Fischer's / Savoy / Fair Oaks / Community Playhouse / Oaks

85 N. Fair Oaks Ave. Pasadena, CA 91124 | map |

Opened: It was in business by 1910 being called Fischer's Theatre. It's unknown if it had opened earlier or with a different name. The location was on the west side of the street between Union St. and Holly St.  

 

Seating: 700 in later years. An article in 1928 noted that they had expanded by 100 seats, adding a loge and mezzanine.

Architects: The original architect is unknown. Joe Vogel found a June 15, 1912 item in Southwest Contractor & Manufacturer noting that the firm of Buchanan and Brockway were the architects for a remodel to bring the theatre into code compliance. Work included a brick proscenium wall, new fire doors, a sprinkler system and electrical upgrades. Walter C. Folland of Pasadena did the 1925 remodel to turn it into the Fair Oaks Theatre.

Fischer's was included in this column of ads appearing in a June 1910 issue of the L.A. Herald. Thanks to Ken McIntyre posting it as a comment on a thread about early Pasadena theatres for the Photos of Los Angeles private Facebook group. The Crown Theatre also being advertised is one that had opened in 1909.

Joe Vogel found a mention in an insurance industry publication noting that the theatre had a fire on January 5, 1911. 

It's in the 1912 city directory as Fischer's Theatre at 87 N. Fair Oaks. We also had a Fischer's Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, later renamed the Princess, which ran mostly stock productions. E.A. Fischer had come from San Francisco where he ran several theatres both before and after the 1906 earthquake. Later he was involved in other Los Angeles theatres including the Lyceum.

In the 1913-14 directory it's listed as the Savoy Theatre at 87 N. Fair Oaks. Several accounts refer to the Savoy as a burlesque theatre.

This venue was the home of the Pasadena Playhouse before construction of their theatre on El Molino in 1925. The company started with Gilmore Brown's arrival in Pasadena in 1916. In 1917 he rented the Savoy and for a while called the company the Savoy Stock Company. In 1918 the company renamed the theatre the Community Playhouse. 

 

 

 

This c.1920 photo, taken after Gilmore Brown's acting troupe had taken it over, comes from the Pasadena Playhouse Archives and appeared on an "Over 100 Years of Theater" email campaign. The "Community Playhouse" sign is a once popular type that could be swung out when the theatre was operating. The small sign in the arch is advertising a show titled "Boy Dreams."

 

 

The theatre is on the right in this c.1924 photo. Someone has taken a marker to the photo and obliterated signage on both buildings. The building in the center is the Masonic Lodge. Its main meeting room was used in the 1960s and 70s as Cinematheque 16, a venue for experimental films. It's a photo by Albert Hiller from the Pasadena Public Library appearing on the Pasadena Digital History Collaboration website, their #ppl_458. Thanks to Scott Babcock for finding the photo in the collection for his Noirish Los Angeles post # 44134. 

In 1925 Gilmore Brown's troupe moved into the new Pasadena Playhouse.

Walter C. Folland of Pasadena did the 1925 remodel to turn it into the Fair Oaks Theatre. It's unknown if the theatre had earlier had a stagehouse that got removed in the remodel. Joe Vogel found an item in the Southwest Builder & Contractor issue of April 10, 1925 noting that Folland was the architect and that work was to include a new front, floors, marquee, seats and interior redecoration. The theatre also got an organ installation in 1925.

A c.1925 sketch of the upgraded entrance and new signage of the Fair Oaks from a PDF file about Walter Folland from the Los Angeles Public Library. Thanks to Joe Vogel for finding it in the collection. A better reproduction of this.

A photo of Folland from the Library's pdf. 

 Folland's logo. 

 

As the Fair Oaks, the theatre operated as a movie theatre. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for spotting this 1925 ad for a post for the Photos of Los Angeles private Facebook group.

