'', 1932 |371x371px The Center Theatre was originally called the
RKO Roxy Theatre and built as part of the
construction of Rockefeller Center. The RKO Roxy started construction in November 1931, After the initial failure of the Music Hall in its first weeks, Rothafel suffered a heart attack and never returned to his new theaters. A successful lawsuit in 1933 by the owners of the original
Roxy Theatre on Seventh Avenue, claiming ownership of the "Roxy" name, caused the new theater to be renamed the RKO Center. The Center Theatre featured an elegant
Art Deco design which was muted by comparison to the lavish Radio City Music Hall. The architect was
Edward Durrell Stone and decor was by Eugene Schoen. The spare but striking design featured curved walls paneled in
mahogany. It had a three-tiered metal chandelier weighing six tons, and a ceiling studded with circles decorated in half-relief with mythological figures. Three shallow mezzanines provided an unobstructed view of the stage. The large stage contained turn-screw lifts as did the orchestra pit. There was also a 34-rank
Wurlitzer theatre organ with a single stained wood console at stage right similar to the Radio City Wurlitzer twin consoles which were finished in ebony. Betty Gould and Raymond Bohr were some of the organ's featured artists. Originally operated by the RKO movie theater chain, the center was soon overshadowed in the movie business by the hugely popular Music Hall. In 1934 it converted to presenting Broadway plays and musicals. Now called the Center Theatre, it offered
The Great Waltz and a few other shows but the theater was too large to find lasting success in this venture either. In 1939 the theatre presented the world premiere of
Eugene Zador's opera
Christopher Columbus. The last feature film to play at the theatre was Walt Disney's
Pinocchio in 1940. Looking for a way to make the Center Theatre profitable, Rockefeller Center, inspired by the theatrical success of
figure-skating champion
Sonja Henie, converted it into a theater expressly designed for the presentation of musical
ice shows. In 1951, the theatre was leased by
NBC and became a venue for live television broadcasts. Many early programs, including
The Voice of Firestone and
Your Show of Shows, were broadcast from the Center Theatre. Two years later, the
United States Rubber Company indicated that it wanted to expand the
U.S. Rubber Company Building above the Center Theatre, meaning that the theater had to be closed and demolished to make way for the extra office space. After 21 years of operation, the Center Theatre was demolished in 1954 and replaced with a 19-story addition to the U.S. Rubber Company Building. The final production at the theatre was the New York-portion of the 1954 Academy Awards, when Audrey Hepburn won Best Actress for
Roman Holiday. Doors, lamps, and other furnishings were sold off to the
Cherry Lane Theatre in the
West Village.
Bob Jones University purchased the stage lifts and turntables from the Center Theatre and reassembled them in its Rodeheaver Auditorium, where the mechanisms are still in use today. ==References==