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INTRODUCTION
FOX THEATRE ARCHIVES
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f you grew up in Atlanta, you have a story about the Fox Theatre. Even if you didn’t, you probably have fond memories of Atlanta’s theatrical treasure. It has hosted proms, weddings, operas, concerts, dance parties, film premieres, fundraisers, classes and Broadway shows. Since 1929, it’s been the place to see live entertainment. Out of the thousands of grand movie palaces that once anchored American communities, it’s one of a handful left. The atmospheric nature of the auditorium, with its twinkling canopy of stars, makes it rarer still. The engineering genius that went into its construction guaranteed its energy-efficiency from the start. And craftsmen used every skill to build the auditorium. It’s hard to believe that the city of Atlanta came close to losing this special place. Thankfully, Atlantans refused to let it go. This special edition of Encore Atlanta is dedicated to them. In this commemorative guide, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Save the Fox movement and the years of reinvention, prosperity and ingenuity that followed. You’ll learn about this
grande dame’s history as well as the people and corporations who played pivotal roles in its past and are helping form the vision of what this memory maker will become. That’s the power of performance. The Fox Theatre: The legend lives on!
In the 1960s and ’70s, much of Atlanta’s history was torn down to make way for new buildings. It was the “modern” thing to do. The movement to save the Fox Theatre was unprecedented.
ATLANTA’S PERFORMING ARTS PUBLICATION
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THE FOXTHE THEATRE LEGEND LIVES ON! CHAPTERS 3
Introduction
6
Acknowledgments
8
A Star Is Born
A grand theater changes the face of Atlanta.
12 Middle-Age Crisis
As the city changes, the Fox Theatre falls into decline.
AR EXPERIENCES *
Use your mobile device to scan the following pages to unlock additional materials. 1
Front Cover
2
Awesome Alpharetta CVB
5 Legoland
16 Loyal Fans
7
Atlanta Falcons
20 Friends of the Fox
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A Star Is Born
Fans young and old band together to save the Fox. How Atlanta Landmarks Inc. was born.
24 To the Rescue
Ownership was just the beginning.
30 Rebirth and Renewal
A team of inventive, passionate volunteers restored the theater to glory.
34 From the Flames
On the eve of the 1996 Olympics, nearly everything went up in smoke.
38 Atlanta’s Theatrical Treasure
The Fox Theatre’s success revitalizes Midtown Atlanta and smashes box-office records.
42 The Legend Lives On
How the Fox Theatre continues to give back.
46 In the Stars
A legend is confirmed.
15 Braselton 15 Emory Voice 23 PoshDealz.com 42 The Legend Lives On 47 Wellstar
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LOVE THE FOX? Find show stories, ticket giveaways and more at EncoreAtlanta.com.
icon in this issue as well as future issues of Encore Atlanta at the Fox, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Opera and Alliance Theatre and other theatres around town.
ON THE COVER Make the cover come to life through augmented reality. Image by Mark F. Baxter. *Augmented Reality
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LEGO, the LEGO logo, the Brick and Knob configurations, the Minifigure and LEGOLAND are trademarks of the LEGO Group. Š2015 The LEGO Group.
AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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his story could not have been told without the assistance of the staff at the Fox Theatre. Many thanks to Allan Vella, Jamie Vosmeier, Carmie McDonald and Molly Fortune for graciously sharing their thoughts and giving permission to access and publish photos and oral history excerpts from the Fox Theatre archives. Thanks also to Carolyn Wills, Rick Flinn and Ed Neiss for sharing their memories of the Fox with me. From 2003 to 2008, I did several interviews with artists and Fox staff members for stories published in issues of Encore Atlanta and commemorative Fox books (Great Performances; History of An Icon; Fox Theatre, Atlanta: The Memory Maker). Excerpts from conversations with Alex Cooley, Joe Patten, Allan Vella, Ed Neiss, Molly Fortune, Jeff Foxworthy, Gregg Allman and Gary Rossington have been reprinted here. The statement made by Fred Schneider came from a Fox Theatre/ GPB TV documentary I received as source material for the Great Performances book. Statements made at the 2008 press launch of the Fox Theatre Institute by Alan Thomas also have made their way into this commemorative issue of Encore Atlanta. Special recognition goes to Anna F. Kaplan, who interviewed long-term Fox Theatre staffers in 2010. These are now part of the Fox Theatre archives and were an important source for this project. Excerpts she recorded and transcribed included conversations with Len Tucker, Michele Schuff, Beauchamp Carr, Larry Reams, Rick Flinn and Shelly Kleppsattel. But the greatest debt owed is to the 7,000 people who sent in donations, large and small, to preserve this theatrical treasure and the more than 600,000 a year who pass through its doors, paying $2 a ticket towards its restoration fund. Thank you for saving and sustaining the Fox Theatre. — Kristi Casey Sanders
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I
t’s difficult to imagine the corner of Peachtree Street and Ponce de Leon Avenue as a virgin pine forest. But that’s what it was in 1849, when it was part of a 405-acre lumber yard owned by city founder Richard Peters. Peters was a railway man. He spent eight years laying the rail line from
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Augusta to Marthasville and, after becoming railroad superintendent, helped rename the city Atlanta to make it easier to write into log books and freight records. Peters’ land comprised what is now Midtown Atlanta. After the Civil War, he repaired the railways, founded Atlanta’s first
FOX THEATRE ARCHIVES
A Star is Born
KENAN RESEARCH CENTER AT THE ATLANTA HISTORY CENTER
streetcar company and began to subdivide his property. He created north/west streets named after trees, and east/west streets that were numbered. He built his final home in the 1880s, about a block from where the Fox stands today. He donated several acres to help found the Georgia Institute of Technology and sold the rest to developers. It became a fashionable neighborhood for the well-to-do.
