Opened: November 29, 1991 by General Cinema as the Hollywood Galaxy 6. It was also known as the General Cinema Galaxy 6. From the street one took an escalator up to the theatre level.
This great 1992 view appears on the
Cinema Treasures page as a 2011 post by Filmmaker 1971. Chris Lawrence spotted a 2023 appearance of it on X and shared it in a thread about the theatre on the private Facebook group
General Cinema Memories.
Cinemas 1, 2 and 3 were on the "west" half of the building, and 4, 5 and 6 on the "east" half of the building. Thanks to Paul Rayton for sharing this not-to-scale plan. He was the theatre's head projectionist for years, working at the Galaxy from 1991 until mid-1999. Paul finished his theatre career as the head projectionist at the
Egyptian.
The plan comes from an equipment list/purchase order dated April 1991. See the full 15 page list at the bottom of the page. Paul notes that a number of changes were made as the project continued
to evolve after the equipment list was prepared. They initially planned for screens 1, 2 and 3 to be capable of interlock
operation and the 4, 5 and 6 group with the came capability. It was
later decided that there would be no interlock provision.
The
presentation quality was excellent with three of the houses equipped
for
70mm. All the theatres had
curtains. The 70mm houses (1, 4 and 6) had Cinemeccanica Victoria 8s, Dolby CP200 processors and were THX
certified. Paul wrote an article
about the THX installation as well as other Galaxy equipment issues for the site In70mm.com. |
article part one |
part two. Paul notes:
"Houses 1, 4, and 6 were subsequently also equipped with the Dolby SRA5 adapter add-on to play Dolby SR-encoded tracks. Those were good because we could simply enable format '05' on the CP-200s and it would automatically switch to SR for the features, at the time of transition from trailers to feature (if we set it correctly)."
Later 70mm Cinemas #1 and #6 got Dolby Digital and Cinema #6 also got equipped for SDDS.
The 35mm only houses (2, 3 and 5) had Victoria 5 projectors. When the complex opened Cinema #3 had Dolby Stereo with a CP55 optical processor. Initially Cinemas #2 and #5 had Ultra Stereo front/surround systems using a center channel, subwoofer, and surrounds. They were later upgraded with Dolby processors and additional speakers. Paul notes:
"In #5 we had a very early test installation [unadvertised] of a prototype DTS player, and I think that might have been when the sound was upgraded. I think by the time I left in May 1999 we had DTS in all houses."
The November 29, 1991 opening day ad in the Times.
A 1991 flyer from the collection of Paul Rayton. He comments:
"I'd been working on the installation there since about July of that year, putting in speakers, helping with booth wiring, setting up the projectors, lenses ... all the behind-the-scenes stuff. They did a 'soft' opening, starting November 29, meaning with cheap tickets to help us (and them) make sure that everything was actually up and running OK, thus to have things pretty much polished by the time the 'real' grand opening took place.
"It was chaotic, but as I recall everything ran mostly OK. GCC brought in 6 copies of that short 'Precious Images,' to run prior to all the shows (i.e., one on each screen), as an additional bonus. As I recall, everything significant worked and we didn't have any horrible disasters. There might have been a splice out of frame somewhere, but nothing ended up on the floor! It started out with 9 days of a 'studio salute,' and then 5 days featuring films about Hollywood."
The back of the flyer listing the "60 Years of Films on Hollywood," running December 13 through 17, 1991. Thanks, Paul!
GCC
went into bankruptcy in 2000 and the theatre was taken over by AMC in April 2002 (along with
other GCC properties in Los Angeles) and operated as the AMC Hollywood
Galaxy 6. The site of the Galaxy complex was once the famed
Garden Court Apartments (1916), home of many stars over the years. It
had been demolished about a decade before the Galaxy was built.
Seating: 2,400 total. The three largest houses (the ones equipped for 70mm) had about 520 seats each.
Architects: Maxwell Starkman Associates
Status: Closed in 2003 after difficulty competing with the newer ArcLight and
Mann Chinese 6 complexes. The development now houses an LA Fitness branch, a Target store and other tenants.
In the booth:
The "projection office" with trailers on the wall and some on on the desk on center platter rings awaiting changes. Photo: Paul Rayton - 2003
Cinema #5 with a Christie Autowind, a Cinemeccanica Victoria 5 machine on a Christie console, and a Dolby CP55 processor in the rack. That's a Kelmar film cleaner mounted above the projector head. Photo: Paul Rayton - 2003
Cinema #6, one of the three 70mm equipped houses. It's a Cinemeccanica Victoria 8 35/70 projector on a Cinemeccanica console. There's a Kelmar film cleaner and a DTS reader above the projector head. In the rack it was a Dolby MPU mag preamp unit, a Dolby CP200 processor, a THX crossover / monitor unit and Ashley power amps. Photo: Paul Rayton - 2003. Thanks, Paul!
