Opened: November 15, 1923 as the Cabrillo Theatre. It was on the south side of the street between Beacon St. and Palos Verdes St. This opening night shot was from the Motion Picture News. Thanks to Charmaine Zoe for finding it to include in her Theatres: Stage and Movie album on Flickr. Many volumes of Motion Picture News are available to browse on Internet Archive.
The theatre had a full stage with fly capability, dressing rooms, an orchestra pit, and an organ console on a lift. It was built for West Coast Theatres and, in addition to the theatre, it contained stores and offices. In the 1924 San Pedro directory "West Coast Theatres" was listed as in "rm 2."
Architects: Gabriel Meyer and Phillip Holler, Meyer & Holler. The construction was by M&H's in-house construction arm Milwaukee Building Co. The firm did many commercial buildings in the 20s. Among their theatres done on a design-build basis were a few little ones like the West Coast in Long Beach, the Fox Fullerton, Grauman's Egyptian and Grauman's Chinese.
Seating: 1,535 when it opened.
A fine December 1927 ad in the San Pedro Daily Pilot for "Figures Don't Lie" and a "Good Vodvil Show." Thanks to Ken McIntyre for locating it for a post on the Photos of Los Angeles Facebook page.
West Coast Theatres became Fox West Coast in 1929. The San Pedro city directories list the theatre as the Fox Cabrillo from 1930 through 1956.
This October 28, 1929 ad for a talkie presentation appeared in the San Pedro News Pilot. It's a clipping in the collection of the San Pedro Bay Historical Society. Thanks to Michelle Gerdes for the photo of it. You can browse over 40 of her shots of clippings from the SPBHS in an album on Google Photos.
A May 8, 1934 ad appearing in the News Pilot. Thanks to Michelle Gerdes for the image of a clipping in the San Pedro Bay Historical Society collection.
An August 31, 1940 Fox West Coast ad from the News Pilot. It's another from the San Pedro Bay Historical Society collection. Thanks to Michelle Gerdes for taking a shot of it. See the page on the Strand Theatre for data on that one.
Closing: The final double bill on August 13, 1957 was "Gun Glory" with Stewart Granger along with "Man on Fire" starring Bing Crosby. Thanks to Bill Gabel for the data.
Status: The city ended up with the property and it was demolished in two phases in 1961 and 1962. The site is now a parking lot.
A January 6, 1961 item from the News Pilot. It's a clipping from the San Pedro Bay Historical Society collection. Thanks to Michelle Gerdes for the photo of it.
Interior views:
A 40s or 50s view of the proscenium and the asbestos curtain from the balcony. Note the simplified decorative scheme and Skouras-style repainting on the area around the proscenium arch. Those 1923 vintage seats look pretty ragged. It's a photo in the Los Angeles Public Library collection. A version with slightly less cropping appears in the AMPAS Tom B'hend and Preston Kaufmann Collection.
A closer view of the same vintage. Here we can see the steps installed to cover the orchestra pit. It's another photo from the Los Angeles Public Library collection.
More exterior views:
1935 - The stage end of the theatre is on the left and the San Pedro City Hall is on the right. It's a September 9 view taken on the occasion of the groundbreaking for a new post Office. The Daily Breeze file photo appears with Sam Gnerre's 2015 article "Time stands still at the San Pedro Post Office." Thanks to Bruce Dunseth for spotting the article and sharing the photo in a 2023 post on the Southern California Nostalgia private Facebook group.
1939 - A fine view of the theatre running "Honolulu," a February release. Thanks to Ann Hubbell Tompkins for locating the photo taken by John F. Brown. His business, Brown Studio, was located at 717 S. Pacific in San Pedro.
1940s - A view north from the YMCA building at 9th and Beacon. The large blank wall is the back of the stagehouse of the Cabrillo. The street on the left is Palos Verdes. Look up a couple of blocks for the white facade of the Globe Theatre on the left. It's a postcard from the collection of Joe McKinzie and appears in his terrific 2007 Arcadia Publishing book "San Pedro." There's a preview on Google Books.
1945 - The Fox Cabrillo running "You Came Along" starring Robert Cummings and Lizabeth Scott along with "Delightfully Dangerous" with Jane Powell and Ralph Bellamy. It's a Los Angeles Public Library photo.
c.1958 - A post-closing view in the Los Angeles Public Library collection.
c.1960 - A view with the Fox Cabrillo visible to the left of the Municipal Building, the tall building at 7th and Beacon St. in the lower center. The white stagehouse of the Warner Grand is another street to the right and up in the center of the image. The photo from the Los Angeles Public Library collection appears on a Water and Power Associates Museum page of early San Pedro and Wilmington views.
2019 - Looking east on 7th with the parking lot on the right where the Fox Cabrillo once was. On the far right it's Palos Verdes St. The building on the left on Beacon St. is the City Hall, about the only building in the area that didn't get bulldozed in the ill-conceived the Beacon St. redevelopment scheme in the 1970s.
More Information: See the Cinema Treasures page on the Fox Cabrillo. The site Cinema Tour has a page but there's not much on it.
See our Theatres Along the Coast
page for listings of the many other theatres that were once in San
Pedro. Also see three 1984 articles appearing in the San Pedro
News-Pilot with data compiled by San Pedro historian John Houston for
his "Assembly Halls to Picture Palaces" project. They're at the bottom
of the page about the Victoria Theatre.
An article by Tom Owen appeared in the August 1986 issue of a
newsletter called "The Shoreline." Part of the article, mostly about the
Fox Cabrillo and the Fox West Coast circuit, is available as a three page PDF
from the Los Angeles Public Library. Two of the pages:
It's unknown what was on page 8. And the page 3 of the Library's PDF (page 7 of the newsletter) has nothing to do with either Fox West Coast or the Cabrllo. It just has two photos on it, one of buildings on 6th St. and the other a photo of the Globe Theatre. Thanks to Joe Vogel for finding the item in the Library's collection.
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