March 12, 2010
Veil on the Texas Theatre
Texas Theatre as it was on that terrible day in 1963, and as it was in its hey-day of 1932. Photos by Kim Higgins.
On November 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald entered the Texas Theatre without paying. Fifteen Dallas police officers soon followed and arrested the suspected assassin of John F. Kennedy.
In order to appease Dallas' sense of collective guilt for Kennedy's death, United Artists undertook a "modernization" of the theater in 1965 that has been termed "the great architectural cover-up." The theater's vibrant designs were sealed under a mass of stucco, as if to say, "This is not the same place. It wasn't us. It didn't happen here."
What history was obscured? The Texas Theatre opened April 21, 1931, at 231 West Jefferson Blvd., Oak Cliff, in a splashy ceremony hosted by billionaire partner, Howard Hughes. It originally seated 1,000 patrons in novel, air-conditioned comfort.
Hughes and his partners, who included Dallas entrepreneur C.H. McHenry, better known to Dallasites as "Uncle Mack," spared no expense on the theater's grand appointments. State-of-the-art sound and projection equipment were paired with elegant Italian Renaissance architecture. Extravagant aesthetic appointments included the finest carpets, ornate wood stair railings, opera seating and elaborate murals.
Dallas resident Margaret Horton remembers the Texas' golden era: the latest Hollywood releases and Saturday morning westerns. "If I didn't see three movies, it wasn't the weekend," Horton said. "I used to go Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. Back when I went to the Texas, they were called 'picture shows.' The first wide screen epic I saw at the Texas was 'The Robe' with Richard Burton. You could smoke in the balcony, and that's where we spent our time – smoking in the balcony. That's about the only place we smoked, and cigarettes were 17 cents a pack. The ceiling of the balcony had twinkling lights that looked like stars."
Ironically, the 1965 effort that covered up all this past only served to preserve the buried treasures from time's destructive elements, as the theater degenerated into a B-movie outlet during the '70s. The quality of the movie features seemed synonymous with its "days of plaster."
Texas Theatre facade as restored for filming Oliver Stone's JFK in 1990.
The theater changed hands several more times. In 2001, the City of Dallas awarded 1.6 million for restoration of the theatre to be used as a live performing arts venue. The Dallas Summer Musicals, in conjunction with the Oak Cliff Foundation, are overseeing restoration efforts.
"The City deemed the 1963 façade the most historically significant; therefore, it will be restored to that period," said Ninette McDonald, board member of the foundation. The interior is being returned to its 1932 glory. Light, laughter and applause will again fill the theatre as the curtain goes up in August.
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