Hollywood Theatre (Toronto)

The Hollywood Theatre was a movie theatre at 1519 Yonge Street in Toronto, Ontario.[1][2] It opened in 1930 and was located on the east side of Yonge Street, north of St. Clair Avenue.[3]

The Hollywood Theatre in 1945

History

The Hollywood Theatre was the first cinema in Toronto specifically built to show talking pictures – movies with sound. It was designed by architect Herbert George Duerr, who designed it with a Moorish-style façade. As built, it contained 1,321 seats.

The building was renovated multiple times, adding a second auditorium, seating 800 patrons, in 1946.[1] According to author Doug Taylor, it became the first cinema in Canada to have more than one auditorium.

The venue was operated by the Famous Players chain.[4] In 1948, the Odeon Theatres chain built the Odeon Hyland cinema at 1501 Yonge Street, just south of the Hollywood Theatre.[2]

In 1964, the film Mary Poppins played at the theatre for 44 weeks.[5] 500,000 tickets were sold.

Famous Players closed the theatre in February 1999, and it was demolished later in 1999.[1]

References
  1. Doug Taylor (2016). Toronto's Local Movie Theatres of Yesteryear: Brought Back to Thrill You Again. Dundurn Press. pp. 28, 32, 38–40. ISBN 9781459733428.
  2. Derek Flack (2015-12-24). "The lost movie theatres of St. Clair West". Blog TO. Archived from the original on 2016-08-06. Retrieved 2017-05-20.
  3. "Hollywood Theatre in Toronto". Cinema Treasures. Retrieved 2018-09-17.
  4. Janice Bradbeer (2016-04-14). "Once Upon A City: When Hollywood came north". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on 2016-04-30. Retrieved 2017-05-20. Famous Players shuttered the Hollywood at Yonge and St. Clair in early February 1999.
  5. Nicholas Gergesha. "Change and Transgression: A case study of Deer Park and the Hollywood theatre". Local film cultures. Archived from the original on 2013-04-30. Retrieved 2017-05-20. In autumn of 1964 Leonard N. Bishop, manager of the Hollywood theatre on Yonge Street north of St. Clair, booked a new Disney production called Mary Poppins. The picture, which ran for a record 44 weeks and brought in more than 500,000 patrons, marked a watershed moment for not only the theatre but also for the residents of the suburban area it occupied.

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