Opened: February 5, 1921. The Ambassador Theatre, in the Ambassador Hotel, was originally operated by the Gore Brothers and Sol Lesser. It wasn't just a film house. There was a small stage for vaudeville acts and prologues.
Architect: Myron Hunt did the main building as well as the wing the Ambassador Theatre was in. Hunt also designed what is now the Ricardo Montalban Theatre (1927) in Hollywood.
Seating: 542
An announcement of the Ambassador Theatre's opening appeared in the Criterion Theatre's
program of January 8, 1921.
A May 1950 ad. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for locating it for a post on the Photos of Los Angeles Facebook page.
The theatre was still occasionally running movies in the 1950s. For a while in the 60s a local church used it for services on Sunday mornings. It also saw various rentals and trade screenings after its life as a regular film house ended. The location buried in the hotel complex was problematic for a regular theatre operation.
Status: The hotel was demolished in 2006. A small portion of the original building was saved became part of a new high school for the Los Angeles Unified School District.
An undated view of the lobby area of the Ambassador Theatre from the Los Angeles Public Library collection.
A wonderful c.1921 view of the auditorium by Frederick Martin in the California State Library collection. Note the great high backed leather seats!
A photo of the closed Ambassador Hotel by Martin that appeared on his now-vanished site You-Are-Here.com.
More Information: Don't miss Mary Mallory's 2016 Daily Mirror article on the theatre, "Ambassador Theatre Entertains Hotel's Guests." Also see the Cinema Treasures page on the Ambassador.
The website TheAmbassadorHotel.com has information on the building and links to many other sources.
The new theatre was the subject of an article in the August 13, 1921 issue of Motion Picture News. Also see the continuation of the article. There was also a story in the August 13, 1921 issue of Moving Picture World. Both issues are on Internet Archive.
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