One of the most popular social clubs of the era was the Shriners, a subset of Freemasonry that emphasized fraternity over ritual. By the early 1900s, the Atlanta chapter had outgrown its downtown meeting venue and purchased land near the Peachtree-Ponce corner in hopes of building a permanent Yaarab Temple. Peters paid $2,000 for 405 acres in the 1840s; the Shriners paid $225,000 for just their plot, and it took two years to pay off. From the beginning, the Shriners wanted their future home to benefit the community. Former potentate Henry Heinz (son-in-law of Coca-Cola Co. founder Asa Candler) proposed the temple building include a 7,500-seat auditorium
OPPOSITE PAGE: On opening day, the Fox presented two shows featuring an organ concert, the Walt Disney cartoon “Steamboat Willie,” Fancon and Marco’s “Sunkist Beauties,” Fox Movietone News and the film Salute. THIS PAGE: The two homes in the bottom right corner with trees in front of them are what once stood at the corner of Peachtree Street and Ponce de Leon Avenue.
ATLANTA’S PERFORMING ARTS PUBLICATION
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for public performances and concerts, which would generate an income stream to offset operating expenses. The Shriners launched a $1 million fundraising campaign in 1925, earning nearly $1.5 million in less than a month. They then demolished the Kimball-Ragan house that stood across from the
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COLLECTION OF JOE G. PATTON/FOX THEATRE ARCHIVES
FROM TOP: Original plans called for opera box seats, which were adapted to conceal organ pipes and chambers. The architect’s drawings (bottom) envisioned a grand entrance off of Ponce de Leon Avenue.
Georgian Terrace Hotel and the Ponce Apartments, but they still lacked architectural vision. Two years later, they announced a design competition for a winner who could “out-Baghdad Baghdad.” A local architectural firm — Marye, Alger and Vinour — won the commission. It was believed that P. Thornton Marye, who designed the Spanish-influenced Terminal Station, did the work, but recent evidence suggests it was junior partner Ollivier Vinour. According to his daughter, Vinour drew architectural inspiration from his travels to Africa; a collection of postcards a friend brought back from Spain and the Middle East; an 1838 two-volume set of lithographs of Egypt, Nubia and the Holy Land; and the recent
YAARAB SHRINE, A.A.O.N.M.S.
discovery of King Tut’s tomb. Somehow these influences melded into a lavish design that avoided gaudiness. The building’s cost quickly grew as impressive as its facade. Within six months, the Shriners realized they hadn’t raised enough money for construction and needed an influx to finish the building. Movie palace mogul William Fox had his eye on Atlanta. The mosque’s style fit well with the Siamese/Burmese-inspired theaters he’d built in St. Louis and Detroit. He offered to lease the auditorium for 21 years, guaranteeing the Shriners $3 million in income over that time. That agreement secured the Yaarab Temple’s future but didn’t solve the Shriner’s cash problems.
Construction began 18 They sold $1.5 million in bonds months after the cornerand scaled down their plans. Instead of a three-story facade along stone was laid. Peachtree Street, they decided to build in a row of “temporary” storefronts. Fox suggested the Peachtree-side ballroom be transformed into an open 140-ft.long loggia. He thought it would make a grander entrance than the smaller one planned under the onion dome on Ponce de Leon. The Shriners agreed, and Fox added a marquee and two minarets to flank it. Fox’s wife picked out many of the interior furnishings and design. On Dec. 25, 1929 — 18 months after its cornerstone was laid and two months after the historic stock market crash — the Fox Theatre opened to the public. ATLANTA’S PERFORMING ARTS PUBLICATION
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t’s fitting that Atlanta’s motto is “resurgens,” Latin for “rising again.” The city was only in its third decade when it was burned to the ground in the Battle of Atlanta but rebounded to become one of the greatest cities in the South. There’s an ebb and flow to everything, including the Fox.
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The fashionable neighborhood that sprung up from the acres that city founder Richard Peters sold in the 1880s hit their zenith in 1911, when the Georgian Terrace and Ponce Apartments were built. By the time the Shriners purchased land across the street in the 1920s, it was rumored that the only
FOX THEATRE ARCHIVES
Middle-Age Crisis
LANE BROTHER COLLECTIONS, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES, GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
ladies in residence at the once-fine houses were of ill repute. The Fox Theatre opened with tremendous fanfare as the Great Depression began in 1929; in 1932, movie mogul William Fox declared bankruptcy. The ornate movie palace closed after 125 weeks of operation. Yaarab Temple officers reorganized as the Theatre Holding Co. and bought the Fox at auction for $75,000, but the city soon seized the building, citing failure to pay taxes. It
took about six years for the new management company, Mosque Inc., to find its footing, but it eventually discovered a successful programming mix that included movies, touring shows and New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Tickets to the Met, which played the Fox for 20 years, were handed down like heirlooms among Atlanta’s social set. The theater survived the 1950s and ’60s largely because of decisions that general manager Noble K. Arnold made. He rigorously screened and trained his employees, conducting military-style inspections of the ushers, bathrooms and all public areas to ensure the best patron experience possible. He installed one of the country’s first 35mm CinemaScope projectors and panoramic screens, securing the Fox’s position as a first-run, family-friendly movie theater. In 1963, he supported the
OPPOSITE PAGE: By installing new film technology like CinemaScope projectors, the Fox Theatre maintained its popularity throughout the 1950s. THIS PAGE: Don Mathis played the Fox’s Mighty Möller organ in 1944. It fell silent 10 years later.
