THE ‘NEW’ ORPHEUM OPENS WITH ‘KING OF THE KAZOO’
On Friday night, the City of Vancouver celebrated the 90th birthday of the Orpheum Theatre with an event hosted by Bill Richardson and Bramwell Tovey. So we dug into the files to see how the papers covered it in the past.
The Orpheum was the last in a wave of movie-vaudeville palaces that were built in Vancouver between 1917 and 1927, beginning with the Pantages (1917), Allen (1920) and Capitol (1921).
It was the fourth theatre to bear the Orpheum name in the city. The first Orpheum opened in 1905 on Cordova Street, the second opened at Pender and Howe in 1906, and the third opened in 1913 in the old Vancouver Opera House at 759 Granville.
This is why they called the 1927 theatre the New Orpheum when it opened.
The 90th birthday celebration was a couple of weeks after the anniversary — the theatre opened on Nov. 8. (The ads say Nov. 7, but that must have been for tours, the first show was Nov. 8.)
It was part of the Orpheum circuit, a vaudeville chain that began in San Francisco in 1886 and by 1927 controlled 45 theatres in 36 cities across North America.
Hype was the order of the day in the Orpheum ads, which trumpeted the 3,000-seat structure as “One of the Most Magnificent Theatres in the World.”
The new theatre would have “bigger shows than ever before,” including both live vaudeville and “the best feature photoplays,” which is a fancy 1927 way of saying movies. Tickets were 25 to 50 cents, and you could reserve a seat for 40 to 60 cents.
The theatre was designed in a “modified Spanish Renaissance” style.
“In the spacious auditorium the full beauty is revealed, finished in old ivory and gold, accentuated by gorgeous draperies of gold and black damask and three great chandeliers of crystal and gold,” said a Province story.
“(Through) the use of colonnades, which lend themselves to architectural treatment unsurpassed by other and more conventional forms of decoration, the intimacy so essential to the high-class vaudeville theatre is thus gained.”
The theatre also had an impressive “grand foyer” with “ornamental plaster pilasters, marble bases and a decorative ceiling hung with three large chandeliers.
“Rich hangings, beautiful plate mirrors, gorgeous torchers, artistically-framed pictures, luxurious sofas, high-back chairs and consoles and magnificent lighting fixtures will be seen on every side in bewildering array.”
There was a men’s smoking room, and a ladies “retiring room” with maids and an “ultra-modern cosmetique salon.” The theatre even was equipped with an early form of air conditioning that circulated “seven and a half million cubic feet of fresh air” through the theatre every hour.
“By means of a refrigerating plant capable of manufacturing the equivalent of 127 tons of ice daily, and huge air-washers, dustfree air of even temperature will be kept circulating at all times,” said the Province.
Both the Province and Sun had three-page special sections on the Orpheum, which were packed with ads from contractors that had worked on the building. Westminster Iron Works did the ornamental iron work; Harry Duker painted the “large, attractive” sign on the south side of the theatre.
The structure cost $1.25 million, and was built by a local businessman, Joseph Francis Langer, who leased it to the Orpheum circuit. The architect was B. Marcus Priteca of Seattle, who also designed Vancouver’s second Pantages theatre on Hastings Street.
The opening bill for the new theatre was a blend of vaudeville and movies. There was music and dance with Marie White and the Blue Slickers, featuring Jack Howe, “King of the Kazoo.” Toto the Beloved Clown led a comic revue, the “delightful dance delineators” Chaney and Fox did the tango, and singer Ethyl Davis entertained with “refreshing song chatter.”
The oddest act was Hee Bee and Rubyette, who were billed as “athletes who are different.” The festivities ended with the photoplay The Wise Wife, starring Phyllis Haver, a silent movie queen who made 105 movies between 1916 and 1930.
The Orpheum circuit sent out a new package every week, and the theatre struck gold Nov. 14 when crooner Gene Austin came to town. Billed as “a singing bee of the south,” Austin had just released a massive hit, My Blue Heaven, which topped the charts for four months and sold a reported five million copies.