Showing posts with label jfk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jfk. Show all posts
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Jack Ruby's Carousel Club
Jack Ruby, The Carousel Club, in Dallas. The Carousel sat across the street from the Hotel Adolphus at 1312½ Commerce St., upstairs from a delicatessen. The outdoor walls were covered with provocative photos of scantily clad burlesque dancers, offering a glimpse of what could be viewed inside for a $2 cover charge. The dancers drew large crowds to three stages where they stripped down to g-strings and pasties.
Strippers in the Carousel Club. Penny Dollar, Marilyn April Walle, Nancy Jane Mooney and Janet Conforto known as Jada.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Blaze Starr & Louisiana Governor Earl Long
Thanks to @burlesquehall Burlesque HallO'Fame for the referral...
via: http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20116296,00.html
People Magazine Archive
Both Earl Long and Blaze Starr knew how to work a hungry crowd to advantage. As the populist Governor of Louisiana in the 1940s and '50s, Long won votes by handing out sacks of food to the poor. Starr, perhaps the most celebrated stripper of the era, stirred the longings of fans with a rose nestled in the cleavage of her 38DD bust. When the "ungovernable Governor"(as LIFE called him) and the stripper fell in love, their affair proved both a scandal and a comic burlesque.
Such is the stuff of which movies are made, and now one has been—Blaze, starring Paul Newman and Lolita Davidovich, which opens this week and chronicles (he affair and its raucous denouement: In May 1959, after ranting and screaming during a debate over voter registration in the Louisiana legislature and then trashing the governor's mansion, Long was committed to three mental institutions by Blanche, his wife of 27 years. The Governor, insisting his wife was merely jealous, had himself released by firing hospital administrators. "Goddamn," he said. "All because of a woman."
One of 11 children, Blaze Starr was born Fannie Belle Fleming and grew up in little Newground Hollow in the hills of West Virginia, 50 miles from the nearest high school. She left home at 14, beginning an educational odyssey both lengthy and varied. Now 57, she gave up striptease five years ago and lives in Carroll County, Md., where she makes and sells jewelry in a local mall. She spoke with correspondent Margie Bonnett Sellinger.
I was 15 and working as a waitress at the Mayflower Donut Shop in Washington, D.C., when a man named Red Snyder told me I was pretty and ought to be in show business. I said I had been raised to believe it was sinful to dance, but I could play the guitar. "Good," he said. "I'm going to make you a star." Red said he wanted me to dress up as a cowgirl, play the guitar a little and then strip. I had never heard of striptease before. But Red sweet-talked me and said the girls who did all had to be really beautiful.
When you have never even shown your belly button, the thought of stripping is scary. So when I went onstage for the first time in my red-and-white cowgirl outfit, I used my hat to cover myself. After the show I threw up. It wasn't that I thought there was anything wrong with stripping. I was just overwhelmed by the emotion of getting into show business.
After that I took a job at the 2 O'Clock Club in Baltimore. I hadn't yet turned 16, but I dressed so I looked really grown up. I wore a short black skirt and held a long cigarette holder. Soon I began making guest appearances in several cities along the East Coast. I always tried to inject a lot of humor into my striptease routines. Once I had this erotic dream about making love so passionately everything started smoking. I woke up laughing. And that inspired one of my favorite bits of stage business: I set-up a reclining love seat rigged with a smoke pot. As I'd get to the end of my act, I'd stretch out on the couch, wiggle and look kind of seductive. When I was down to my last pieces of clothing, I'd set off the smoke pot. The audience would become hysterical.
I began working at the Sho-Bar in New Orleans in 1959. That's where I met Gov. Earl Long. He wandered in one night with his entourage. After watching my burning couch routine, he came back to the dressing room and introduced himself. As I headed onstage for the finale, I could hear him hollering, "Will you go to dinner with me?"
"Can I trust you," I said.
"Hell, no," he replied.
During the next few weeks Earl came in every night. Finally I did go out with him, and he really started to get to me. He was so kind. We dated for two months before he made a move. Then one night he took my hand and said, "I'd rather roll in the hay with you than anything I've ever done in my whole life." When we were getting undressed, Earl grabbed a bedspread, wrapped it around his shoulders and said he didn't want me to see his ugly body. Then he was too excited to make love. We just went to sleep. But the next morning he was ready for me.
