Opened: August 23, 1950. "Push Back Seats RCA Sound 60 Ton Ice Machine." Thanks to Stephen Russo for locating the pre-opening photo for a post on the private Facebook group SoCal Historic Architecture. It used to be in the Los Angeles Public Library collection as their #00036957 but seems to have vanished. There's a similar photo by Ed Braslaff with different cropping and no phone lines in the Library's Herald Examiner collection.
Part of the complex was a bowling alley and cocktail lounge just south of the theatre. It was a project of Alex and Max Schreiber. The initial theatre operator was Fanchon & Marco's Southside Theatres. The company was owned by Fanchon Simon and her three brothers Marco, Ray and Rube Wolff. The building is on the southeast corner of Westchester Parkway (formerly Will Rogers St.) and Sepulveda Blvd. It's just north of LAX. Its neighbor the Loyola, a Fox West Coast house, had opened in 1946 only a third of a mile north on Sepulveda.
The opening of the theatre was covered by Boxoffice on page 62 of their August 26, 1950 issue. They mangled Mr. Rogvoy's name a bit.
Seating: 1,314 -- all on a single level
Architects: Arthur Froelich in Los Angeles and Theodore Rogvoy, based in Detroit.
A rendering for the complex by Ted Rogvoy that appeared in Michigan Architect and Engineer. Thanks to Benjamin Gravel for locating it for a post on the SoCal Historic Architecture Facebook group.
The design was given an award as "most beautiful built this year" by Woodbury College. It was featured in "A Trend Toward Shopping Centers," an article in the July 22, 1950 issue of Boxoffice where they noted that "Theatres are following the movement of population away from congested areas." The full article is reproduced at the bottom of the page.
There were no footprints in the forecourt. The gimmick here was that they did a time capsule honoring the award winners each year buried under a plaque for the year in the flagstone flooring of the entrance. The lobby featured a "Wall of Fame" that highlighted Academy Award winners since 1927. In the auditorium, recesses on either side of the proscenium held potted plants. There was a cry room at the rear of the house at main floor level.
A January 1951 ad. Thanks to Ken McIntyre for locating it for a comment on a thread about the theatre on the private Facebook group Photos of Los Angeles.
Michael Hyatt commented on Cinema Treasures:
"What a wonderful place; the auditorium was wide,...the Cinemascope was really spectacular, and the sound was tremendous. The front of the theater had an unusual spacious, snaking corridor. One entered in front, but it actually lead to the right. Once inside, the auditorium was on the left. And it was big! As I recall the entryway added to the mysterioso of the place, and as a kid of thirteen I had no idea what to expect...
"Certainly, the lazy, open nature of the whole place lent it an air of the movie scene of the fifties, and if one asked I would have said the theater was the perfect example of Southern California at the time, seen on a postcard with a smiling, cartoon sun sipping a mai tai, and wearing dark glasses. It should be mentioned that the theater was located just north of LAX, and the wide unencumbered street of Sepulveda Blvd. with its modern stores then gave it a comfortable jet-setter feel..."
Closing: June 25, 1978. The last chain to operate the theatre was Pacific. After they ditched it, it had a short spell as an independent before closing.
The plaque in the office complex giving some of the building's history. Thanks to Noirish Los Angeles contributor Flying Wedge sharing for this photo on Noirish post #30778.
Twenty-one of the display panels that honored Academy
Award winners formerly located in the lobby are now dispersed along the halls of the complex. Photo:
Flying Wedge - Noirish post #30778 - 2012
The Wedge comments: "Here is one of the restored Academy Award plaques;
in the top photo, Douglas Shearer is receiving the 1936 Oscar for Sound
Recording (for MGM's 'San Francisco') from the self-proclaimed 'Father
of Radio' Lee de Forest."
A plaque in the flagstone entrance above one of the buried time capsules honoring the award winners for a particular year. This is above whatever "momentoes" were buried for 1952. Photo: Flying Wedge - Noirish post #30778 - 2012
Interior views:
This look out toward the front doors was featured in an ad for RCA theatre carpeting on page 115 of the October 7, 1950 issue of Boxoffice. The full ad is reproduced at the bottom of the page.
The Paradise snack bar got featured on page 150 of the October 7, 1950 Boxoffice issue in an article about concessions. Their caption:
A look down the curving hall of the lobby toward the panels celebrating Academy Award winners. This hallway was to the right as you entered. Along the hall, the entrances to the auditorium were off to the left. The photo appeared with a story about the theatre in the October 7, 1950 issue of Boxoffice. The full article is at the bottom of the page.
An inner lobby view from page 114 of the October 7, 1950 issue of Boxoffice. We're looking back out toward the outer lobby and snackbar area. It was part of an ad for Spongex rug padding. The full ad is at the bottom of the page.
More exterior views:
1950 - A photo appearing with the story about the theatre in the October 7, 1950 issue of Boxoffice.
1953 - A detail from the Shulman photo. Bruce Kimmel notes that this double bill opened January 14.
1953 - A view south toward the Paradise. It's a detail from a larger Julius Shulman photo. See the three photos in the Job #1434 set on the website of the Getty Research Institute. If you'd like to go browsing, the Getty has thousands of photos in their Julius Shulman Photography Archive.
2013 - Paradise re-purposed. Photo: Bill Counter
2019 - Along the north side of the building. Down the alley, we're looking at the back of what had been the theatre and, beyond, the back of the bowling alley building. Photo: Google Maps
2022 - Thanks to Brian Aldrich for sharing this photo he took in March.
The theatre's coverage in Boxoffice:
The Paradise in the Movies:
The turquoise vertical of the Paradise is seen on the left in this image from 1970s footage used for "The Wonderland Massacre & the Secret History of Hollywood" (MGM+, 2024). Thanks to Donavan S. Moye for spotting the theatre and getting the screenshot. The four-part series, based on a podcast by Michael Connelly, features Ian S. Peterson, Trevon Rubbins and Daryl Terry. Alison Ellwood directed. See the Historic L.A. Theatres in Movies post for views of the Pussycat and Vogue theatres in Hollywood.
More Information: See the Cinema Treasures page on the Paradise. Cinema Tour has a page that includes three 2003 exterior views. Also on Cinema Tour is a pdf of the August 18, 1950 L.A. Times story "Westchester Theater Will Open Wednesday."
See Sam Gnerre's 2019 South Bay Daily Breeze article "The Paradise becomes Westchester's second theater on Sepulveda."
A 1963 aerial view from Loyola Marymount University appears on Flying Wedge's Noirish Los Angeles post #13248. California Pete has a 2009 photo of the building on Flickr. Ken McIntyre posted a 2020 photo of the theatre on the Photos of Los Angeles private Facebook group where a number of other items and comments were added to the thread.
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