This theater on the south side of Hollywood Boulevard in the midst of Hollywood Automobile Row opened on October 20, 1926 as Carter DeHaven’s Music Box. Unlike the Marcal, which had opened five months earlier just to the east at 6025 Hollywood Boulevard, the Music Box started out as a legitimate theater, not a movie theater venue.

 

The project was announced in the Hollywood Daily Citizen on September 12, 1925 and in the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily news and the Los Angeles Times on September 12, 1925.

The land the theater was built on, like Hoffman Studebaker’s, was leased from the estate of Daeida (Ida) Beveridge. Often called the “Mother of Hollywood,” she had owned the large ranch property with her husband, Harvey Henderson Wilcox. The couple came to the area from Topeka, Kansas and subdivided Hollywood in 1887. Wilcox passed away in 1891; in 1892, Ida married Philo Beveridge. Ida Beveridge controlled the Wilcox land holdings and, when Hollywood incorporated in 1903, donated land for many of its civic buildings. She passed away in 1914 and her estate manager, C.B. Brunson (who was married to the Beveridge’s daughter Phyllis), developed the property as Hollywood turned increasingly commercial.

The theater was to be a legitimate show house, venue for musical revues in the style of Flo Ziegfeld, George White and Earl Carroll on Broadway- and was probably influenced by the “Music Box Revue” shows presented by Irving Berlin and Sam S. Harris between 1921 and 1924 at Berlin’s Music Box Theatre. The project proponents were actor Carter DeHaven (also spelled de Haven), who was to run the theater, and William S. Holman, secretary of the Christie Film Company, one of the earliest movie studios in Hollywood. The architect was Morgan, Walls & Clements. The building also contained four retail spaces and an open-air cabaret space on the roof.

Carter DeHaven was a Vaudeville/Broadway stage actor who later appeared in motion pictures, often with his wife, Flora Parker (typically billed as “Mrs. Carter DeHaven”). The couple’s daughter, Gloria DeHaven later also joined the acting profession.

Hollywood’s elite paid $11 a seat to attend the gala grand opening on October 20, 1926. The opening show was called “Fancies.” Though local theater critics raved about the show, “the most brilliant premiere in the history of California” was not without its hiccups. Journalist Dan Thomas in his syndicated column, “These Movie Folk,” wrote that “first-nighters were given more than they expected. In the second act, the stage was adorned with settings from two different scenes, which didn’t match at all. I am told that all of the stagehands were- well, intoxicated.”

Carter DeHaven’s association with the running of the theater was short. In January 1927 Louis O. Macloon took it over. His first show, “Hollywood Music Box Revue,” opened February 2, 1927. In March, the show, renamed the “Fanny Brice Revue,” moved to the Biltmore Theatre downtown.

In February 1928, George Sherwood took out a long lease on the theater. His first production was “Women Go On Forever,” which had run on Broadway at the Forrest Theatre from September to December 1927, opened at the Music Box March 13, 1928.

After “Women Go On Forever” closed in May 1928, Sherwood engaged the Pasadena Community Players’ production of “Lazarus Laughed,” by Eugene O’Neill to be performed at the Music Box for a limited engagement starting May 15, 1928. If anyone came expecting to laugh, they would be very confused.

“Lazarus Laughed” closed on May 31 and the Music Box went dark until June 18, when the Japanese Imperial Theater Players opened with a Ken-Geki show- Japanese sword play with music and dancing- for a limited 1-week engagement, sponsored by L.E Behymer and Hollywood elites Charlie Chaplin, Sid Grauman, Sam Goldwin, Cecil B. DeMille and Joseph M. Schenck.

In July 1928, Max Dill of the comedy team Kolb and Dill took over the Music Box lease. His first production, a musical comedy written by Dill himself called “Pair O’ Docs,” opened August 22, 1928. It featured a chorus of young women performing in roller skates. The show- and Max Dill- moved to the Mayan Theatre on September 16, 1928.

Dixie McCoy, former head of casting at the Christie movie studio, took over the theater’s lease on September 7, 1928. She intended it as a venue for her own production company, to offer a series of dramas starting with Gilbert Emery’s play “Tarnish,” which had run on Broadway at the Belmont Theater from October 1923 to May 1924. McCoy’s production opened at the Music Box on September 25, 1928 and closed November 4. Although McCoy had indicated in October that she would be announcing further productions for the Music Box “soon,” instead she announced that she was moving her production company to the Vine Street Theater at 1615 N. Vine.

The Music Box went dark on November 5-15, 1928. On November 14, a documentary-style film, “Simba,” opened at the theater for a limited 10-day run November 16-25. It had already played for several weeks downtown at the Biltmore Theatre.

