The Fox Theatre, predecessor of today's Copley Symphony Hall, premiered on November 8, 1929, just two days after I did. My premiere was not the star-studded, floodlit extravaganza like the one mounted by the Fanchon and Marco Vaudeville Circuit that provided the lavish festivities for the theatre's opening-day crowds. However, as my mother used to tell me, it may have been just as noisy in its own right.

At any rate, I am proud to celebrate my own 75th birthday with my near-twin sibling, the eternally new belle of San Diego - new, despite her age. How many of us in our own senior years can expect a rebirth to compare with the 1980's make-over given to this venerable but wonderful hall? In a sense it isn't fair. Even in the 1980's I could have used a makeover even more than the Fox Theatre!

When the theatre was opened, it was the third largest movie house on the west coast. According to Ben Hall's invaluable, “The Best Remaining Seats” (1961, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., NY), the San Francisco Fox was the largest. According to Hall, “Though there were a number of first-class professional theatre decorators in the field, Mrs. William Fox was not one of them. From days of watching the cash box and nights of poring over plans while her husband built…the giant of all the chains, Mrs. Fox had developed the business acumen of Hetty Green combined with the decorative flair of a demented Elsie de Wolfe…” But her loving husband made her the chain's official decorator, and it was she who decorated our own Fox Theatre as well as all the others.

The theatre boasted an almost ecclesiastical design reminiscent of a gothic cathedral, but with Moorish, Spanish and late medieval English ornamentation. It cost $2.5 million to build, the probable equivalent of nearly $70 million today.
In 1928 a contract was signed between the Fanchon and Marco troupe and the Fox West Coast Theatres. During the next year or so, new, important Fox Theatres were built in Detroit, St. Louis, Brooklyn and Atlanta. Almost as an afterthought, another was fortunately decided upon for San Diego. Again quoting Ben Hall, “The Fanchon and Marco playing time across the continent reached fifty-two weeks, a full year of work for an healthy American girl who wanted to tap dance, roller skate, ride a unicycle, balance on a ball, hang by her teeth and smile, smile, smile seven days a week at $38.50 per…”

By the time of the opening of our own Fox, that salary was like gold to the lucky working chorines. The stock market crash beat the theatre's opening by a couple of weeks. Some of the country's hardest times followed, but who predicted the financial devastation on that gala day of November 8th, 1929? Will Rogers did not when he made his comments at the theatre's opening, nor did the other stars present - Jackie Coogan, Buster Keaton and George Jessel. The movie opening the house was, “They Had to See Paris.” And the incredible spectacle of a dozen chorus girls and an accordion player descending from the ceiling via the wonderful central chandelier was unforgettable. Optimism still rode high.

Were it capable, the Fox would have taken pride in its ability to maintain at least a shred of its audience's damaged optimismduring the depression years. Talkies were new, and they drew. Vaudeville was displaced, and the chorines had to seek other work. But the movies provided the most meaningful and effective anodyne to the American public of the thirties. Mrs. Fox's elaborate decorations reflected old-time glory with mirrors, chandeliers, paintings, bas-reliefs and, all in all, vast shortages of plain surfaces.

Going to the Fox was an event, perhaps not the cheapest movie in town but, without question, one of the most awe-inspiring and morale lifting. Hollywood recognized this when it made the Fox the venue for many of its sneak previews, and Walt Disney insisted that all of his movies opened there.

The opening night ticket illustrated here was kept as a precious souvenir since that historic event, by a long-time San Diegan, Roda Alderson (“No h,” as she told me), now a spry 84 years old. As she put it, “My mother and I loved the movies, so my mother blew her wad and got me a ticket for the grand opening…” The family could afford only one, so the evening represented a gift to her that she has never forgotten. I met Roda through Susan Chicoine, who had done some public relations work for Drew Cady and the symphony over the years. Her father had told her his own story of playing in the Navy Band outside the theatre for its grand opening. Leonard Chicoine, now 94, and Roda became good friends in recent years as longstanding regular parishioners at St. Augustine's in South Park. An off-the-cuff remark by Leonard about having attended a symphony concert provoked the revelation by his friend, Roda, that she had been inside the hall when he had played outside on November 8th, 1929!

Leonard had come to San Diego via the Navy. After recruit training he entered the Navy Music School at NTC. He had just graduated from that school as a trumpeter and joined the local Navy Band shortly before the opening of the theatre. The band played marches for over a half-hour to entertain the throngs who were awaiting entrance to the theatre. Leonard described the night as cold. “We shivered in our blues, and then they took us back to NTC.” He never saw the inside of the hall until the ship to which he was assigned, the ill-fated Lexington, would steam into San Diego Harbor and he would have a chance for some shore leave. Leonard went down with the Lexington in the Coral Sea but, fortunately, he did not stay down. Rescued by a destroyer, he was sent to the Hornet, also subsequently sunk in the Pacific. Saved again, he served aboard other ships and finally retired after the Korean conflict.

He expressed considerable enthusiasm about the hall and its acoustics, as well as its beauty. He enjoys attending symphony concerts and hopes to hear many more - a hope we all share for him and with him.

Twelve year-old Roda was more fascinated by the audience at the gala grand opening than by the stage show. As one of the first people who entered the hall when the doors opened at 6:30 PM, she spent most of the two hours before the show started by gawking at the fashionably dressed throng and especially at the visiting movie stars. She has only a dim memory of the vaudeville acts, but getting close during the intermission to the attending movie stars was her high point. Getting near Will Rogers was one of her greatest thrills. When I asked her if she spoke with any of the stars, she shook her head sadly, but then she brightened and said, “But I listened.” During the lengthy intermission she also walked around the theatre, all the way up to the top of the balcony. She related how enthralled she was by the beauty and glamour of the hall.

