The Orpheum Theatre
Gilded nineteen twenties vaudeville palace with a still-functioning Wurlitzer theater organ hidden behind its walls.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles centers on the Wurlitzer pipe organ hidden behind its gilded 1920s walls, installed to score silent films live with car horns, thunder, and gunshots for an audience of up to two thousand. It traces the theater's vaudeville years, when future stars performed here under names audiences didn't yet know, including a small girl billed as Frances Gumm long before Hollywood renamed her Judy Garland. The Marx Brothers, Jack Benny, and Lena Horne also shared this stage, before the vaudeville circuit that built it gave way to rock and roll.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
El Capitan Theatre
Restored nineteen-twenties movie palace with a gilded East Indian interior, host to landmark Hollywood film premieres.
TCL Chinese Theatre
Pagoda-style movie palace with a bronze roof and stone dragon, its forecourt paved with celebrity hand and footprints.
Santa Monica Pier
Wooden pier with a historic carousel hippodrome, amusement rides, and a Ferris wheel over the ocean.
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
Streamline Moderne department store turned film museum, its restored gold-leaf dome anchoring Hollywood's history and controversies alike.