Afterward Earl said he wished he was married to me. But I sloughed it off because he was in politics. A governor just doesn't divorce his wife for a stripper. One night before he was President, Jack Kennedy came to the club and watched the show from the balcony with Jackie. I had met Jack in Washington before he married. We'd gone out and to his apartment a few times. But neither of us let on that we knew each other when Earl made introductions. That night we all went to the Roosevelt Hotel. Jackie left, and while Earl was elsewhere, I wound up having a quickie in a closet with Jack.
Several months later Earl passed out in the Sho-Bar and had to be taken to the hospital. He was sure someone was trying to poison him, and he was always complaining of pains in his stomach. He'd say, "I'm awfully sick. Something is happening to me."
In May 1959, Earl got into a shouting match with some legislators during a debate in the State House, and he had a wild argument with his wife at the mansion. Then he went to bed, and the next thing he knew they were carting him off to a mental institution. When he finally got to a telephone a few days later, Earl called and said he had told another inmate he was Governor of the great state of Louisiana and the guy replied, "Yeah, I used to think I was President Eisenhower." Of course, Earl really was the Governor. He got out of the hospital by firing the doctors, replacing them with new ones who would vouch for his sanity. Suddenly I felt totally different about Earl. I was very protective. He had taken a big chance with his career by choosing me over his wife. He said she'd sent him to a nuthouse because of me. Before I met Earl, nobody gave up a damn thing for me. And he was willing to give up everything.
By law, Earl was not eligible to seek reelection when his term ended later that year. He was miserable not being Governor. He'd say, "I'm nobody. I'm nobody." He had filed for a legal separation [as had his wife], and he promised to marry me after the divorce. In the meantime his friends convinced him to run for Congress, and we agreed it was better if I was out of the picture for a while. I went back to work in Baltimore, and he came to visit every few days.
In August, Earl won the Democratic primary. When he called to tell me, he said he wasn't feeling well but would be up to see me as soon as he could. He didn't tell me he was in the hospital. Ten days later I was shocked to hear on the radio that he had died from heart disease. While his body lay in state at the Capitol, I walked right up and put a rose on his casket with my head high and walked out.
I felt lost without Earl and for a while had little desire to take up with another man. Then five years ago I finally stopped stripping because it got to be so raunchy. There was no more burlesque. Anybody could get up and wiggle and get totally nude. The shows offered sadistic porno flicks between acts. During one final series of shows in New York City, San Francisco and Miami, I wore a beautiful see-through negligee and dropped my panties for a finale. I got $5,000 a week. But after that I hung up my G-string.
I still dream about stripping sometimes. When I do, Earl is in the audience watching me do my thing. Then I wake up and feel sad. I miss Earl and I miss being on that stage.
via: http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20116296,00.html
People Magazine Archive
- December 18, 1989
- Vol. 32
- No. 25
Stripper Blaze Starr Recalls Her Affair with the Governor
Both Earl Long and Blaze Starr knew how to work a hungry crowd to advantage. As the populist Governor of Louisiana in the 1940s and '50s, Long won votes by handing out sacks of food to the poor. Starr, perhaps the most celebrated stripper of the era, stirred the longings of fans with a rose nestled in the cleavage of her 38DD bust. When the "ungovernable Governor"(as LIFE called him) and the stripper fell in love, their affair proved both a scandal and a comic burlesque.
Such is the stuff of which movies are made, and now one has been—Blaze, starring Paul Newman and Lolita Davidovich, which opens this week and chronicles (he affair and its raucous denouement: In May 1959, after ranting and screaming during a debate over voter registration in the Louisiana legislature and then trashing the governor's mansion, Long was committed to three mental institutions by Blanche, his wife of 27 years. The Governor, insisting his wife was merely jealous, had himself released by firing hospital administrators. "Goddamn," he said. "All because of a woman."
