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Tiffany Theater Sign Will Be Saved From Wrecking Ball
The nearly 50-year-old Tiffany Theater on the Sunset Strip may have a date with the wrecking ball to make way for a new high-rise complex, but the iconic sign will be saved.
Vintage Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley Relics announced on Facebook today that they're teaming up to save the sign from demolition.
After seeing a post on Vintage Los Angeles, informing us that the Tiffany Theater on Sunset was being torn down, we couldn't help but to jump in and save this beautiful sign. With the help and support from Vintage Los Angeles, we will be on location, early Monday morning, to remove the sign and transport it to the Valley Relics Museum!—San Fernando Valley Relics
We just couldn't stand to see the Tiffany Theater sign hit the wrecking ball next week, so Vintage Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley Relics will be working together Monday Morning and removing the sign before demolition! It will be preserved at the Valley Relics Museum opening soon! A HUGE thanks to VLA member, Lisa Kurtz Sutton as well who has volunteered to help us pay for the removal! We are thrilled that the city and developers have allowed us to save it!—Vintage Los Angeles
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Per Wikipedia, The Tiffany Theater was the first theater on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood and has had a storied history, including being the hub of The Rocky Horror Picture Show mania in the 1970s.
It started life as an office building, one that was featured in the 1958-1964 television series 77 Sunset Strip as the office for detectives Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes. It used to stand between the Playboy Club and Dino's [as in Dean Martin's] Lodge restaurant.
The Tiffany Theater opened on November 2, 1966 at a cost of $250,000. It had 400 seats and boasted "Continental Seating" with no aisle up the middle for "maximum audience viewing and comfort."
It can be seen in the 1967 John Boorman film Point Blank when Lee Marvin first sees Keenan Wynn.
By 1968, the Tiffany was hosting live performances by the improv group, The Committee, featuring Howard Hessman, Peter Bonerz and Rob Reiner. In 1970, it was also the scene of a "documentary performance" called "Man and Wife," that featured simulated sex and resulted in the arrest of several of the performers for obscenity.
In 1971, it was showing two films for 49 cents and by the mid-'70s, it had closed. It re-opened in 1977 as a revival theater and art house and featured The Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnights on Fridays and Saturdays, quickly becoming such a hit that they added 2 a.m. screenings and, at the height of the craze, Thursday midnight screenings.
The theater also had 3D capabilities and featured rare revivals of Dial M for Murder, House of Wax and Kiss Me Kate.
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The Tiffany closed down as a movie theater in 1983 and reopened in 1985 as two separate 99-seat live theaters. In 2004, it briefly became the home of the Actors Studio.
The theater closed in 2004 and is now slated for destruction to make way for the Sunset La Cienega hotel and condominium project.
Related:
What The New Sunset La Cienega Project Will Look Like
Photos: Rocky & Bullwinkle Removed From Sunset Strip
Time Machine Hitchhike: Driving The 1967 Sunset Strip
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