El Capitan Theatre - From Stage to Disney

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A stop on Hollywood Boulevard Walk, a free self-guided tour.

This ornate facade belongs to the El Capitan, which opened on May 3, 1926, not as a cinema but as a playhouse billed as Hollywood's first home of spoken drama. Developer Charles E. Toberman built it, and architects G. Albert Lansburgh and Stiles O. Clements gave it an Italian Baroque front with an East Indian-style auditorium inside.

For about a decade it staged live plays, more than 120 productions in all. When the Depression thinned the crowds it switched to movies, and in 1941 it hosted the world premiere of Citizen Kane after Orson Welles struggled to find a theater willing to show it. Paramount then gave it a sleek modern makeover and a new name.

The Walt Disney Company and Pacific Theatres restored the original look and name, reopening it in 1991 with The Rocketeer. Today it hosts most Disney studio premieres. Watch the marquee: on premiere nights the red carpet rolls right out across this sidewalk.

Getting here: Walk east along the south side of Hollywood Boulevard about a block to the ornate theater facing Ovation Hollywood.

Did you know?: The El Capitan's mighty Wurlitzer theater organ was first installed at San Francisco's Fox Theatre in 1929.

Photo op: Once you cross to the north side, turn back and shoot the whole sculpted facade and marquee in one frame.

More on Wikipedia: El Capitan Theatre · Citizen Kane · G. Albert Lansburgh · The Rocketeer

El Capitan Theatre - From Stage to Disney

Stops on this tour