ATLANTA’S PERFORMING ARTS PUBLICATION 13
volunteer efforts of the American Association of Theatre Organ Enthusiasts, led by Joe G. Patten, to restore the theater’s Mighty Möller organ, which had bleated its final chord in 1954. But people no longer had to go to the theater for entertainment. TV sets were far cheaper and more accessible. As the civil rights movement grew, and neighborhoods desegregated, Atlanta, like
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TOP: LANE BROTHER COLLECTIONS, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES, GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY; BOTTOM: EDGAR ORR/FOX THEATRE ARCHIVES
THIS PAGE: The theater struggled to compete with new forms of entertainment, like television, but remained profitable throughout the ’50s and ’60s. Ushers wore wool suits with disposable paper collars and cuffs.
many other cities, experienced “white flight” as people increasingly moved to the suburbs. Audiences had already diminished by the time Arnold retired in 1970, but once he left, the building’s interior glory faded as well. Rather than dust-free furnishings, patrons found carpets squishy with spilled sodas. Instead of first-run films, the Fox ran low-budget features. Rock concerts continued to pack the house, but only one night at a time. The surrounding area also lost its sheen. Ladies of ill repute returned to Ponce, and it was no longer the kind of neighborhood you brought your family to at night. On Dec. 31, 1974, the Greg Allman Band rocked in the new year. Two days later, Mosque Inc. padlocked the building and negotiated a sale to Southern Bell, which planned to demolish the Fox to make way for a new regional headquarters building.
emoryhealthcare.org/voicecenter 288
ATLANTA’S PERFORMING ARTS PUBLICATION 15
he Save the Fox movement started small: a handful of high school students picketing in front of the theater; some long-haired weirdos throwing rock concert benefits; sorority girls organizing events. It took a long time for the movement to gain momentum. Atlanta music promoter Alex Cooley produced several rock ’n’ roll concerts at the Fox before it was shuttered. When he heard that it might be torn down, he
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was devastated. “To take something that’s such an integral part of Atlanta, that’s such a part of somebody’s memories, that’s an architectural icon … to put up a parking lot is heinous,” he says. “The craftsmanship is a lost art. The ability to build a superb sound chamber like that is a lost art. The understanding of the human voice and how it projects and functions in a large room seems to be a thing of the past. My first thought was, ‘It
FOX THEATRE ARCHIVES
T
Loyal Fans
YEARBOOK PHOTO COURTESY OF JEFF FOXWORTHY
can’t happen.’” But Cooley and his friends had no idea how to stop the bulldozers. “We had all sorts of crazy plans,” he says. “We were going to get a long chain, and we were going to chain ourselves all together along the building.” As the media started to pick up the story, people started scrawling “Save the Fox” messages on their phone bill payments to Southern Bell. Comedian Jeff Foxworthy, who graduated from high school in 1976, remembers having a “Save the Fox” bumper sticker on his car. When Joe Patten, by now the Fox’s unofficial technical director,
heard the theater would be torn down, he enlisted the assistance of Georgia Tech professor Pat Connell and businessman Bob Foreman to help him find people who could help. They gathered a group of 30 like-minded people and founded the nonprofit organization Atlanta Landmarks Inc. in 1974. Businessman Beauchamp Carr became its first president. “It’d be hard to find a better corporate citizen [than Southern Bell] in Atlanta at that time … or a corporate citizen more conscientious about their public image,” Carr says. “They were desperate to get out of this arrangement, and yet no business or reputable businessperson had any interest in buying the Fox Theatre.” Atlanta Landmarks decided it needed to raise enough money to buy the building from Southern Bell. But its leaders didn’t have much time. Mayor Maynard Jackson set a six-month moratorium on the building’s demolition to let Atlanta Landmarks try to raise the money it needed. Southern Bell, meanwhile, worked out a deal with MARTA. The transportation company agreed to reroute construction of its train station so Southern Bell could build its headquarters along West
OPPOSITE PAGE: In exchange for donations to “Save the Fox,” Atlanta Landmarks Inc. sent bumper stickers and T-shirts to supporters. THIS PAGE: Comedian Jeff Foxworthy remembers saving the Fox being so important to his peers that yearbook staffers turned it into a caption under one of his basketball photos.
ATLANTA’S PERFORMING ARTS PUBLICATION 17
Peachtree Street. In June 1975, Atlanta Landmarks secured a $1.8 million loan from five banks; the security was a scant $2,000, provided by Connell’s wife, Martha. With the loan, Atlanta Landmarks purchased an L-shaped tract of land around the theater. Southern Bell then purchased the Fox Theatre from Mosque Inc. and swapped the theater for Atlanta Landmarks’ L-shaped plot. Although it now owned the title, Atlanta Landmarks hadn’t yet saved the theater from all threats. “We didn’t have any working
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FOX THEATRE ARCHIVES
FROM TOP: Teenagers and college students were an important part of the Save the Fox movement. The Fox frequently made headlines, which helped the movement gain steam.
capital, we didn’t have anything but this building and a mortgage, which had an extremely short fuse on it,” Carr says. “We had about a half-million dollars in interest that needed to be paid over the three-year mortgage. If we failed to make any payment, we would immediately lose title to the Fox Theatre building. Ownership would revert to the motion picture company, Mosque Shareholders.” Carr, other Atlanta Landmarks members and the owners of Southern Bell had to sign an agreement that if they failed to operate the theater successfully they would no longer protest its demolition. “While that seemed like a rather draconian structure, it was really much to our advantage,” Carr says. “It was a believable threat and it enabled us … to go around and talk to all of the foundations and businesses in Atlanta and rich people and general public and say, ‘Listen, you gotta give us this money right now. We have a payment due and if we don’t make it, they’re going to take the building away from us.’ ” The community continued to rally behind them.
