100 years ago, on the evening of May 28, 1925 the ground was broken for Chapman’s Alician Court Theatre now known as the Fox Theatre. Photo courtesy of the Fullerton Public Library local history room.

Photos are courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Take a gander at the groundbreaking photograph, and imagine what downtown Fullerton was like on that day. There were wide lawns with friendly trees, horses and wagons, by Jove, a variety of dudes donning lids and hotsy-totsy duds, and see here, it’s bellibone Alice Chapman unearthing the first spadeful for the foundation as the Big Cheese and other wise heads stand by. Spreading out in all directions, one would have had a dickens of a time strolling through the Valencia orange groves.

All about, a smattering of small farms, homes, churches and schools, some lovely two-story brick and modern wooden structures to the south on the main drag, and today, a bum’s rush to send a ritzy theatre, Chapman’s Alician Court Theatre, named after Alice, rising towards the sky. Mary Pickford and some top notch canaries would be riding the rattler all the way from Hollywood to enthrall the sod busters, flappers, storekeeps, zozzled juice joint operators of speakeasys, oil magnates and a full house of various eggs and mugs who forked over real dough to witness a lineup of live stage performances, and soon after, moom pitchers, which set thousands of little nerves tingling that never tingled before. Locals came by foot or horse and buggy, and for the high rollers, maybe even a motorcar as seen here.

100 years ago, on the evening of May 28, 1925, when the switch was flipped on the theatre marquee, the doors were opened and the curtain was raised for the first time, Downtown Fullerton was still a rural town out in the boonies, but now, we were aiming our sights on the big time. The Chapman Building, then the tallest structure in all of Orange County, and the California Hotel were clearly visible a short distance away on Spadra. Even closer was the Masonic Temple just across the street, rising high over the one-story structures nearby.

C. Stanley Chapman, son of Charles, our first Mayor, saw the need for entertainment and went all in, hiring Meyer & Holler to design and build a magnificent theatre on the heels of their successful work on Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre, which had opened in 1922. The Marr & Colton 3/16″ pipe organ is no longer there, nor the organist Julius Johnson, but just in the nick of time for the century celebration there arrived a donated Roland organ.

A special thank you to Todd Huffman who coordinated this centennial event.
Photos by Mike Ritto.

If you think nostalgia just ain’t what it used to be, you missed the celebration, so let’s walk through the experience. The closed parking lot to the east was now open, with valet service, so they parked our Lamborghini Countach, cleverly disguised as a Ford Edge, and they kept eyeballs on it as we went back in time. Wish we had a DeLorean. Heading to the front, we got in line for the tour, and were entertained by the trio you see here. The aroma of freshly popped corn wafted out to us and we knew we were either at a movie house or Ace Hardware.

Next, we checked out the nearly completed restoration in the lobby. Fullerton Historic Theatre Foundation President Brian Newell provided the tour intro and informed us that sponsorships were needed to reproduce the original 1925 lobby torchiere lights as shown, $7500 each, which is their cost to have them handmade by local craftsmen. Imagine, your name will live on via an engraved plaque next to your torchiere and you will surely be mentioned at the 200-year celebration. Other sponsorship opportunities can be viewed at http://www.foxfullerton.org.

As soon as everyone settled into the vintage theater seats, the promo film was projected on the screen. We were all watching a film and were actually in, not on the Fox, many for the first time in years, maybe decades. Up next, a Buster Keaton silent film, but just before it began, someone yelled out a question regarding the newly donated Roland organ, “Where is the organist?”
Well, he must have heard, because soon Dave Marsh came running down the aisle and as soon as the screen lit up, he played along flawlessly, with accents at just the right moments, all the while Buster was performing his insane acrobatics. Young and old were as mesmerized as they must have been when this film was first released. Dave, by the way, is President of the Orange County Theatre Organ Society and performs all over the US, and we were lucky the timing was right. We have a Fullerton connection too. Former Fullertonian Alice Pepper, who married, became Alice Critchfield, and raised her family here, told us her Mom played piano and organ for silent films back in the ’20s as well. Florence Wheeler was self-taught yet was so talented she played many theaters in Connecticut for years.

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