Monday, May 26, 2008 – Dark Theater

On November 4, 1953, Marilyn Monroe was the star at the premiere of "How to Marry a Millionaire" – at the Wilshire Theater, 8440 Wilshire Boulevard, in Beverly Hills. The Art Deco tower and its theater, by the architect S. Charles Lee, opened on September 19, 1930 – previously discussed here in detail.  Now it seems dead.

On a dark, quiet Monday it seemed given over to ghosts, standing alone, with something nightmarish about it. The streets were empty.  And currently playing – Love, Janis – "a potent, fresh and enormously crowd-pleasing evocation of the legacy of Janis Joplin" – and that would be the woman who died in 1970, a few miles north.  Sometimes Los Angeles is just creepy.

If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the "fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back this site. 

Technical Note:

Photographs after March 3, 2008, were taken with a Nikon D200 – or a Nikon D70 when noted. All previous photographs were taken with the D70. The lenses used are (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300 mm telephoto, or (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. Photography here is modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  The earliest photography in the archives was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik