Count Basie Band at the Hollywood Palace

Sinatra and Basie in October 1965 ABC TV Show
Frank Sinatra and Count Basie performed on The Hollywood Palace TV variety show on October 16, 1965. The show featured a medley of songs by Sinatra and Basie, including “Fly Me to the Moon,” “Please Be Kind,” “Too Marvelous for Words,” “Everybody Has a Right to Be Wrong,” and “The Gal That Got Away.” Quincy Jones was the arranger/conductor for the performance. This episode is notable for its inclusion in the “Hollywood Palace” series and is a significant moment in the careers of both artists.

The Hollywood Playhouse opened on 24th January 1927 and was the fourth legitimate theatre to open in Hollywood in the space of nine months. It followed the openings of the El Capitan Theatre in May 1926, the Music Box (now Fonda) Theatre in October 1926, and the Vine St (now Ricardo Montalbán) Theatre in mid-January 1927.

Architects Henry L. Gogerty and Carl J. Weyl designed the theatre in a Spanish Baroque style, although upon closer inspection some elements go beyond Spanish Baroque into Churrigueresque. Gogerty and Weyl would go on to design a number of schools and commercial buildings, including Gogerty’s design of the Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale, however it appears the Hollywood Playhouse was the only theatre designed by either architect. Interior decoration was by Steffan Horbaczek. Horbaczek had previously worked on the Metropolitan/Paramount Theatre in downtown Los Angeles (opened four years prior) and was a scene painter for the Los Angeles Grand Opera Association.

Following the successes enjoyed during the mid- to late-1920s, the Depression hit at the start of the 1930s. By 1935 the Works Progress Administration (WPA) established the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), its primary goal being the employment of out-of-work artists, writers, and directors, with the secondary aim of entertaining poor families and creating relevant art. The Hollywood Playhouse became the WPA Federal Theatre and played host to many FTP projects. Another FTP theatre in Los Angeles at the time was the Belasco Theatre in downtown L.A.

In mid-February of 1942 the theatre was bought by Charles Toberman for $105,000, with Sid Grauman buying a 50% share of Toberman’s new venture, and the theatre’s name was changed to the El Capitan Theatre (Hollywood’s original El Capitan Theatre, built by Toberman in 1926, had just been long-term-leased by Toberman and had started operating as the Hollywood Paramount). Toberman arranged for stage equipment to be transferred from the old El Capitan to the new El Capitan. The initial production, Ken Murray’s variety show called “Blackouts of 1942”, was received favorably and led to a seven-year run of “Blackouts” shows.

My Substack Channel:
https://juxtaposition1.substack.com/podcast