Orpheum Theatre (Los Angeles) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Orpheum Theatre on Broadway

Broadway (Los Angeles)

Broadway is a major thoroughfare in Los Angeles, California, that runs from Lincoln Heights on the Eastside, through Chinatown, passing through Central Plaza and the Dragon Gate, the Los Angeles Civic Center, passing the Los Angeles Times building at First Street, and Broadway's historic commercial...

in downtown Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

, opened on February 15, 1926, as the fourth and final Los Angeles venue for the Orpheum

Orpheum Circuit, Inc.

Orpheum Circuit, Inc., was a company started by Martin Beck who owned a series of vaudeville theaters and motion picture theaters.- The company :...

vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

circuit. After a $3 million renovation, started in 1989, it is the most restored of the historical movie palace

Movie palace

A movie palace is a term used to refer to the large, elaborately decorated movie theaters built between the 1910s and the 1940s. The late 1920s saw the peak of the movie palace, with hundreds opened every year between 1925 and 1930.There are three building types in particular which can be subsumed...

s in the city.

The Orpheum has a Beaux Arts facade

Facade

A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....

G. Albert Lansburgh

Gustave Albert Lansburgh was an American architect, largely known for his work on luxury cinemas and theatres. He was the principal architect of theaters on the West Coast from 1900 - 1930.-Life and career:...

and has a Mighty Wurlitzer

Wurlitzer

The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to simply as Wurlitzer, was an American company that produced stringed instruments, woodwinds, brass instruments, theatre organs, band organs, orchestrions, electronic organs, electric pianos and jukeboxes....

organ, installed in 1928, that is one of three pipe organ

Theatre organ

A theatre organ is a pipe organ originally designed specifically for imitation of an orchestra. New designs have tended to be around some of the sounds and blends unique to the instrument itself....

s remaining in Southern California venues.

The Orpheum theatres are named for the Greek god Orpheus

Orpheus

Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who...

Venue performers

Soon after it was opened, it was a popular venue for burlesque

Burlesque

Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...

queen Sally Rand

Sally Rand

Sally Rand was a burlesque dancer and actress, most noted for her ostrich feather fan dance and balloon bubble dance. She also performed under the name Billie Beck.-Early life and career:...

, the Marx Brothers

Marx Brothers

The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in Vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...

, Will Rogers

Will Rogers

William "Will" Penn Adair Rogers was an American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, film actor, and one of the world's best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s....

, Judy Garland

Judy Garland

Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...

(singing with her family as Frances "Baby" Gumm) and comedian Jack Benny

Jack Benny

Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...

, as well as jazz greats Lena Horne

Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...

, Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

and Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

. Vaudeville

Vaudeville

acts were still playing the Orpheum as late as 1950. In the 1960s the theatre held rock and roll concerts featuring Little Richard

Little Richard

Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...

, Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...

and Little Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder

Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...

.

The restored Orpheum Theatre is now a venue for live concerts, movie premieres and location shoots. The love metal band HIM played there for their CD/DVD live album Digital Versatile Doom

Digital Versatile Doom

Digital Versatile Doom is HIM's first commercially released live album and live DVD, as opposed to the bootlegged Live and Undercover which was not official. The DVD was directed by Meiert Avis in Los Angeles at the Orpheum Theater between 14 and 15 November 2007...

. The 2010 Streamy Awards

Streamy Awards

The Streamy Awards, popularly known as the Streamys, are presented annually by the International Academy of Web Television to recognize excellence in the arts and science of web television production, including directing, acting, producing, and writing. The formal ceremony at which the awards are...

were live broadcast from the theatre.

Location shoots

Broadcasts of American Idol

American Idol

American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...

and America's Got Talent

America's Got Talent

America's Got Talent is an American reality television series on the NBC television network, and part of the global British Got Talent franchise. It is a talent show that features singers, dancers, magicians, comedians, and other performers of all ages competing for the advertised top prize of...

and filming of The Last Action Hero and Transformers were hosted here. The Orpheum also appeared as the first venue for The Chipmunks

The Chipmunks

Alvin and the Chipmunks is an American animated music group created by Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. in 1958. The group consists of three singing animated anthropomorphic chipmunks: Alvin, the mischievous troublemaker, who quickly became the star of the group; Simon, the tall, bespectacled intellectual;...

' highly anticipated World Tour in the 2007 Alvin and the Chipmunks

Alvin and the Chipmunks (film)

Alvin and the Chipmunks is a 2007 comedy film directed by Tim Hill. Based on the animated series of the same name, the film stars Jason Lee, David Cross, and Cameron Richardson with the voices of Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, and Jesse McCartney. It was distributed by 20th Century Fox and...

movie. In the 2007–2008 film In Search of a Midnight Kiss

In Search of a Midnight Kiss

In Search of a Midnight Kiss is an American independent romantic comedy written and directed by Alex Holdridge. It is listed on the National Board of Review's Top 10 Independent Films of 2008, won the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award in 2009 as well as having earned awards at festivals...

, Wilson (Scoot McNairy

Scoot McNairy

Scoot McNairy is an American actor from Dallas, Texas known for roles in In Search of a Midnight Kiss , Herbie Fully Loaded , and Mr. Fix It . He also plays the lead male role in the recently released film Monsters...

) and Vivian (Sara Simmonds) do a quick tour of the Orpheum on their "first date". In the movie Hop

Hop

Hop or hops may refer to:* Hop, a kind of small jump, usually using only one leg* Hop , a genus of climbing flowering plants* Hops, the female flower clusters of one species of hop, used primarily as a flavouring and stability agent in beer...

, David Hasselhoff hosted a talent show contest there.

External links

Orpheum Theatre website

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Venue performers

Location shoots

See also

External links