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tlanta Landmarks Inc. saved the Fox but knew nothing about running a theater. So Ted Stevens was hired as general manager. “He was a darn good businessman and we owe him a big
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debt of gratitude for what he did,” Carr says. “He would sit and keep track of every nickel. He was frugal as he could possibly be, but that’s what we needed because … when we took title of this building, all we had was a building. We
FOX THEATRE ARCHIVES
Friends of the Fox
FOX THEATRE ARCHIVES
didn’t have any working capital.” Stephens focused on bringing in nationally known rock ’n’ roll acts like the Allman Brothers Band and Linda Ronstadt, who “reopened” the Fox with her Oct. 29, 1975, concert. Carr became the theater’s primary fundraiser and recruiter. “We had no resources and no expertise, so we went around asking a lot of people to do all kinds of
things,” he says. He enlisted the help of accountant Harold Stokes, a managing partner at Piedmont Mitchell (now KPMG). Stokes oversaw the Fox’s accounting procedures and managed a pool of volunteer accountants recruited from other firms to make sure the books were balanced and audits were conducted to prove the Fox was operating responsibly. Another core volunteer was attorney Joe Myers, who provided legal services from day one. “As a young, idealistic associate at Alston, Miller & Gaines law firm (now Alston & Bird LLC) who hadn’t been made partner, what he was doing with the Fox pro bono was kind of controversial,” Carr says. He remembers Joe telling him, “Only reason we’re doing this, of course, is we’ve just got to be crazy. Otherwise, why are we spending so much time on this?” As Carr spoke to members of old Atlanta, the people who
OPPOSITE PAGE: During its first fiscal year, Atlanta Landmarks made $30,000, thanks in large part to general manager Ted Stevens’ leadership. THIS PAGE: The movement was able to maintain momentum over the course of several years because of consistent media and corporate support.
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PrintPack owner James K. Jobson volunteered time and materials to design and print Save the Fox pamphlets and direct-mail pieces for Atlanta Landmarks, prominently featuring the Groskinsky image. After each show, Fox ushers would hand audience members the pamphlets. If people sent in a little money, they received a “Save the Fox” bumper sticker. But the real challenge remained: How to pay back $1.8 million, plus interest, in three years? COLLECTION OF CAROLYN WILLS
Photographer Henry Groskinsky gave the Save the Fox movement his blessing and the original transparency for this iconic Fox auditorium photograph to use promotionally.
controlled the money and the foundations, it became clear that although they’d experienced the grandeur of the Fox in its heyday, they no longer saw its splendor. If they couldn’t see the potential, Carr knew, their purse strings would remain closed. Carr remembered an image LIFE Magazine had published of the Fox and tracked down the photographer, Henry Groskinsky. “He was doing a tour of the country [in the 1950s] and taking pictures of the biggest and best movie palaces,” Carr says. “He made one of the Fox Theatre that is almost more beautiful than the theater is. He had this genius [and] knew just which lens would show both the [jewel drop curtain] in the main auditorium, the chambers to the pipe organ, the blue sky of the atmosphere ceiling and show all the seats.” Groskinsky gave Carr the original transparency to use as needed.
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n 1976, Carolyn Wills was a regional public relations manager for Eastern Air Lines. She’d walked by the Fox Theatre on her way to elementary school and celebrated her junior-senior prom there. She fondly remembered attending symphonic concerts with her aunt in the 1940s, and seeing Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis cut up there in the ’50s. Part of her job was to keep up with the news, and both The
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Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution, separate newspapers then, were filled with stories about the Fox’s continuous struggle — it needed to raise $180,000 by June. Wills decided to hold a fundraiser to help. Along with sorority sisters from Delta Zeta, Wills approached Fox general manager Ted Stevens and Atlanta Landmarks president Beauchamp Carr about doing a fashion show to
FOX THEATRE ARCHIVES
To the Rescue
COLLECTION OF CAROLYN WILLS
support the “Save the Fox” movement. With Barbara Baughman and Ellen Johnson as co-chairs, Delta Zeta members began to recruit celebrity models for the March event, and Wills did what she did best, generate publicity. “We decided to do a men’s fashion show because we wanted the men to be involved,” Wills says. Peter Lupus from TV’s “Mission Impossible” agreed to participate as did local radio personality Ludlow Porch. Other models included representatives from Atlanta’s sports, entertainment, news, business and political communities, including future Sen. Johnny Isakson (then vice
president of Northside Realty), Atlanta Falcons quarterback Steve Bartkowski, former University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley, Waffle House president Joe Rogers and Mathis Dairies’ Jack Mathis. Clothes were donated by Davison’s, Sears, Rich’s, JC Penney and Frederick’s of Hollywood, among others. Tickets to “An Evening at the Fox” cost $12.50 and included dinner plus the show. An anonymous donor (Ben Massell) offered to match any funds Delta Zeta raised up to $25,000. “That’s when we started selling tickets like wild,” Wills remembers. “We had to put tables everywhere.” They stopped including dinner with the ticket because they didn’t know how they’d serve so many people. Armed with pinking shears and huge bolts of fabric, Wills and her sorority sisters created tablecloths for the massive gathering. Wills told Eastern that she couldn’t focus on work and prepare for the fundraiser. Her boss told her not to worry, that Eastern Air Lines wanted to save the Fox, too. “So I was an employee of the Fox with my salary and expense
OPPOSITE PAGE: By June 1976, more than 3,000 individuals had donated to the Save the Fox campaign. THIS PAGE: Carolyn Wills and “Mission: Impossible” actor Peter Lupus had a ball at “An Evening at the Fox.”