One of 11 children, Blaze Starr was born Fannie Belle Fleming and grew up in little Newground Hollow in the hills of West Virginia, 50 miles from the nearest high school. She left home at 14, beginning an educational odyssey both lengthy and varied. Now 57, she gave up striptease five years ago and lives in Carroll County, Md., where she makes and sells jewelry in a local mall. She spoke with correspondent Margie Bonnett Sellinger.
I was 15 and working as a waitress at the Mayflower Donut Shop in Washington, D.C., when a man named Red Snyder told me I was pretty and ought to be in show business. I said I had been raised to believe it was sinful to dance, but I could play the guitar. "Good," he said. "I'm going to make you a star." Red said he wanted me to dress up as a cowgirl, play the guitar a little and then strip. I had never heard of striptease before. But Red sweet-talked me and said the girls who did all had to be really beautiful.
When you have never even shown your belly button, the thought of stripping is scary. So when I went onstage for the first time in my red-and-white cowgirl outfit, I used my hat to cover myself. After the show I threw up. It wasn't that I thought there was anything wrong with stripping. I was just overwhelmed by the emotion of getting into show business.
After that I took a job at the 2 O'Clock Club in Baltimore. I hadn't yet turned 16, but I dressed so I looked really grown up. I wore a short black skirt and held a long cigarette holder. Soon I began making guest appearances in several cities along the East Coast. I always tried to inject a lot of humor into my striptease routines. Once I had this erotic dream about making love so passionately everything started smoking. I woke up laughing. And that inspired one of my favorite bits of stage business: I set-up a reclining love seat rigged with a smoke pot. As I'd get to the end of my act, I'd stretch out on the couch, wiggle and look kind of seductive. When I was down to my last pieces of clothing, I'd set off the smoke pot. The audience would become hysterical.
I began working at the Sho-Bar in New Orleans in 1959. That's where I met Gov. Earl Long. He wandered in one night with his entourage. After watching my burning couch routine, he came back to the dressing room and introduced himself. As I headed onstage for the finale, I could hear him hollering, "Will you go to dinner with me?"
"Can I trust you," I said.
"Hell, no," he replied.
During the next few weeks Earl came in every night. Finally I did go out with him, and he really started to get to me. He was so kind. We dated for two months before he made a move. Then one night he took my hand and said, "I'd rather roll in the hay with you than anything I've ever done in my whole life." When we were getting undressed, Earl grabbed a bedspread, wrapped it around his shoulders and said he didn't want me to see his ugly body. Then he was too excited to make love. We just went to sleep. But the next morning he was ready for me.
Afterward Earl said he wished he was married to me. But I sloughed it off because he was in politics. A governor just doesn't divorce his wife for a stripper. One night before he was President, Jack Kennedy came to the club and watched the show from the balcony with Jackie. I had met Jack in Washington before he married. We'd gone out and to his apartment a few times. But neither of us let on that we knew each other when Earl made introductions. That night we all went to the Roosevelt Hotel. Jackie left, and while Earl was elsewhere, I wound up having a quickie in a closet with Jack.
Several months later Earl passed out in the Sho-Bar and had to be taken to the hospital. He was sure someone was trying to poison him, and he was always complaining of pains in his stomach. He'd say, "I'm awfully sick. Something is happening to me."
In May 1959, Earl got into a shouting match with some legislators during a debate in the State House, and he had a wild argument with his wife at the mansion. Then he went to bed, and the next thing he knew they were carting him off to a mental institution. When he finally got to a telephone a few days later, Earl called and said he had told another inmate he was Governor of the great state of Louisiana and the guy replied, "Yeah, I used to think I was President Eisenhower." Of course, Earl really was the Governor. He got out of the hospital by firing the doctors, replacing them with new ones who would vouch for his sanity. Suddenly I felt totally different about Earl. I was very protective. He had taken a big chance with his career by choosing me over his wife. He said she'd sent him to a nuthouse because of me. Before I met Earl, nobody gave up a damn thing for me. And he was willing to give up everything.
By law, Earl was not eligible to seek reelection when his term ended later that year. He was miserable not being Governor. He'd say, "I'm nobody. I'm nobody." He had filed for a legal separation [as had his wife], and he promised to marry me after the divorce. In the meantime his friends convinced him to run for Congress, and we agreed it was better if I was out of the picture for a while. I went back to work in Baltimore, and he came to visit every few days.
