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El Capitan Theatre

El Capitan Theatre is a fully restored movie palace at 6838 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, United States. The theater and adjacent Hollywood Masonic Temple (now known as the El Capitan Entertainment Centre) is owned by The Walt Disney Company and serves as the venue for a majority of the Walt Disney Studios' film premieres.[3]

Not to be confused with El Capitan Theatre and Hotel, San Francisco.

Address

Buena Vista Theatres, Inc.

Movie palace

1,100[1]

1

May 3, 1926 (1926-05-03)[1]

  • 1941
  • 1989
  • 2020

  • 1942
  • 1991
  • 2021

G. Albert Lansburgh
Stiles O. Clements

1990[2]

495

History[edit]

El Capitan early years[edit]

In the early 1920s, real estate developer Charles E. Toberman (the "Father of Hollywood") envisioned a thriving Hollywood theater district.[4] Toberman was involved in 36 projects while building the Max Factor Building (now the Hollywood Museum), Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and the Hollywood Masonic Temple. With Sid Grauman, he opened the three themed theaters: Egyptian (1922), El Capitan (1926), and Chinese (1927).[5]


Barker Bros. Furniture Emporium took up the rest of the building in the 1920s.[5]


El Capitan, dubbed "Hollywood's First Home of Spoken Drama," began presenting live performances on May 3, 1926, with Charlot's Revue starring Gertrude Lawrence and Jack Buchanan.[4] El Capitan continued presenting live theater for a decade, with over 120 productions including such legends as Clark Gable and Joan Fontaine.[4]


By the late 1930s, El Capitan felt the economic effects of the Depression, showcasing fewer and fewer productions.[1] This period saw a cycle of experimentation with entertainment. In an effort to boost attendance at the theater, its management attempted to lure revues, road shows and benefits.


Despite these efforts, business was faltering, and the theater then began showing movies.[1] When Orson Welles was unable to locate a theater owner willing to risk screening Citizen Kane, he turned to the El Capitan, and in 1941, Citizen Kane had its world premiere there. The theater then closed for one year[1] as Paramount Pictures purchased the theater.[6]

Hollywood Paramount[edit]

The building was remodeled in the modern style,[7] with the decor covered with curtains and removing the box-seat balconies.[1] The theater reopened in 1942 as the Hollywood Paramount Theater. Its inaugural film presentation was Cecil B. DeMille's feature Reap the Wild Wind.[1]


The theater remained the West Coast flagship for Paramount Pictures until the studio was forced by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the antitrust case U.S. vs. Paramount Pictures, et al. to divest itself of its theater holdings. After this, the Hollywood Paramount was operated by United Paramount Theatres for some years, then by a series of other companies, culminating with ownership by the Pacific Theatres Circuit in the 1980s.


After a 50-year stay, Barker Bros. Furniture closed its location in the building in the 1970s.[5] In 1985, Pacific Theatres purchased the theater from SRO Theaters.[6] The building's owners, Nick Olaerts and Thomas L. Harnsberger, had assigned authority for the theater's facade to the Los Angeles Conservancy in exchange for historical building tax credits.[8]

Features[edit]

The theater is built into a six-story office building built in the 1920s.[3] The design featured an exterior done in California Churrigueresque style of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture exterior designed by Stiles O. Clements of the architectural firm of Morgan, Walls & Clements, and mixed interior by G. Albert Lansburgh.[1] The interior is a lavish East Indian in the main auditorium, English Tudor in the wood-paneled lower lobby and Italian Baroque on the facade.[1]


The refurbished theater features a large Wurlitzer theatre organ originally installed in San Francisco's Fox Theatre in 1929.[23] Below the theater is a small exhibit space, often used to display props from the films, such as costumes or set pieces. Next door is the adjacent Disney's Soda Fountain and Studio Store, where patrons can purchase ice cream themed to the film currently playing in the cinema next door. A wide variety of Disney and movie merchandise is available there.[20]

Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments in Hollywood

Hollywood Masonic Temple

Grauman's Egyptian Theatre

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Official Website

El Capitan Theater

Renaissance of El Capitan Theater – Hollywood, CA

American Theater Organ Society

at Cinema Treasures

El Capitan Theater