ATLANTA’S PERFORMING ARTS PUBLICATION 25
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ward Fund and May Abreau, who wrote a $35,000 check to cover a shortfall. In July 1976, Lynryd Skynyrd recorded a live album at the Fox. The band donated its profits to the theater along with $5,000 toward the purchase of a fire curtain. Band members later received a special Grammy Award for their humanitarian work. Carr remembers opening
FOX THEATRE ARCHIVES
account paid for by Eastern Air Lines,” Wills says. They raised $70,000. After the event, Wills joined the Atlanta Landmarks board, on which she served for 38 years. Atlanta Landmarks wrote its first check to the banks — $131,812.35 — that June. Large donors who helped pay off that first loan installment included the David, Helen and Marian Wood-
COLLECTION OF BEAUCHAMP CARR
envelopes backstage filled with small bills. “Somebody would send a $10 bill and a note saying, ‘I met my wife in the balcony of the Fox.’ ” More than 3,000 people had donated, but to secure the Fox’s future, Carr knew they needed larger amounts and more high-profile support. One day a man came into the general manager’s office and handed him a $5,000 check. It
was Ben J. Massell Jr., a theater lover from a prominent Atlanta family. Carr invited Massell to lunch and told him their predicament: They needed an anchoring grant. “We felt like a lot of major interests in Atlanta, a lot of the major foundations, were sitting on their hands about the Fox because they sort of doubted we were going to be able to pull it all together,” Carr says. Two weeks later, Carr received a call from a lawyer representing a prominent banker who wished to remain anonymous. “He says, ‘I have somebody who wants to help you. He’s willing to put $400,000 in escrow. If you can raise all the other money you need so you can pay off this $1.8 million loan, you can have his $400,000.’ ” In spring 1977, Atlanta Landmarks received a grant from a foundation that wished to remain anonymous. “We asked them for $250,000 and they said
OPPOSITE PAGE AND LEFT: The Delta Zetas raised $70,000 to help save the Fox. THIS PAGE: The movement received national support, including from then-President Jimmy Carter (holding t-shirt), pictured here with Beauchamp Carr (left).
ATLANTA’S PERFORMING ARTS PUBLICATION 27
‘yes,’ much to the amazement of a lot of conservative interests in Atlanta,” Carr remembers. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. executive Arthur Montgomery and professional fundraiser Bea Haas also provided crucial support. Montgomery operated as the Fox’s fundraising campaign chair. “He was just the right leader,” Carr says. “He was somebody who could get his calls returned by anybody.” Haas, Carr says, taught him how to raise money. Her team would prepare letters, set appointments and tell him who to go see. In July 1977, the National Endowment for the Arts issued a matching challenge grant of $300,000. By the end of the year, the number of Save the Fox donors had reached 7,000 and Carr estimated that they had 90
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percent of the money they needed to pay off the bank debt. The momentum continued, thanks in no small part to audited statements that showed Atlanta Landmarks had successfully operated the theater in the black for 18 months. The Fox was generating just enough revenue to cover operating costs, but it was making money. Businessman Jack Lupton wrote a $100,000 check from a fund he had at Atlanta’s Community Foundation. Others followed. Jimmy Sippley, a King & Spaulding lawyer and friend of Carr’s, convinced the Woodruff Foundation board to donate $400,000. On Feb. 27, 1978, Atlanta Landmarks paid off its mortgage — six months early.
FOX THEATRE ARCHIVES
THIS PAGE: Lynyrd Skynyrd was one of many rock ’n’ roll bands that helped raise money for the Fox. In addition to donating proceeds from its live album, the band wrote a $5,000 check so the Fox could purchase a fire curtain.
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ith the mortgage paid off, Atlanta Landmarks Inc. was able to focus on restoring the Fox Theatre. Rick Flinn, who left an art gallery to work with the Fox full time in 1976, led that effort, serving as restoration department director for 16 years.