In August, Earl won the Democratic primary. When he called to tell me, he said he wasn't feeling well but would be up to see me as soon as he could. He didn't tell me he was in the hospital. Ten days later I was shocked to hear on the radio that he had died from heart disease. While his body lay in state at the Capitol, I walked right up and put a rose on his casket with my head high and walked out.
I felt lost without Earl and for a while had little desire to take up with another man. Then five years ago I finally stopped stripping because it got to be so raunchy. There was no more burlesque. Anybody could get up and wiggle and get totally nude. The shows offered sadistic porno flicks between acts. During one final series of shows in New York City, San Francisco and Miami, I wore a beautiful see-through negligee and dropped my panties for a finale. I got $5,000 a week. But after that I hung up my G-string.
I still dream about stripping sometimes. When I do, Earl is in the audience watching me do my thing. Then I wake up and feel sad. I miss Earl and I miss being on that stage.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
A handwritten list of murder suspects, scribbled by JFK's secretary hours after his death
(via LettersOfNote)
Amplify’d from auctions.alexautographs.com
Full Details for Lot 240
Estimate $ 20,000-30,000
© Alexander Autographs.
Images, descriptions and condition reports used on this site are original
copyright material and are not to be reproduced without permission. For
further information telephone (203) 276-1570
Read more at auctions.alexautographs.com
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/i1lq
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Auction Lot of Medical Instruments Used on Lee Harvey Oswald
Amplify’d from www.natedsanders.com
Lot of medical instruments used in the embalming process of Lee Harvey Oswald. Includes twelve instruments as well as a set of church trucks used to move the casket. Principal piece of equipment is the embalming machine that measures approximately 12" x 12" x 22". Other instruments include hemostats, forceps, etc. Lot includes Letters of Authenticity for each item by Funeral Director Allen Baumgardner who assisted in Oswald's embalming.
Auction Ends Thursday, December 18th 5pm Pacific
A Chilling Relic From the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy -- Section of the Leather Seat Upon Which JFK & the First Lady Sat When He Was Shot -- With Letter of Provenance -- "…The spots on the leather are the dried blood of our beloved President John F. Kennedy…"
Price: $14,800
A Chilling Relic From the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy -- Section of the Leather Seat Upon Which JFK & the First Lady Sat When He Was Shot -- With Letter of Provenance -- "…The spots on the leather are the dried blood of our beloved President John F. Kennedy…"
Current Bid: $1,000
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/h1oa
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
What really happened at The Cellar club the night before the JFK assassination? It involved agents and Everclear
Amplify’d from www.star-telegram.com
Bud Kennedy
Fort Worth club and Secret Service were in spotlight on fateful November day
Posted Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2010
By Bud Kennedy
Almost 50 years later, the story of the deadly shots fired from a sixth-floor perch in Dallas still begins at the Cellar nightclub in Fort Worth.
Former Cellar workers shed no further light Sunday on their wee-hours work serving Secret Service agents the night before the shooting of President John F. Kennedy.
But in a new documentary about the 1960s downtown counterculture nightclub, guitarist Arvel Stricklin summed up the view from the bandstand: "I know I saw a lot of guys in suits. And the party went on until 6 a.m."
The ensuing investigation provided just one of the Cellar's many headlines during its 13-year run as a late-night haven.
Former musicians and workers gathered Sunday at the Fort Worth Central Library to see the first cut of the forthcoming Cellar documentary, named for a slogan stenciled on the club wall: You Must Be Weird or You Wouldn't Be Here.
Fort Worth filmmaker Giles McCrary interviewed them for the video, due to be released in spring. (A short video clip is at www.gilesvid.com.)
To explain, the Cellar was where Fort Worth's rowdy past met up with the peace-and-love '60s.
Guests danced to Jimmie Vaughan or the future ZZ Top, drank Everclear cocktails from servers wearing only bras and panties -- and then came back the next night to do it all again.
