The Oscars

Several years ago, Tom and I got to go to the Academy Awards presentation at the Shrine Auditorium thanks to my brother Ric. We both wore our black tuxedos (I bought mine at a church rummage sale and it was in surprisingly good shape, just a little hole in the pocket.) We walked up the red carpet and into the auditorium. I could hear the people in the bleachers outside pointing and asking, "are they somebody?" Once inside the grand foyer we mixed easily with the honored guests. We saw Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, hanging onto each other as they stumbled to their seats. Tom bumped into Lynn Redgrave, literally. They both almost landed on the floor. This is in the days before Lynn had started Weight Watchers and was a more treacherous wrestling opponent.

Our glamorous evening was before the Academy had arranged for its new Kodak Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. The Shrine comprises the single largest proscenium style stage in North America providing more than 6300 seats. Over 60 years old, the Shrine is recognized as a historical monument. The original auditorium was completed in 1906 and burned to the ground on January 11, 1920. It took six years for the new auditorium to be completely rebuilt on the same site as the original.

Tom and I found our seats and enjoyed the show. Watching the Oscars in person is less convenient than watching them at home. You can’t pop up and make a snack whenever you like. During the commercial breaks, the lights go off on the stage and everything comes to a halt. You are warned about moving around during these breaks. People called seat warmers are scurrying to fill the seats of stars who get up for a restroom break. After his run-in with Ms. Redgrave, Tom was nervous about getting knocked over again.

It was a kick in the pants to see the stars in person, even Jack Nicholson was present to accept his award for “As Good as it Gets”. I guess the Lakers found a way to carry on without him that night.

The most enthusiastic winners that night were Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. They won the Oscar for their screenplay of “Good Will Hunting”, and while they may get nominated for more Oscars in the future, I can’t imagine they’ll be more excited than they were that year.

Aladdin Theater

When I was a senior in high school I got a job at the local movie theater, it was called the Aladdin, and was decorated with Arabian style carpets and paintings. I was pretty stoked. I thought having a job at a movie theater was the best of all possible worlds. After all, I liked movies and how hard could it be asking people to show me their tickets?

My duties in the new job included: taking tickets at the entrance, picking up cigarette butts out of the urinal, walking through the theater with a flashlight instructing people to remove their feet from the seat in front of them, urging rowdy children to be quiet, and during Saturday matinees-selling snacks and drinks to the crowds of kids at the candy counter. I didn't get to see that many movies from beginning to end. This was the old Aladdin Theater before it had been subdivided into smaller spaces. So there were a lot of seats to supervise and a lot of cigarette butts to pick up.

Mr. Van Gortel was the manager, an imposing gentleman of some girth. He would come through a couple of times each evening to make sure we were doing our jobs. Every once in a while he would send me behind the movie screen where extra supplies were kept. There was a big storage space behind the screen. The amazing thing to me was that you could watch the movie from behind the screen, albeit in reverse, and smack dab in front of the huge speakers. It was a little like being in the movie, like I could just ride the horses across the stage in once upon a Time in the West, or sing with the Von Traps in the mountains. The less attractive reality behind the screen was the open boxes of popped corn. These were for our busy times when Mr. Van Gortel would bring the already popped corn out and add it to the popcorn being warmed in the popcorn maker in the lobby. If you ever wondered why your movie popcorn was a little stale or chewy, consider this.

Every now and then a fight would break out between some high school boys in the theater. I could usually quell their enthusiasm with my flashlight, or a promise that the police were on their way.

My experience as a movie usher came to an end when I started to make real money as a pool lifeguard. But I’ll never forget my job at the Aladdin, and I’ll never eat movie popcorn again.

Going to the drive-in

In the late 1950s my family and I went to a drive-in theater to watch a movie. My father was substituting for the regular projectionist who had taken a two-week vacation. I don’t remember what movie we saw, maybe Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. The whole experience of watching a movie in the car was so unique. We three kids would go in our pajamas so that when we fell asleep in the car, our parents would just have to carry us to our beds upon our return home.

The drive-in was a fascinating experience. With the little metal speaker that would hang in your window, the big snack bar at the back of the space, the playground under the screen for the little tykes before it got dark. And then there were all those people sitting around you in their cars, in the dark. It was as if you were alone in the middle of a crowd.

By the end of the 1960s there were 220 drive-in theaters in the state of California. Today about 20 remain open. Home entertainment centers have changed our lives, but the drive-in experience is a memory that will be hard to erase.