Los Angeles Theatres: Crown Theatre / Bard's Arrow Theatre

29 W. Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91105 | map |

Opening: November or December 1909. It was in a building on the north side of the street between Fair Oaks and De Lacey. It would have been a few doors east of Clune's Pasadena, a theatre opened in 1911 that was later known as the Fox Pasadena.

Thanks to Kelli Shapiro for locating this shot of the Crown in the Pasadena Museum of History Flag Studio collection of work by photographer Emil Groetzinger and his sons, image #3-21-128. Kelli includes it on page 116 of her fine 2024 Arcadia Publishing book "Inland Empire and San Gabriel Valley Movie Theatres." The poster to the left of that center easel is for the 1917 release "The Bogus Bride."

This mysterious 1909 article about the Crown's piano player provided a bit of information about the time of the opening. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for finding it for a post on the Photos of Los Angeles private Facebook group.

The Crown was included in this column of ads appearing in a June 1910 issue of the L.A. Herald. It was another find by Ken McIntyre. Fischer's Theatre is the house that had opened several years earlier as Tally's, was later the Savoy, and ended up as a porno venue called the Oaks Theatre.

The theatre was listed as Bard's Arrow Theatre, 29 W. Colorado, in the 1911 Pasadena city directory under "Places of Amusement." It's unknown whether the Bard operating the theatre was Arthur, Louis, or someone unrelated. The Bard name surfaced again in Pasadena with the 1925 opening of Lou Bard's Egyptian, also known as Bard's Pasadena and the Fox Colorado. It's now the Academy 6.

This venue at 29 W. Colorado was again called the Crown in the 1913-14 and 1914-15 city directories.

Closing: The date is unknown.

Status: It's been demolished. The 1929 deco building on the site is attributed to the architects Finlayson & Haas. The construction was undoubtedly stimulated by the c.1929 street widening project.