The Music Box went dark again from November 26 to December 24, 1928. On December 25, comedian and ex-Ziegfeld star Lupino Lane appeared at the Music Box for a limited engagement over the holidays, returning the theater to its musical revue format. Lane had previously appeared in the Music Box Revue show in 1927 while it was still under the management of Carter DeHaven. The popular show closed February 4.

The Music Box went dark after Lane’s show for the rest of February and all but one day of March 1928. On Easter Sunday, March 31, flamboyant young evangelist Rheba Crawford held services in the theater. Though it was an invitation-only event for the main floor, the balcony was thrown open to the public.

Crawford had begun her career with the Salvation Army, attending rallies in Times Square, New York, where she earned the nickname “The Angel of Broadway.” Crawford quit the Salvation Army in January 1923 after a high-profile incident in which she backed up traffic on the famous thoroughfare. She came to Los Angeles in January 1929 and began preaching over radio station KPLA. In 1934 she would become an assistant pastor at Sister Aimee Semple McPherson’s Angelus Temple.

O. D. Woodward took on a 5-year lease for the Music Box in March 1929. His first production, a frothy comedy, “The High Road,” opened on April 13.

On May 19, 1929, “Dracula” opened at Woodward’s Music Box, starring Bela Lugosi. Lugosi had portrayed the Count during the show’s original Broadway run at the Fulton Theater from October 1927 to May 1928. He had reprised the role at the Biltmore Theatre in the Summer of 1928, also staged by O. D. Woodward. A motion picture version was released in 1931.

On June 19, 1929, Monroe Lathrop, arts writer for the Los Angeles Evening Express, reported that theatrical producer/composer Harry Carroll had signed a long term lease for the Music Box and would take it over on or around September 15, 1929. His first show, “Harry Carroll’s Revue,” was in keeping with the Music Box’s not-so-distant roots.

On September 26, 1929, Ralph G. Farnum, New York casting agent, borrowed the Music Box for the day to hold auditions for performers to populate Broadway shows by Ziegfeld, George White, Earl Carroll, George M. Cohen and others. The turnabout was seen as fair play, as Hollywood, since the recent advent of talking pictures, was increasingly poaching talent from the Broadway stage for its all-singing, all-dancing musicals that featured Broadway-style reviews- such as Warner Brothers’ Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929).

Harry Carroll’s Revue closed on October 22 and the theater went dark again. On November 12, 1929, the LA Evening Express reported the unfortunate news that, per the trade publication Inside Facts, Carroll had had to sell his $30,000 house in Santa Monica to pay off debts incurred by the show. The only time the Music Box was not dark that month was on November 19 when Fox did some night shooting for a talkie at the entrance to the theater, attracting a huge crowd on the Boulevard.

On December 23, 1929, The Music Box reopened with a 1-off play, a comedy farce written by Clarence O’Dell Miller- a prominent Pasadena attorney- and Ole M. Ness- former director of the Potboiler art group- called “Maternally Yours.”

The show was not well received by critics and even stunts like a local dairy distributing bottles of milk in the aisles and co-author Miller mailing personal cards and letters inviting everyone in the LA phone book named Miller to attend “Miller Night,” it was a flop. Though a New Years’ Eve matinee had been advertised, the show closed abruptly and the theater slapped together a vaudeville program with fun galore, girls and free dancing.

In January 1930 the Los Angeles Repertory Theater, renamed the Civic Repertory Theater, took over the Music Box for its new season. The first of 8 plays, “And So To Bed,” opened January 27, 1930. The successful season concluded in June, after which the theater would host special events such as dance recitals.

LA Evening Express 1/27/1930.

Agnes De Mille put on a recital at the Music Box also. LA Record 7/9/1930.

Later in the Summer of 1930, Hollywood Civic leaders organized the Hollywood Bowl Theater Association and planned to build a theater at the Bowl. The Civic Repertory Theater would be its company. Meanwhile, it remained at the Music Box, where the Fall season opened November 3, 1930, with George Bernard Shaw’s “The Apple Cart.” Profits from the season were to go toward building the company’s permanent home at the Bowl. The 1930-31 season began strong on January 5, 1931, with “Porgy.” But the Bowl plans never materialized and the company had to end the season early due to lack of financial support; through an arrangement the Pasadena Community Playhouse, subscribers were able to attend that venue’s plays on certain nights.

Dickson Morgan used the suddenly dark theater to bring Leslie Carter to Hollywood in “Shanghai Gesture” for a limited engagement starting April 20, 1931. It was a critical and commercial success. Miriam Hopkins would portray Carter in a 1940 biopic “The Lady with Red Hair.”