More exterior views:
A dark and stormy November 1991 photo shared by Philip Dincecco in a 2013 post on the private Facebook group General Cinema Memories. Titles on the marquee include "Bugsy" and "JFK." Bob Artz commented:
"Now that I look at Phil's photo more closely, I see the dark clouds hovering over the HG6! Should have known that trouble was on the way. This was a tough one to open - it was THREE YEARS after the ground breaking ceremony before it actually opened! Worked VERY HARD on this opening - I would guess one of the most difficult in the circuit..... and perhaps most expensive!"
Christian Beck noted:
"I was there that night. I was one of the original crew members of this place. I was there from 91 to 94 then came back in 97 to 98."
Another early shot. Christian Beck shared this photo, as well as the 1991 Philip Cincecco shot, in comments on a 2023 post about the theatre on
General Cinema Memories.
A view by Bob Bayles. It was on his now-vanished website cinemaphotogallery.com.
An early 90s look up the escalators to the entrance. Thanks to Joshua Weisel for his photo, a post for the private Facebook group
Photos of Los Angeles.
A c.1992 photo located by Ken McIntyre for a post on the Photos of Los Angeles private Facebook group. It appears that "The Last of the Mohicans" was one of the films they were running.
A collage assembled from shots Paul Rayton took in July 1994 from the building across from the theatre.
A 1994 photo posted by Dave Nagel on the
Vintage Los Angeles Facebook page with Charlie Sheen getting his star in front of the Galaxy. See more of Dave's work at
NagelPhoto.com.
A look at the Galaxy complex taken by Marcel from across the street. The 1995 photo appears on the
Cinema Treasures page about the Hollywood Galaxy.
This photo of the complex in 1995 was shared by Richard Wojcik on the Facebook page
Vintage Los Angeles.
A 1995 photo by Paul Rayton. He notes that it was posted on the projection office wall and got bleached out from years of fluorescent light.
A 1997 view of the boxoffice area by Scott Neff. See the
Cinema Tour page on the Galaxy 6 for more exterior photos. Note that here we're showing the famous GCC red, white and blue color scheme.
The former Galaxy Theatres location in 2010. Photo: Bill Counter
Thanks to Stan Taffel for this 2015 look down from the Roosevelt Hotel toward what had once been the Galaxy 6. It's a photo that originally appeared on the
Hollywood Heritage Facebook page.
The Galaxy in the Movies: Future vampire slayer Kristy Swanson and her friend Hilary Swank getting out of a show at the Galaxy in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (20th Century Fox, 1992). The film was written by Joss
Whedon and directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui. The cinematography was by James Hayman. See the
Historic L.A. Theatres in Movies post for five more shots outside the Galaxy, including one with a view of the El Capitan. Also included are six shots of the action inside the Tower Theatre, used as the live/work space of vampires Rutger Hauer and Paul Reubens. The film also features Donald Sutherland, Luke Perry and David
Arquette.
Behind
a cloud of exhaust, we get a view of the Galaxy as Joe Pesci and
Christian Slater head down the street in Barry Levinson's "Jimmy
Hollywood" (Paramount, 1994). The film also gives us a peek at the El
Capitan and spends a lot of time in the then-closed Egyptian. See the
Historic L.A. Theatres In Movies post for more shots from those scenes.
We get a shot of the Galaxy in a montage of
Hollywood views with the opening credits of Doug Liman's "Swingers"
(Miramax, 1996). The film stars Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau (who also
wrote the script), Ron Livingston and Heather Graham. See the
Historic L.A. Theatres in Movies post for a shot of the Chinese from the sequence.
Evan Rachel Wood, Holly Hunter, Nikki Reed and Jeremy Sisto go to
the movies in Catherine Hardwicke's "Thirteen" (Fox Searchlight,
2003). It's a tale of teenagers discovering various temptations. They sneak out of the movie and roam the boulevard. The
cinematography was by Elliot Davis. See the
Historic L.A. Theatres in Movies
post for three more exterior shots of the Galaxy, two views outside the Chinese plus a look at the Hollywood Theatre's
marquee.
The April 1991 purchase order and booth equipment list:
Many thanks to Paul Rayton for sharing this list from his collection.
More Information: See the Cinema Treasures page on the Galaxy for many stories and a selection of exterior photos. The Cinema Tour page on the Galaxy has some photos additional photos from Scott Neff.
There are exterior photos on Michael Coate's page about the Galaxy on the site From Script To DVD. The website Silver Screens features a two page 1999 Los Angeles Theatres
piece with two exterior photos of the Galaxy by Don Ceppi.
There's an article on Wikipedia about General Cinema.
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