Bijou Amusement Company

Bijou Amusement Company was a movie theater business in the United States. It was headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Its Bijou Theatre in Nashville was one of the premiere venues for African American audiences in the Southern United States.[1][2] Milton Starr, who was part of the prominent Jewish family that owned and ran the theater, was the first president of the Theater Owners Booking Association (TOBA), headquartered in Chattanooga.[3] Performers who starred at the theater included Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith, Ma Rainey, Lafayette Players, Butterbeans and Susie, Ethel Waters, and Irvin C. Miller’s Brown Skin Models.[3][4] Boxers Tiger Flowers and Sam Langford had bouts at the venue.[4] The theater and a Masonic lodge next door were razed in the 1950s as part of an urban renewal plan and replaced by the city’s Municipal Auditorium.[4] The fight to save the theater reached the U.S. Supreme Court.[4]

History

Bijou is the French word for jewel and was used for theaters in various cities including New York, Chicago, and Knoxville.

In 1927, the company’s letterhead touted "Celebrating the Biggest and Best Colored Theatres in the South". It included the Bijou Theatre and Lincoln Theatre in Nashville as well as the Royal Theatre under construction there, and the Lenox Theatre in Augusta Georgia, the Lincoln Theatre in Charleston, South Carolina, the Royal Theatre in Columbia, South Carolina, and the Lincoln Theatre in New Bern, North Carolina.[5][6]

It acquired the Savoy and Lincoln theaters in Charlotte, North Carolina's Brooklyn neighborhood.

Marion A. Brooks organized a show at one of its theaters in Alabama.

Alfred Starr was involved with the company.[7]

The company filed a lawsuit for relief from dramatically increased fees imposed on theaters by the police commissioners in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.[8]

In 1919 it placed an add with Howard-Wells Amusement Company listing their theaters in Wilmington.[9] A page from one of its ledgers is extant.[10]

Greenwall Theatre in New Orleans, 1903

Roy E. Fox managed its Dixie Theater in Macon, Georgia.[11]

The company's theaters were in cities including San Antonio, Texas; Macon, Georgia; and Raleigh, North Carolina.[6]

With World War II, Starr moved to Washington D.C. and served on the War Industries Board and Office of War Information.[12]

Theaters
  • Bijou Theater at 423 4th Avenue North in Nashville on the site of the former Adelphi/Grand Opera House. The Bijou Company's flagship theater it hosted live performance and films. Razed in 1957 for construction of the Municipal Auditorium[13]
  • Lincoln Theatre in Charleston, South Carolina. Operated from 1919 to 1971. Demolished after sustaining damage from Hurricane Hugo.[14]
  • Lincoln Theater in Raleigh, North Carolina built 1939.[15]
  • Savoy Theatre (formerly the Royal) in Charlotte, North Carolina's Brooklyn neighborhood[16]
  • Lincoln Theatre, also in Charlotte's Brooklyn neighborhood
  • Palace Theatre (formerly the Greenwall Theatre) in New Orleans. It was designed by the Stone Brothers. It closed in the 1950s and was torn down to make way for a parking garage.[17][18]

See also

References
  1. "Bijou Theatre, Nashville, Tenn., 1908". Nashville Public Library's Digital Collection. Nashville Public Library.
  2. "Bijou Theatre, Nashville, Tenn., 1908".
  3. "Bijou Theatre". James E. Walker Library: Featured Collections Trial, Triumphs, and Transformations. Middle Tennessee State University (MSU).
  4. Retrospect, The Nashville. "bijou". The Nashville Retrospect.
  5. "Letter: Nashville, Tennessee to Ben Stein, Macon, Georgia, 1927 Sept. 10". dlg.usg.edu.
  6. "Movie Theaters Previously Operated by Bijou Amusement Company - Cinema Treasures". cinematreasures.org.
  7. "Letter to Thomas Elsa Jones, President of Fisk University from Bijou Amusement Company President Alfred Starr". James E. Walker Library: Featured Collections Trial, Triumphs, and Transformations. Middle Tennessee State University (MSU).
  8. "Bijou Amusement Co. v. Toupin, 63 R.I. 503 | Casetext Search + Citator". casetext.com.
  9. "Howard-Wells Amusement Company, Bijou Amusement Company - "Wilmington Star" Ad of February 18, 1914". DocSouth: Documenting the American South. Reaves Collection, courtesy New Hanover Public Library: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ad for Howard-Wells Amusement Company and the Bijou Amusement Company listing all the theaters they own in Wilmington. Notes that vaudeville program at Royal is changed weekly. Archived from the original on November 2, 2021. UNC lesson worksheet: Going to the Show
  10. "Bijou Amusement Company file record sheet no 1". digi.countrymusichalloffame.org.
  11. "Roy E. Fox Cincy Visitor". The Billboard. Vol. 62, no. 18. May 6, 1950. p. 55 – via Google Books.
  12. "6 Jun 1976, Page 54 - The Tennessean at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com.
  13. "Bijou Theatre in Nashville, TN - Cinema Treasures". cinematreasures.org.
  14. "Lincoln Theater". Preservation Society of Charleston.
  15. "Lincoln Theatre". Clio.
  16. Lee, Ming-Chun (31 August 2021), "6: Savoy Theatre", Brooklyn: Back in Time, retrieved 18 September 2022, Savoy Theatre - One of two theaters in Brooklyn, the Royal Theatre first opened in 1927 and took the name Savoy two years later.
  17. Scott, Mike. "Sarah Bernhardt performed there in 1906, but today, the old Greenwall Theatre is a parking garage". NOLA.com.
  18. "Palace Theatre in New Orleans, LA - Cinema Treasures". cinematreasures.org.
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