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General manager Ted Stevens first tasked Flinn with renovating the Spanish Room so it could become an income-generating rental space. But more urgent projects, like replacing the roof and repairing water damage, took precedence. Funding came from a 25-cents-per-ticket surcharge. At
FOX THEATRE ARCHIVES
Rebirth & Renewal
YAKARI UMEKAWA
the time, resources were limited; work was conducted mainly by volunteers. “I started putting together a crew, mostly set design people,” Flinn says. “I also tracked down the original … craftsmen who were still alive.” With their help, he was able to deflate myths and solve mysteries. The textured plaster walls, for example, came from sand, not cornflakes. But craftsmen did mix buttermilk with ultramarine pigment to make the
auditorium’s sky “glow.” There was no gold leaf in the building, Flinn discovered, just aluminum leaf artfully shellacked orange. “The learning curve was very steep because I didn’t have a background in historic preservation,” Flinn recalls. “I had an instinct for it and had done art restoration, so I knew to respect the original.” He spoke to family members who remembered the Fox and studied Edgar H. Orr photographs taken for the theater’s grand opening. He recorded reminiscences of surviving Fox craftsmen on reel-to-reel tape. In an antiques shop in Decatur, he discovered a box of photos from Georgia Tech events held at the Fox in the 1930s and ’40s. From those, he learned that the walls — long ago painted a flat brown — were originally stenciled. Flinn and his crew stripped decades of old paint in the lobby and ballrooms, revealing original patterns. Through trial and error they began to learn how to mix pigments and glazes that were true to the original. Upholstery students from the Atlanta Area Technical School near Chastain Park volunteered their Saturdays to sew torn cushions,
OPPOSITE PAGE: Fox restoration director Rick Flinn used original photographs like this one to restore the building. THIS PAGE: One addition he made was to install new lanterns across the proscenium arch. They are replicas of lanterns that hang in Detroit’s Fox Theatre.
ATLANTA’S PERFORMING ARTS PUBLICATION 31
tuck in exposed springs and do other much-needed furniture repairs. More help came from the Atlanta Women’s Chamber of Commerce’s Friends of the Fox volunteer corps. Members spent Saturdays doing whatever cleanup, filing or restoration was needed. An outreach program for troubled young people provided
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FOX THEATRE ARCHIVES
Using archival photographs as reference (top), volunteers stripped heavy layers of brown paint back to reveal the original stencil work in the Egyptian Ballroom (bottom).
Flinn with a demolition crew. He recruited plasterers from a pool of apprentices who helped construct the building. Teenagers in 1929, they were now well past retirement age, but they helped Flinn repair the walls using materials and the techniques as close as possible to those used 50 years earlier. A series of small discoveries — a scrap of upholstery caught by a seat frame, a fragment of carpet found under an office cabinet — helped Flinn determine the original textile colors and pattern scale for furniture and carpeting, details impossible to discern from black-and-white photographs. Doorknobs, light fixtures and furniture taken as souvenirs when people thought the building would be demolished started to find their way back. When it came time to repaint the auditorium sky, Flinn wasn’t sure it could be done. Restoration
FOX THEATRE ARCHIVES
projects couldn’t interrupt the performance schedule, but there was no way to paint if they had to dismantle scaffolding every night. Then, while changing lightbulbs in the “sky,” technical director Joe Patten discovered coiled up steel cables spaced roughly 4 feet by 16 feet apart. An original painter told Flinn they’d been used to suspend scaffolding from the ceiling. That became the way to restore it. Not every project had an easy answer, however. An immense amount of scheduling was required to replace seats in the auditorium. “We did it in sections,” Flinn says. “We’d take out as many seats as could be put back in at the end of the day if we had a show coming up.” A portion of wall that separated the gallery aisle from the balcony seating — a remnant of segregation — was removed so audiences could flow freely. Ironically, Flinn’s last major
project was the Spanish Room because it required more funding than was immediately available. It was a plain-looking space walled off from the lobby. But original architect Ollivier Vinour had given it architectural accents like fake archways and decorative spherical stencil work that Flinn could turn into real grillwork and doorways to the lobby. As Flinn struggled to bring the building up to code, Vinour’s decorative accents aided him time and again, accommodating emergency exits and elevator shafts. “I respect and appreciate Vinour for that,” Flinn says. “It’s like he saw what was coming and made provisions for it.” As the Fox was transformed for modern audiences, one thing never changed. The goal from the start was to ensure the theater be a kind of working museum, a place where people could experience the magic and grandeur of 1929.
Furniture restoration remains particularly challenging. What once was completed by volunteers now is executed by professionals. A ticket surcharge raises the more than $1 million annually required for ongoing restoration projects.
ATLANTA’S PERFORMING ARTS PUBLICATION 33
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The Fox Theatre is more than an auditorium. It has offices, ballrooms, dressing rooms, a row of storefronts and a basement, where the building’s mechanical systems live. As technical director for more than a decade, Joe Patten knew the building inside and out. Atlanta Landmarks board members decided that having a person who knew how to fix things and keep an eye on the property would be
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advantageous, so Patten was offered private accommodation within the building. Only two people knew how to get from one end of the building to the other without being seen — Patten and Larry Reams, who maintained the boilers and plumbing and spent a lot of time between the theater’s walls. By 1981, when Edgar Neiss became general manager, the Fox ranked among the Top 20-grossing theaters in the nation. Within a
GROUND FLOOR VIDEO
From the Flames
YAKARI UMEKAWA
few years, it became No. 1 in the nation and No. 2 in the world, a distinction it has maintained, give or take a slot, for decades. Under Neiss’ leadership, programming diversified. In addition to rock concerts, people could see touring Broadway shows and locally produced entertainment from Theater of the Stars and The Atlanta Opera. He brought in the Atlanta Ballet and began the city’s first international series, welcoming performers from all over the world for one-night engagements. He made sure the theater was booked nearly 300 nights a year. The constant stream of patrons
made it possible for restaurants and shops to open nearby. Eventually, the Georgian Terrace and Ponce de Leon apartments underwent their own transformations. As the neighborhood became more inviting, Midtown’s population grew. In 1996, the whole city was abuzz with development. The Summer Olympics were coming to Atlanta. Australian representatives planned to make the Fox Theatre their official headquarters. Then early on April 15, 1996, Patten woke up smelling smoke. A fire had started in one of the storefront restaurants and moved to its heart-pine ceiling, threatening Fox ballrooms and the auditorium. He called the fire department. Reams was just getting off the interstate when he heard about the fire. “I looked up and saw my building on fire,” he remembers. “Joe Patten was standing outside with his housecoat on, in his pajamas. The firemen were just
OPPOSITE PAGE: Under Ed Neiss’ leadership, the Fox became one of the top-grossing theaters in the world. THIS PAGE: The iconic marquee was undamaged by the 1996 fire that threatened operations.
