By Bill Archer
BLUEFIELD — As the brick and mortar reality of the old Colonial Theater crumble into dust, memories of good times at the classy theater on Princeton Avenue continue to emerge from people who still feel tied to the institution.
“The Colonial Theater has a lot of meaning for my wife and I,” Hugh Johnston of Gilbert, Ariz., wrote in an e-mail message to his hometown newspaper. “That’s where we met. We both worked there — her as a cashier and I as an usher.”
Like many industrious young men in Bluefield, Johnston had a paper route and delivered both the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, as well as the afternoon paper, The Sunset News, until he was old enough to land the job at the theater. On his first day of work at the theater, he cast his eyes on his future bride — Shirley (Hubble) Johnston — but his eyes were also opened to the realities of racial segregation. The year was 1955, and at the time, African American customers were seated in the top balcony of the Colonial.
“My first duty as an usher was to take tickets in the colored balcony,” Johnston said. “Until that time, I don’t remember knowing that there was such a thing.
“It wasn’t the way I was raised at home,” he said. “My parents always taught me there was no difference between the races. I found that out for myself. I had a newspaper route delivering the Sunset News on the North Side, and didn’t think anything about it. Working at the Colonial as an usher in the balcony was something new to me.”
Black movie and theater-goers had a separate entrance to the Colonial, and didn’t have the opportunity to enter the theater from beneath the lighted marquee or walk through the art deco lobby. The late John Rankin, a history professor at Bluefield State College, once said that he and other African American GIs returned from service during World War II, they organized a boycott of the local theaters because of the segregated seating practices. However, the separate entrance and seating persisted.
“The largest crowd I ever saw there was for the release of ‘Giant,’ with Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean,” Johnston remembered. “The theater was full for every showing.” “Giant” was Dean’s last picture, and received the Academy Award for “Best Director” (George Stevens) and was released after Dean died in a car crash.
Hugh and Shirley Johnston continued working together until they graduated from Beaver High School in 1957 and got married. “We bought our wedding rings from Colonial Jewelers and still wear those same rings today,” Johnston said. “I hate to see my past decaying and collapsing.”
Although the physical structure that was the Colonial Theater is coming down now, Jerry Conner, media services technician at BSC was working at the Colonial in October 1976, when the last mainstream film played at the Colonial. Conner only worked from June through October of that year, but recalled that “Taxi Driver” with Jody Foster and Robert De Niro was playing when he started, and “Missouri Breaks” with Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson was playing when Blue Ridge Amusements closed the theater.
“We only had three people on staff, so all of us had to know how to do about everything,” Conner remembered. “The projectors were installed in 1933 and were those old carbon-arc style that you had to set the tips of the carbon rods correctly and focus them. Most movies came in several reels, so you had to start the film on one reel, switch to the second reel when that one ran out and get the first projector loaded and ready for the next reel.”
Robert Hager, 52, started working as a ticket-taker at the Granada Theater in 1972 when he was 15 years old, but it wasn’t too long until the manager, Clifton Hill, asked him to train as a projectionist. “I didn’t want to do it because the projectionist was stuck in that little room all day long and I was having fun being around all the other people working there,” Hager said. “I was making $1.40 an hour taking tickets, but Mr. Hill said he would move me up to $2.75 an hour if I learned to be a projectionist. That was a lot of money back then so I took the job.”
After he learned the trade from Carl Hedrick, Hager worked at the Granada, Skyway Drive-in and Colonial. “The Colonial was the worst for projectionist,” he said. “It was a nice old theater, but it had a small projection booth with no window. The Granada had a window over the marquee and you could stand outside and watch for your cues at the Skyway, but you had to sit inside the Colonial booth the whole time.
“You wouldn’t believe how hot it got in there, but those old projectors were so noisy that you couldn’t open up a door to get some air in there,” he said. “Depending on the length of the movie, you could have five to eight reels to change every 20 minutes. We had a lot of fun working in those old theaters, but the job of the projectionist was hard. It was boring too.” Hager stayed with the company until all the company’s theaters closed.
Conner also had the honor of changing the movie titles on the theater marquee. “That was my least favorite thing,” Conner said. “Each of the letters were made of cast iron and weighed two or three pounds a piece. On a movie like ‘Missouri Breaks’ you spent a lot of time getting all of those letters in place.” Still, the fruits of his labor were worth the effort. “The majority of the marquee lights worked. When it was all lit up, it was really something to see.”
Not many patrons were attending movies in theaters like the Colonial in 1976. Conner said they averaged 20-25 patrons per show, but that number could vary. “Cliff Neal was the manager then,” Conner said. “He was a U.S. Marine who had been commander of the Marine detachment on the USS Saratoga during the Korean War. He was a good man.”
Conner said that Don Keesling owned several theaters in the Blue Ridge Amusement group including the Colonial, Granada and State theaters in Bluefield as well as the Skyway Drive-in Theater in Brushfork. “If you worked at one of the theaters, you could attend movies at the other theaters free,” he said.
“Even back in 1976, the place was in truly a bad state of repair,” Conner said. “You always had the problem of peeling paint, we did our best and the cleaning crew that came in every night did a good job of keeping it clean, but the theater and the projectors were old.” He said someone else came along and tried to operate it a few months after it closed, but that run only lasted two or three months.
“The Matz was still open when I was working at the Colonial,” Conner said. “When I would get off work on payday, I would go there to buy a magazine or two. The newsstands at the Matz Hotel was the best there was around.”
Many other local residents had fond memories of the old theater. Judy Silbaugh recalled the dance recitals held on the Colonial stage in the 1950s and remembered performing on the stage as part of Susan White Armor Shott’s Peter Pan School of Dance troupe. With the permission of Steve Tibbs, owner of the Colonial before selling it to the city, Mel Grubb went in for one last look at the old projectors before demolition crews started work on Friday.
“My twin brother, Marvin, worked as a projectionist here after he came back home from the service in World War II,” Grubb said. “The projectionist guys had a union and rotated between all of the local theaters. Marvin worked with Sleepy Broyles, Glenn Brewer and Charlie Brewer back in those days. He was only there until he could get a better paying job, but he used to come back and fill in if they needed help.”
The Matz family built the Colonial in 1916 as a silent movie picture house, and remodeled it with the elaborate marquee and art deco entrance and lobby in 1933. The marquee and front of the historic theater was crushed on Feb. 27, when the front of the Milner-Matz Hotel collapsed on it. A demolition crew with WEL Inc., started working to remove the Matz and Colonial buildings on Friday. Demolition continued through the day on Saturday.
—Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com