On Nov. 21, 1963, visiting reporters and Secret Service agents were looking for someplace to have fun after the Kennedys bedded down in what is now the Hilton Fort Worth.
The party went to a membership club and then, after midnight, to the Cellar, 1001 Main St.
As former Star-Telegram reporter Bob Schieffer wrote in This Just In: What I Couldn't Tell You on TV, "It seemed a good idea at the time and must have been quite an evening. I remember that we stayed long enough for some of the Easterners to see their first Fort Worth sunrise."
Witnesses and guests later told investigators that some of the seven night-owl agents drank at the private club but that no one drank at the Cellar.
(Supposedly, those agents had other assignments away from the Dallas motorcade.)
But as former Cellar manager Jimmy Hill tells the camera in You Must Be Weird: "That wasn't grapefruit juice!"
We haven't heard the last story yet from the Cellar.
Bud Kennedy's column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. 817-390-7538
Twitter @budkennedyRead more at www.star-telegram.com
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/gd4n
You Must Be Weird Or You Wouldn't Be Here.mov
A short film about the infamous Cellar nightclub in Fort Worth, Texas
Monday, November 22, 2010
John F. Kennedy "Airport Reception" Badge for November 22, 1963
Amplify’d from anonymousworks.blogspot.com
Monday, November 22, 2010
About 3,000 of these were issued allowing holders to gather on the tarmac to greet the President on November 22, 1963.
Sold at Hake's for $253.00 (including premium).
Posted by
Joey
Labels:
JFK
Read more at anonymousworks.blogspot.com
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/fwux
Patsy
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/ftp8
Life of Lee Harvey Oswald, the politics behind the Kennedy assassination, and the framing of Oswald that continues to this day. A cry for justice for Oswald and his family. Expanded version of "Justice for Lee Harvey Oswald."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHwbOWLs82M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb46jE6xHrs
Lee Harvey Oswald: Accused -- Kennedy's Enemies: Ignored
JFK--John F Kennedy -- was not assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald
was innocent. The SAME day Kennedy was shot, and Oswald arrested ,J Edgar Hoover told the FBI to stop looking for anybody else --he said they had their man. Judyth Vary Baker and CIA pilot Tosh Plumlee are on film in this short video about Kennedy's many enemies.
The Complete Texas Monthly JFK Archive:
http://www.texasmonthly.com/jfk
Essential JFK Assassination Trivia, Volume 1:
http://www.alternativereel.com/includes/articles/display_article.php?id=00009
Essential JFK Assassination Trivia, Volume 2:
http://www.alternativereel.com/includes/articles/display_article.php?id=00002
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Your Host...Jack Ruby
Amplify’d from anonymousworks.blogspot.com
Monday, November 15, 2010
Original Jack Ruby business card from The Carousel Club in Dallas, Texas.
Sold for $398.48 (including premium) at Hake's.
Posted by
Joey
Labels:
business card,
Jack Ruby,
JFK,
The Carousel Club
Read more at anonymousworks.blogspot.com
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Monday, November 15, 2010
A Dark Day In Dallas Pt 2
Friday, November 12, 2010
A Dark Day In Dallas Pt 1
http://a45blog.blogspot.com/2010/11/dark-day-in-dallas-pt-1_11.html
45 BLOG
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2010
Saturday, August 7, 2010
John Peel in Dallas
Fillerzine | August 26, 2009
John Peel, recorded June 23,1996:
"I went over there the beginning-to-middle of 1960. The first radio programs I did were on a station called WRR in Dallas and they had a rhythm & blues program called Kats Karavan, spelled inevitably with two K's. I'd gotten some British LPs of blues and rhythm & blues stuff that were only available in Britain, or in Europe anyway, so I went along and played them some of those records and they put me on the radio to talk about them. I thought they'd probably put me on there because of my extraordinary knowledge of the music, but I think in fact they probably put me on there because they found my accent very entertaining because in those days I used to talk a bit like Prince Charles." ..."This was not the day that Lee Harvey Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby; it was a few days before that. It was when he was kind-of presented to the press as the man who'd been arrested and charged. And, I mean, it was just one of those things that -- Earlier on when the assassination first happened, and I'd been - I used to work here for an insurance company on Central Expressway, so I was able to get into town pretty quickly. I was an office boy, so I could come and go as I pleased, and so when I heard about the assassination, it was announced on the P.A. in the office, and I just drove into town and went to the police cordon and told the policeman, I said, "I'm from The Liverpool Echo" and instead of telling me to piss-off, he let me through. It's one of those things which sounds so bizarre. And I walked down - I didn't go to the grassy knoll - I just stood on the other side of the road and kind of watched what was going on until frankly it became boring. It's hard to imagine that it did, but after I stood there about 40 minutes and watching people scurrying about, so I then went and made what I'd said kind-of retrospectively true and phoned The Liverpool Echo, and funnily they weren't terribly interested. I thought, Cripes, here's my chance because I've always wanted to be in journalism, so I thought, hey, this is my chance to get into journalism. I could be The Liverpool Echo's "Man in Dallas", but they really didn't care. So I was a bit wounded by that, but then that night a mate of mine and I had been driving around and were trying to figure out what to do, and at the end of the evening I said, why don't we go down to the police headquarters and see what's going on. And we got down there, and I said to this policeman, I said "what's happening?" And he said, "Well, actually there's a press conference down here," pointing to a flight of steps into the basement of the building - "there's a press conference in here in a few minutes." And I said, "Well, actually I'm from The Liverpool Echo and this is my photographer," and we went down there. I mean, we didn't have a pen or paper or camera between us, but we went in there anyway. It's a story that I've told so often that you get to the point where you don't really believe it yourself, it just seems so unlikely. But then in one of the bits of film of that press conference, we were all standing in this room and they had the identification parade in the basement of this building and they said - Henry Wade said - that this is the man that's been charged in the assassination of President Kennedy, and they brought in Lee Harvey Oswald. And he stood there looking slightly puzzled and alarmed for a while, and then was taken away again. In one of the films of this, which they showed on British television, they showed that Jack Ruby was in the room as well - which I didn't know he was until I saw this film they sort-of panned across the room and in the last few frames you can see me and my friend Bob standing there looking like tourists." ..."None at all, no. I wish, I don't know, y'know, I think, I mean, everybody else does, but I think we'll probably never know the truth."John Peel, interview recorded June 23, 1996. Published Sept. 1996 (Filler #5). Soundtrack music "Comment Naissent des Meduses" from "Science is Fiction," written & performed by Georgia Hubley, Ira Kaplan, James McNew (Yo La Tengo).For full interview transcript, visit: http://tinyurl.com/n82mc4
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
History of the Texas Theatre
http://stashdauber.blogspot.com/2010/04/another-phoenix-rises-in-cliff.html
TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2010
another phoenix rises in the cliff
jason reimer, ex-history at our disposal, is now involved in helping to revive the texas theater at 231 west jefferson blvd in oak cliff (where lee harvey oswald was _not_ resisting arrest). they're showing the original 1982 TRON there on thursday, may 13. yeah!