ATLANTA’S PERFORMING ARTS PUBLICATION 35
pulling up and wanted to cut the door down, but we wouldn’t let them.” Instead, they let firefighters in the stage door, and came up through the Grand Salon to make sure the fire wasn’t in the building. “Luckily, we had a firewall that kept the theater separated from the restaurant next door,” Reams says, “and that’s where the fire was at.” Firefighters did have to pour water through the Fox to get at the fire. Neiss arrived shortly afterward to meet with insurance representatives. “They were pushing 5,000 gallons of water into that place,” he says. The ballroom rugs were floating in six inches of
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KRISTI CASEY SANDERS; FOX THEATRE ARCHIVES
TOP: “Phantom of the Fox” Joe Patten discovered the blaze and alerted the firefighters. BELOW: Workers had to rebuild the terrace area outside the Grand Salon and the administrative offices.
water. There was no fire damage, but there was $2 million in smoke and water damage. “It was a Monday and the next day, Chris Manos [of Theater of the Stars] was supposed to open a weeklong run of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” Neiss says. He called publicist Claudia Gaines and had her buy a full-page ad in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution — no matter the cost — to thank firefighters for saving the Fox and assuring people that the show would go on. Shelly Kleppsattel, who was acting office manager, remembers the outpouring of support that followed. The Fox offices were destroyed, so BellSouth offered temporary office space and immediately rerouted their phones. Staff worked around the clock to clean up the damage. On Tuesday night, as she passed under the marquee that read “Opening tonight: Joseph,” Kleppsattel cried, because the show did go on. It took a year to rebuild the Fox offices, but the Olympics (and the Australians) came, and the theater rebounded, stronger than ever.
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D
id you know that the Fox Theatre once had its own ZIP code? When mail-order ticket sales were instituted for the inaugural run of The Phantom of the Opera, the resulting 10 baskets of mail a day made that a necessity.
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In the era before Ticketmaster (now foxtheatre.org), orders were processed by hand. Former box-office manager Pat “Sunshine” Tucker, who worked at the Fox for more than 30 years, remembers having drawers filled with
KRISTI CASEY SANDERS
Atlanta’s Theatrical Treasure
KRISTI CASEY SANDERS
handwritten tissue paper copies of transactions. She started at the Fox as a volunteer, selling orange and grape sodas in 1979. But her association goes back to seeing Disney movies there as a girl, when she used the “colored” entrance off Ponce de Leon Ave. “We were kids sitting in the balcony, thinking we had the best seats in the house,” she says. Going to the balcony and seeing the wall that divided audiences was gone was bittersweet for her. “To this day, a lot of people who weren’t even around at that time,
or may have been kids say, ‘I’ll sit in the last row downstairs. I’m not going upstairs.’ You kind of [feel] sorry for them because it’s the best seat in the house.” Tucker has other memories from her early days: When marquee letters needed changing, for example, a lane of Peachtree Street had to be blocked; phone orders came in on 20 phone lines in the box office, a number that grew to 40 before online ticketing arrived; and patrons dressed in finery. “People would come in evening gowns and tuxedos, especially if you came on a Friday or Saturday night,” Tucker says. One of her fondest memories is when she showed a friend and the friend’s 8-year-old son to their seats. Because it was sprinkling outside, she had to convince the boy that the sky inside the theater wouldn’t rain on him. She also enjoyed hearing memories that patrons shared while celebrating the Fox’s 75th anniversary in 2004,
OPPOSITE PAGE AND ABOVE: The walls of the Fox Theatre’s “star” dressing rooms are papered with autographed show posters and concert tickets.
ATLANTA’S PERFORMING ARTS PUBLICATION 39
when a free show re-created the spectacle of opening day. “It’s really fun to hear people say, ‘You know, my first date was [here], and we used to sit up and neck in the back of the balcony.’ … ‘We used to come here, and we’ve been married 30 years,’ ” Tucker says. “It’s really nice when you hear the stories of what people did.” The theater seems just as special for performers who play it. The first time comedian Jeff Foxworthy appeared, he remembered concerts he’d enjoyed there as a young adult. “I told the audience: The last time I was here, I was leaning off the balcony with a lighter yelling, ‘Free Bird!’ ” He says that as visually cool as the Fox is for audiences, “it’s even cooler as an artist.” Also, “acoustically, it’s one of those few magic spaces where the sound comes
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rolling back to you. As a comedian working on your timing, it’s invaluable.” Allman Brothers Band co-founder Greg Allman says the sound is the “home run” of playing there. “It’s just a really classy place,” he says. “I’ve cleaned out a motorcycle with a Q-tip and a bobby pin, so I know what it is to take
KRISTI CASEY SANDERS
FROM TOP: The hallway of the administrative offices is lined with signed headshots from performers who’ve played the Fox. AT RIGHT: The lighting booth houses four spotlights that can be used during live performances.
