El Capitan Theatre
El Capitan Theatre
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El Capitan Theatre

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El Capitan Theatre

El Capitan Theatre is a fully restored movie palace at 6838 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, United States. The theater and adjacent Hollywood Masonic Temple (now known as the El Capitan Entertainment Centre) are owned by The Walt Disney Company and serve as the venue for a majority of the Walt Disney Studios' film premieres.

In the early 1920s, real estate developer Charles E. Toberman (the "Father of Hollywood") envisioned a thriving Hollywood theater district. Toberman was involved in 36 projects while building the Max Factor Building (now the Hollywood Museum), Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and the Hollywood Masonic Temple. With Sid Grauman, he opened the three themed theaters: Egyptian (1922), El Capitan (1926), and Chinese (1927).

Barker Bros. Furniture Emporium took up the rest of the building in the 1920s.

El Capitan, dubbed "Hollywood's First Home of Spoken Drama," began presenting live performances on May 3, 1926, with Charlot's Revue starring Gertrude Lawrence and Jack Buchanan. El Capitan continued presenting live theater for a decade, with over 120 productions including such legends as Clark Gable and Joan Fontaine.

By the late 1930s, El Capitan felt the economic effects of the Depression, showcasing fewer and fewer productions. This period saw a cycle of experimentation with entertainment. In an effort to boost attendance at the theater, its management attempted to lure revues, road shows and benefits.

Despite these efforts, business was faltering, and the theater then began showing movies. When Orson Welles was unable to locate a theater owner willing to risk screening Citizen Kane, he turned to the El Capitan, and in 1941, Citizen Kane had its world premiere there. The theater then closed for one year as Paramount Pictures purchased the theater.

The building was remodeled in the modern style, with the decor covered with curtains and removing the box-seat balconies. The theater reopened in 1942 as the Hollywood Paramount Theater. Its inaugural film presentation was Cecil B. DeMille's feature Reap the Wild Wind.

The theater remained the West Coast flagship for Paramount Pictures until the studio was forced by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the antitrust case U.S. vs. Paramount Pictures, et al. to divest itself of its theater holdings. After this, the Hollywood Paramount was operated by United Paramount Theatres for some years, then by a series of other companies, culminating with ownership by the Pacific Theatres Circuit in the 1980s.

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