiments
From 2001 to 2006, the theater was used for special experiments. It became the ETC Digital Cinema Lab. Here, experts tested new ways to show movies using digital projectors. They installed a new screen and sound system. They showed movies like I, Robot and Crash to people who work in the film industry.
Current Use
The theater was used by the Ecclesia Hollywood Church until July 2013.
Images for kids
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Hollywood Pacific Theatre, 2008
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Ornate ceiling and lighting fixture at entrance
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This image, taken in 2014, shows the Hollywood Pacific Theatre building in state of abandonment.