JENNY SCHISLER
meticulous care of something. Somebody’s really gone all out to take care of that place.” Lynryd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington says that playing the Fox is an important rite of passage for any artist. “The first time we played there, it felt like we were big time.” B-52s singer Fred Schneider says, “You tell your relatives that
you’re playing the Fox and they’re like, ‘Gee, he’s doing great!’ ” Performers’ artwork and signatures decorate backstage walls. Dressing rooms are papered with tickets stubs, drawers bear the autographs of visiting acts. Rossington says the theater is full of the spirits of past performers that you can feel backstage and onstage.
The walls of the lighting/ projection booth are filled with stencils and signatures left by touring shows and their crews.
ATLANTA’S PERFORMING ARTS PUBLICATION 41
ost people don’t realize that Fox Theatre Inc. (formerly Atlanta Landmarks Inc.) is a nonprofit organization, with a mission to preserve and share. A big part of that is re-creating the 1929 experience for every patron who comes through
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the doors and treating the space as a living museum. It also involves spreading knowledge. In nearly every performance category, the Fox shines: It regularly breaks box-office records, is a leader in group sales, has one of the strongest social media pres-
FOX THEATRE INSTITUTE
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The Legend Lives On
FOX THEATRE INSTITUTE
ences in any industry, generates enough operating revenue to fund ongoing restoration efforts, invests in Elephant Eye Theatricals to produce new work, and recently began to operate its own online ticketing system. In 2009, Billboard magazine declared the Fox Theatre the No. 1 venue of its kind in the world for the past decade. In that decade, Fox leadership passed from Edgar Neiss to Allan C. Vella, who joined the staff in 2006 and is Fox president and CEO. Booking and contract manager Shelly Kleppsattel remembers an article in Performance Today
(now GoldStar) that credited Neiss with turning the Fox’s finances around faster than any other American theater in history. “He got it on that road and kept it on that road, so that when Allan came in, he had something to work with that was great,” Kleppsattel says. “What Allan has done is accelerate that drive.” Fox Theatre staffers are often called upon to share lessons learned, but there’s another way the Fox gives back: the Fox Theatre Institute. The FTI, founded in 2008, provides information, guidance and resources to theaters across
OPPOSITE PAGE: The Grand Opera House in Macon is one of the theaters aided by the Fox Theatre Institute. THIS PAGE: Other theaters helped by FTI outreach include Macon’s Cox Capitol Theatre (top) and Columbus’ Springer Opera House.
ATLANTA’S PERFORMING ARTS PUBLICATION 43
the state. When FTI began, Alan Thomas, then president of Atlanta Landmarks, said that the institute grew from the Fox’s “desire to use the gifts we’re given to help other theaters around Georgia to become economic engines within [their] communities.” The help couldn’t have been timed better. It arrived with the Great Recession, which shut down such long-running Atlanta companies as Theatre in the Square in Marietta, Theater of the Stars and, eventually, Georgia Shakespeare. Of the 374 historic theaters Georgia once had, only 260 survived. Fox leaders felt that their
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FOX THEATRE INSTITUTE
FROM TOP: The Rylander Theatre in Americus and the Imperial Theatre in Augusta (below) are among the 10 preservation projects FTI supports statewide.
knowledge and expertise could help others steady themselves and thrive. FTI was founded in response to a statewide need for assistance with the restoration and operation of Georgia’s remaining historic theaters. Since then, it has committed more than $1 million to sharing its experience and expertise with others. FTI provides historic preservation grants and guidance, offers professional development through seminars and strategic planning and manages a statewide booking consortium, which encourages collaboration among arts presenters in Georgia and the region. Since its inception, FTI has collaborated on 10 preservation projects across Georgia, from Rome to Brunswick, and many places in between. Its grant funds, totaling $215,000, have leveraged additional community investment in excess of $332,000. During its brief history, FTI has become an indispensable resource for historic theaters, fulfilling the Fox Theatre’s vision to share its experience in historic preservation and operations. At a time when preservation and arts agencies are experiencing budget cutbacks, FTI is filling a community need by awarding grants and providing support to these community landmarks. In short, FTI is revitalizing Georgia’s communities, one theatre at a time. What lies ahead? “We want to expand our presence in Atlanta as a presenter and want to determine how we can make a larger impact with other theaters and partners throughout the state, maybe the country,” Vella says. “We want to make sure this theater is on strong financial footing so we can ensure that it’s preserved and enjoyed far into the future.” “And,” he adds, “we’re on target to do that.”
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inety-six 11-watt bulbs hung in front of crystals make up the auditorium’s “stars” that are arranged as real constellations across the “sky.” A third have heat sensors that make them dim and brighten. A light fixture with a rotating disc makes it appear as if clouds are drifting by. The auditorium’s atmospheric lighting can replicate sunrises and sunsets. And, yes, one of the star’s crystals really is a Coca-Cola bottle. According to the Fox Restoration Department, it has been there since about 1935. From its jagged edges, it looks like a handy maintenance worker noticed a crystal was missing and broke a bottle to replace it. Can you tell which one it is? Hint: It gives off a faint greenish light.
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KRISTI CASEY SANDERS
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