http://www.oakclifffoundation.org/?q=node/3
McHenry partnered with four Dallas area businessmen to help him realize this dream: Harold B. Robb, E. H. Rowley, W. G. Underwood and David Bernbaum. Together they hired renowned architect W. Scott Dunne to design the Texas. The men spared no expense and boasted that the theater was “fireproof”—constructed entirely of concrete. The theater’s opera seating cost $19,000, the projection and sound system cost $12,000, the 1,240 yards of the finest grade carpet cost $5,000, and the Barton organ, the second largest in the City of Dallas, cost $10,000. However, McHenry was most proud of the cooling and ventilation system, which blew 200,000 cubic feet of air per minute through a water-cooled system pumped from a 4,000-gallon tank. The cooling system made “The Texas” the first theater in Dallas with air conditioning. However 72 years later, as a Dallas Morning News writer suggests, it may be safe to speculate that few care about the historic details of the Texas Theatre-if not for its significance to the events on November 22, 1963. On November 22, 1963 at approximately 1:45 p.m., nearly 15 Dallas police officers converged on the Texas Theatre in search of a man who had entered without paying. That man was Lee Harvey Oswald—President John F. Kennedy’s accused lone assassin. President Kennedy’s assassination marked a violent end to the Age of Camelot and forever scarred the American psyche. As the Texas Theatre rocketed into the international spotlight, an urgency to hide, deny and destroy it tore its way through Dallas. Shortly thereafter—in what is coined locally among preservationists as the most comprehensive architectural cover-up of the Twentieth Century—the theater’s vibrant designs, false bridges, towers and campaniles, decorative wood railings, and star and cloud painted ceilings were sealed from public view under a mass of lath and spray applied plaster. Even today, a sense of culpability for the President’s assassination lingers, and with it, residual inclinations to resist renovating the theater. As such, the very reason for which it qualifies as a nationally historic landmark poses a substantial threat to its restoration. Despite this, the theater has managed to repeatedly escape the wrecking ball. As technology in moving, talking, and color pictures progressed and drive-ins and multiplex cinema became the rave, the Texas Theatre’s patrons slowly moved on to other entertainment venues. Failing to capture a considerable audience, United Artists closed the theater in 1989. In an attempt to save it, the Texas Theatre Historical Society (TTHS) bought the theater in 1990. Acknowledging its importance to the President’s assassination, TTHS allowed Oliver Stone to remodel the exterior façade for his 1990 film, JFK. However in 1992, the Society was no longer able to make the mortgage payments and the theater closed once more. Shortly thereafter, former usher and sign changer Don Dubois of Texas Rosewin-Midway Properties saved the theater from the wrecking ball. Nevertheless, two years later in 1995, it was nearly destroyed by a five-alarm fire, forcing the doors shut yet again. In 1996, Pedro Villa rescued the theater from demolition when he learned of plans to convert it into a furniture warehouse. However, as Villa’s resources were exhausted and his pleas for investments went unheard, the theater defaulted back to Texas Rosewin-Midway Properties. The tattered and torn building remained vacant for three years, succumbing to vandals, stray animals, and hostile weather. Even then, however, Michael Jenkins of Dallas Summer Musicals (DSM) believed the Texas Theatre could be Oak Cliff’s “crown jewel.” As such, DSM made a proposal to the City of Dallas in latter 2000 to develop the theater into a critically needed community performing arts center. Preferring to stay in the theater management business as opposed to theater ownership, DSM, along with the City of Dallas approached the Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce and its philanthropic arm, the Oak Cliff Foundation, with a plan to manage the theater if the foundation would purchase it. In 2001, the Oak Cliff Foundation was awarded $1.6 million from the City of Dallas Neighborhood Renaissance Partnership Program to purchase and renovate the theater. The foundation agreed to raise additional funds to complete the renovation and contract Dallas Summer Musicals to manage the performing arts center. Unfortunately, the Oak Cliff Foundation purchased the theater just a few weeks before the horrible events of 9/11, which has hindered the fundraising process. In fact, the terrorist attack’s impact has proved devastating for many non-profit cultural arts-related organizations 1 . Nonetheless, in 2002, Komatsu Architecture, Inc. and Phoenix I Restoration and Construction, Ltd. were selected for the project based on their substantial experience in historic renovation and restoration of old courthouses, performance halls, and movie theaters. Together with DSM and the Oak Cliff Foundation, Komatsu and Phoenix created a master plan to first renovate and then restore the Texas Theatre. This plan provides that live performances will begin after renovation and before restoration 2 . Restoration will occur during dark periods of the theater to minimize the impact on performances and the profitability of the venue. To date, approximately $1 million has been spent toward select demolition, electrical, plumbing and other “bare bones” essentials. Click here to read about the Oak Cliff Foundations efforts to revive the Texas Theatre.History of the Texas Theatre
1 -For an in-depth discussion on 9/11’s impact on charitable giving and its particular influence upon the arts, theater, and non-profit theater-related organizations, see September 11: Perspectives from the Field of Philanthropy, The Foundation Center, 2002.
2 -Renovation focuses on readying the theater for adaptive re-use whereas restoration focuses on the retention of materials from the most significant time in the theater’s history. THE RENOVATION
RELATED HISTORICAL SITE
The Oak Cliff Foundation 2008
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