Roda also gave me another delightful bit of information, subsequently seconded independently by several other long-term San Diegans. The Montgomery Ward store in downtown San Diego was on the corner of 8th Avenue and B Street. Its main entrance was next to the main entrance to the Fox. That was, of course, on the corner of 7th Avenue And B, where it remains today. The store's roof had been converted to either a miniature golf course or a netted driving range, but that had to be closed down because golf balls continued falling onto the theatre's roof! One can only imagine the reverberations in the hall. Nowadays, of course, one cannot even find the hall's roof. It has been covered over by the remarkably suspended parking garage.

Most of us are aware of the history of downtown San Diego, how the age of the auto and suburban development changed our center city, just as it did center cities all over the country. The great downtown movie palaces - the Orpheum, the California and, yes, the Fox -- deteriorated and eventually closed. The Orpheum was torn down. The California still stands - barely. And, to be sure, the Montgomery Ward store is also long gone.

After thirty years solely as a summer orchestra in Balboa Park, our San Diego Symphony began giving winter series concerts in 1959 in the old Russ Auditorium at San Diego High School. After completion of the Civic Theatre in 1965, the orchestra moved there and stayed through the mid-1980's. The Civic Theatre is a fine venue and served the orchestra well for twenty years. But scheduling symphony series years in advance became increasingly difficult due to the demands on the hall made by traveling shows and other events. Moreover, except for the last days or nights before the concerts, the orchestra could not even rehearse there.

During the era of David Atherton as SDSO music director, the Fox became available. Atherton, Lou Cumming, then symphony president, and the symphony board thought seriously about somehow purchasing it. The symphony had by then never achieved a meaningful level of financial security, much less a financial base that allowed for such a purchase, but the energies of the board and the conductor were put to the test. The negotiations became incredibly complex, and the fund-raising achieved heroic status. In brief and in considerable oversimplification, the Symphony bought the entire “Fox Block” and then sold it to the Charlton-Raynd Development Company. The development company, in turn, donated the theatre to the orchestra over a five-year period. Meanwhile, the Charlton-Raynd people developed the rest of the block including the hotel and the Symphony Towers office building, as well as the parking garage uniquely suspended over the theatre. The late Helen Copley made the key contribution of two million dollars that allowed the Symphony to purchase the property. Perhaps not to the extent of Mrs. Copley's generosity, but nonetheless significant contributions were also made by many other San Diegans. Their names are inscribed on commemorative plaques in the upstairs and downstairs lobbies.

In 1985, the hall's restoration began under the direction of one of southern California's leading architectural firms, Deems/Lewis and Partners. Fortunately, the same decorating firm that did the original work on the Fox Theatre in 1929 was still available and was hired to restore it to its original grandeur. A. T. Heinsbergen and Company of Los Angeles did the outstanding job. Mrs. Fox would have been proud. The elaborate plasterwork and gilding was overseen by some of the very artisans who had created it so many years before. Fortunately, much of the 1929 ornamentation was in relatively good condition. Most of the work consisted mainly of washing, repainting and refinishing the original designs on the walls and ceilings.

The refurbished, magnificent vaulted ceiling in the hall might best showcase the work of the Heinsbergens. Years of dust and soot were cleaned off the elaborate scrollwork of the dome. The original designs were touched up, often with one-inch paintbrushes. The mammoth chandelier was better lit in order to accent the ornamentation but, perhaps unfortunately, not to allow us to better view any descending chorus girls.

The overall color scheme of the theatre was modified only a little in order to make it softer and more dignified. The side walls had been painted a number of times over the years, but they were returned to their original, light tones of ivory, sand and beige, resembling rendered stone. The massive, richly painted murals were cleaned and touched up. New seats, replicas of the 1929 originals, were installed, making this one of the most comfortable halls in the world. Side-to-side space, as well as plenty of leg room, are great features for the audiences.

New work consisted of acoustical renovation by Artec Consultants, Inc., of New York. Also, modernization of the air conditioning system was undertaken so that it would be effective but not noisy enough to mask or cloud the orchestral sound. A sound control booth was constructed beneath the mezzanine for an isolated, sound-insulated area for technical equipment. Double doors were designed as sound and light locks to prevent interference from outside noises.

The hall went dark during the financial crisis of the late 1990's. An enormous community effort, spearheaded by the generosity of Larry Robinson, allowed the San Diego Symphony Association to reorganize and to save this hall for the orchestra - and for us. It is appropriate to salute him at these concerts, which he is sponsoring.

Copley Symphony Hall has become an ongoing project. Improvements continue to be made, many of them via the generous gifts of the Jacobs family and others. In the early 1990's new seats were installed, replacing the former vinyl chairs.This year, an elevator allows for easy access between the main and balcony floors. Hand rails have been installed along the balcony aisles. New mirrors, paintings, relighting of the auditorium's wall murals and new carpeting are or will be new additions, mainly supervised by Mrs. Joan Jacobs.

Aside from the Jacobs’ donation of the new shell, other instrumental additions have included the new stage floor and new risers for the orchestra, all of which enhance the acoustics.

In this, the hall's seventy-fifth year, it houses an orchestra that is genuinely going places. Maestro Jahja Ling has enlarged the ensemble and is obtaining the services of outstanding musicians. The performances are approaching world-class, and the population of the seventh largest city in the country has every reason to take increased pride in its symphony and in the house it occupies.

Happy, happy seventy-fifth birthday to all of us!

-- Mel Goldzband, Symphony Archivist, 2004