The Ricardo Montalbán Theatre (usually referred to as just The Montalbán) is a

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

in the Hollywood section of

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

History

The theatre is located near the intersection of

Hollywood and Vine Hollywood and Vine, the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Hollywood, a district of Los Angeles, became known in the 1920s for its concentration of radio and movie-related businesses. The Hollywood Walk of Fame is centered ...

, on

Vine Street Vine Street is a street in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California that runs north–south between Franklin Avenue and Melrose Avenue. The intersection with Hollywood Boulevard was once a symbol of Hollywood itself. The famed intersection fell into d ...

between

Hollywood Boulevard Hollywood Boulevard is a major east–west street in Los Angeles, California. It begins in the east at Sunset Boulevard in the Los Feliz district and proceeds to the west as a major thoroughfare through Little Armenia and Thai Town, Hollywoo ...

and

Sunset Boulevard Sunset Boulevard is a boulevard in the central and western part of Los Angeles, California, that stretches from the Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades east to Figueroa Street in Downtown Los Angeles. It is a major thoroughfare in ...

, at the site of the former Robert Northam / Jacob Stern estate. The Beaux-Arts building was designed by architects

Myron Hunt Myron Hubbard Hunt (February 27, 1868 – May 26, 1952) was an American architect whose numerous projects include many noted landmarks in Southern California and Evanston, Illinois. Hunt was elected a Fellow in the American Institute of Archi ...

and H.C. Chambers and constructed in 1926–27. Seating 1,200 at the time, it was the first

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

-style

legitimate theater Legitimate theatre is live performance that relies almost entirely on diegetic elements, with actors performing through speech and natural movement.Joyce M. Hawkins and Robert Allen, eds. "Legitimate" entry. ''The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dict ...

venue in Los Angeles. It opened January 19, 1927 under the name "Wilkes' Vine Street Theatre". The first production was

Patrick Kearney Patrick Wayne Kearney (born September 24, 1939), also known as The Trash Bag Killer, is an American serial killer and necrophile who murdered a minimum of 21 boys and young men from 1962 to 1977 in southern California. He is one of three men r ...

's adaption of Dreiser's ''

An American Tragedy ''An American Tragedy'' is a 1925 novel by American writer Theodore Dreiser. He began the manuscript in the summer of 1920, but a year later abandoned most of that text. It was based on the notorious murder of Grace Brown in 1906 and the trial of ...

'' which had opened on Broadway in 1926. Other productions mounted at the theatre included ''Philadelphia''. In March 1931, the theater was converted to a movie theater, under the name "Mirror Theatre", part of a chain run by

Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film producer, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in th ...

and Harold B. Franklin. That company soon fell apart, and by the mid 1930s, the theatre was operating under the name "Studio Theatre".

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

bought the theatre in 1936 and converted it to a live performance radio auditorium and radio studio for local affiliate KNX, under the name "CBS Radio Playhouse". CBS's ''

Lux Radio Theatre ''Lux Radio Theatre'', sometimes spelled ''Lux Radio Theater'', a classic radio anthology series, was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network (1934–35) (owned by the National Broadcasting Company, later predecessor of American Broadcasting Company ...

'' moved there from New York that year (because of this, some sources give the theatre's name as Lux Radio Playhouse). This popular anthology show featured radio adaptations of stage plays and film scripts performed by well-known actors in front of a live audience;

Cecil B. DeMille Cecil Blount DeMille (; August 12, 1881January 21, 1959) was an American film director, producer and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of the American cine ...

was for many years its producer and host. The theatre was also the home of the

Al Jolson Al Jolson (born Eizer Yoelson; June 9, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-American Jewish singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. He was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, and was self-billed ...

show from 1936 to 1939 . A&P heir and arts patron

Huntington Hartford George Huntington Hartford II (April 18, 1911 – May 19, 2008) was an American businessman, philanthropist, stage and film producer, and art collector. He was also heir to the A&P supermarket fortune. After his father's death in 1922, Hartfor ...

bought the theatre from CBS in 1953, modernized it with design by Helen Conway, and re-opened it with 970 seats as the first legitimate theatre venue in Los Angeles in many years, under the name "Huntington Hartford Theatre". The premiere production of the Hartford was '' What Every Woman Knows'' starring Helen Hayes. Hartford ran the theater successfully for ten years, with high-profile productions featuring the biggest stars of the era. After ten years, Hartford lost interest in patronizing the arts in Los Angeles, and in 1964, the theatre was sold to James Doolittle, operator of the

Greek Theatre Ancient Greek theatre was a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece from 700 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political, and religious place during this period, was its centre, where the theatre was ...

(who outbid

Cary Grant Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one o ...

), and renamed the "Doolittle Theatre". Doolittle ran the theatre successfully for 20 years, after which it was acquired by

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

. In 1999, the Ricardo Montalbán Foundation bought the theatre, which had been closed and fallen somewhat into disrepair. In May 2004, the venue re-opened "Ricardo Montalbán Theatre". One goal of the new theater was specifically to promote Hispanic and Latino Americans, Latino stage productions. Although the foundation encountered some financial difficulties, and struggled to fully renovate the theatre to achieve and maintain profitability, the theatre has successfully remained open. Film festivals, art galleries, and other programs are hosted, and there are rooftop film screenings in the spring and summer. The theater does not stage its own productions, and instead serves as a rental venue for traveling productions. Productions staged at The Montalbán have included ''Zorro in Hell'' (2007), ''An Evening Without Monty Python'' (2009), and the enra show PROXIMA (2016). In 2009, the venue entered an agreement with Nike, Inc. for various concessions: a mini Nike retail store in the back of the orchestra section, Nike logos at the mezzanine level and lobby, a retail display case in front of the theater's main entrance, and rental to Nike for promotional film screenings during which the theatre would operate under the name ''Nike Sportswear at the Montalbán''. This occasioned some criticism. An officer of the Nosotros theater company described the situation as "a mixed bag. Artists aren't happy about it but, at the same time, Nike is helping the theater to pay its bills".

In film

The exterior and adjacent parking lot featured as the "Burlesque Lounge" theatre in the 2010 film ''Burlesque (2010 American film), Burlesque'' with Cher and Christina Aguilera.

References

{{Authority control Theatres completed in 1927 Theatres in Hollywood, Los Angeles Theatres in Los Angeles Music venues in Los Angeles 1927 establishments in California