 

 

An illustration and story appearing in the August 16, 1928 issue of the Pasadena Evening Post to kick off that year's "Greater Movie Season." Note the  mention of an auditorium expansion, adding 100 seats in a loge and mezzanine. That run of "Al Jolson's popular picture, 'The Jazz Singer'" would have been a silent version.  Thanks to Ken McIntyre for sharing the page this was on as a post for the Ken's Movie Page Facebook group.

 

 

The ad that appeared in the August 16, 1928 issue of the Post.

 

 

Western Electric equipment arrives for Mary Pickford in "Coquette," a film that had its first-run engagement at the United Artists downtown. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for sharing the page this June 27, 1929 ad was on as a post for the America in the 1920s Facebook group. 

 

 A 1930 ad. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for locating it for another post on Photos of Los Angeles.

Around 1945 it got renamed the Oaks Theatre, perhaps coinciding with reconstruction after being gutted by a 1945 fire. Joe Vogel reports finding an item in the February 3, 1945 issue of Boxoffice noting the fire and saying that plans were underway for immediate reconstruction.

It was an adult theatre at the end of its life. At one point there was a 30 seat house upstairs called the Tom Kat that ran gay porno.

The Oaks was discussed by Matt Hormann in "The Lost Adult Theaters of Pasadena," his 2015 article for Hometown Pasadena that's now been lost online. He noted that around 1959 it became the first of Pasadena's theatres to go to an adult format. First with artie European product and then gradually sliding into stronger stuff. He says:

"It was so well-known in its day that that it even appeared in author 'The Graduate' author Charles Webb’s Pasadena-set novel 'The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker' (1970). Operated by Harold E. Wenzler, a well-liked local businessman, the theater started showing European art house films in the late 1950s. These included 'Room at the Top,' a critically-acclaimed British film, and 'L’Amant de lady Chatterley,' a French film that was banned across the U.S. from 1955 until 1959 for 'promoting adultery.' 

"The latter landed Wenzler in trouble with the City of Pasadena – the first in a string of incidents for the theater operator. This was the same decade, after all, in which Langston Hughes’s poetry was removed from Pasadena school libraries for being 'subversive.' The city, which still had a film censorship board at that point, demanded Wenzler edit the film. Wenzler refused, and was eventually successful in helping to abolish the censorship law in 1961."

Owner Harold E. Wenzler in 1961. It's an L.A. Times photo appearing with Matt's article. Thanks to Linda Hammonds for spotting the story. 

At various times Wenzler had also run the Lux at 3rd and Figueroa, the Granada on Temple St., the Daly in Lincoln Heights and the Roxy in Glendale. Before operating his own theatres Wenzler had a long career as a theatre PR guy with clients including Sid Grauman.

Part of a January 1961 story about Wenzler's troubles with the City of Pasadena. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for including this in a 2023 thread about the Lux Theatre and Wenzler for the Photos of Los Angeles Facebook group.  

 

A 1970s facade view from the Pasadena Public Library's collection appearing on the website of the Pasadena Digital History Collaboration, their #ppl_8382. They suggest that it may have been taken by the Pasadena Redevelopment Agency.

 

A 70s photo located by Jose Sotela for a post on the Suicide Bridge Social Club Facebook page.

On Holly St. with a view of the side of the theatre. The perhaps 1970s photo from the Pasadena Public Library appears on the website of the Pasadena Digital History Collaboration, #ppl_8381. 

Status: The Oaks was demolished in 1977. There's a new building on the site.

 

A 1977 L.A. Times before-and-after view appearing with Matt Hormann's 2015 article for Hometown Pasadena "The Lost Adult Theaters of Pasadena." Thanks, Matt! 

More Information: See the Cinema Treasures page for all that is known about the building. Bill Gabel and Joe Vogel did the great research.

The theatre in its Savoy days gets a mention regarding it being a precursor to the Pasadena Playhouse in "State Theater of California," an article on the site Netstate.

Also using the Fair Oaks name was the Fair Oaks Theatre, 1246 N. Fair Oaks Ave.

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