When “Shanghai Gesture” closed, the Music Box went dark except for the odd special event. It was by no means unique in this. Other Hollywood legitimate theaters were experiencing long periods of vacancies as well. One could blame the Depression, or the novelty of talking pictures; however, hit shows proved audiences would come if given fare they liked and stayed away in droves if they didn’t like a show.

They didn’t like Morgan’s next show, “Precedent,” which opened at the Music Box September 21, 1931. The creme of Hollywood motion picture society turned up for the first night but after that it was sparsely attended and closed October 3. Morgan had reportedly already taken on a long-term lease on the Music Box.

The Music Box went dark again, reopening Christmas Day 1931 with a French farce, “Easy for Zee Zee,” produced by Richard Wilbur, which had run for 61 weeks at the Green Street Theater in San Francisco, interrupted by police raids. The racy fare attracted capacity audiences through January into February. On Feb 6, 1932, cast members Virginia King and Harry J. Jordan got married on stage at the conclusion of the performance and invited the audience to attend. The show closed on February 8, 1932.

The Music Box was now under the management of Richard Wilbur, whose stock company, the Wilbur Players, promised a new play every Friday starting February 19, 1932, with “It’s a Wise Child.”

The players did stage 4 plays on 4 successive Fridays but despite reports that the box office was booming, the theater closed abruptly without explanation.

On April 26, 1932, a 1-off production of “Hit the Air,” a musical spoof on radio (the latest threat to Hollywood), produced by Harry M. Sugarman, opened at the Music Box. Sugarman, aka “Sugie” would later open The Tropics, a South Seas-themed cocktail lounge in Beverly Hills, and the Hollywood Tropics on Vine Street (see my post on the Hawaiian Craze).

This pattern of different short-term operators or stock companies leasing the theater for their productions would be repeated for the rest of the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s. A notable tenant was CBS radio, which used the theater for Lux broadcasts from 1936 to 1940. CBS would also use other Hollywood legitimate theaters (such as the Vine Street Theater at 1615 N. Vine) for different broadcasts even after its new West Coast headquarters opened on Sunset Boulevard, as the Movie Town became the Radio City, but 6126 Hollywood Boulevard was the home of Lux Radio Theater for its first 5 years in Hollywood.

Lux Radio Theater, sponsored by Lever Brothers (makers of the popular detergent and bath soap Lux), began broadcasting from New York on October 14, 1934 over the NBC Blue Network, presenting adaptations of Broadway plays dramatized by stage actors as well as visiting film stars. Lever Bros. had long featured film’s leading ladies in its beauty soap print advertisements so already had ties to Hollywood.

Monday, June 1, 1936 marked several firsts for the show: its move to CBS, to Hollywood, and the Music Box Theater. It began dramatizing movies rather than plays, often featuring the original stars reprising their roles. Cecil B. DeMille served as director, producer and narrator.

The historic June 1, 1936 show was “The Legionnaire and the Lady,” an adaptation of the 1930 film “Morocco.” Marlene Dietrich performed her original role with Clark Gable stepping into Gary Cooper’s shoes. Gable had appeared on the Music Box stage before- in a 1927 production of “Chicago.” The Lux radio show was broadcast in front of a live studio audience and a capacity crowd filled the Music Box, though local arts critics lamented that radio theater was not theatre.

 

 

In the Summer of 1940, the Music Box Theatre resumed use as a legitimate show house. The Hollywood Theater Alliance, formerly headquartered in the old Writers Club building at 6700 Sunset Boulevard, took on a 5 year lease of the theater and moved in on August 1, 1940. Its first production here, “Meet the People” debuted on August 19, when it moved to the Music Box from the Hollywood Playhouse on Vine.

The Music Box continued to be used as a legitimate theater by others through the Summer of 1944.

On February 1, 1945, the Music Box reopened as a first-run motion picture theater, renamed the Guild Theater, operated by Fox West Coast. The gala grand opening was marked by searchlights over Hollywood Boulevard with bunting and pennants festooning the front of the building, which was remodeled for the new use. The opening fare was a double bill, “Bride By Mistake” and “The Falcon in Hollywood.”

6126 Hollywood Boulevard would again be leased by CBS for radio broadcasts in 1948, when theaters in general, like nightclubs, were struggling to stay afloat. It resumed use as a movie theater on May 26, 1954 and was renamed Fox Theater aka New Fox. In September 1959 Pacific Theaters took over the operation, as it did the Marcal Theater, and the Fox was renamed the Pix Theater.

In 1985, the building returned to its legitimate theater roots and was renamed the Henry Fonda Theater. As the Fonda Theater, it continues as a theater venue today.