Excalibur Theatre Was Mostly Myth : Heralded Plans of Broadway Shows Pass Into Legend of Naive Optimism

Even today, almost a year after the last optimistic letter was mailed, people still wander up to the empty Woodland Hills theater either looking for signs that it will open soon or for someone who will give them their money back.

But there is no hope of either, officials say.

After a 10-month investigation into the short, flamboyant life of Excalibur Productions, the Los Angeles County Office of Consumer Affairs has concluded that the company--which promised the West San Fernando Valley live theater on a Broadway scale--continued to sell tickets and send out glowing progress reports to ticket buyers and investors months after it had failed.

The company raised and spent almost $300,000 but never mounted a single production. Michael Pickering, the company’s founder and president, has left California, and his company does not have enough cash to file for bankruptcy, said Tim Bissell, head of the county consumer protection office.

Bissell said the investigation showed the company never completed any significant work on the former movie theater that Pickering hoped to convert to a 914-seat performance hall.

Although he found no evidence of fraud, Bissell recommended criminal prosecution of Pickering and his partner, Hillary Cole, under the state Business and Professional Code, for misleading ticket buyers.

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office, however, has declined to file charges.

Deputy City Atty. Lauren S. Arky said she had “a lot of questions as to their business practices” but did not “feel there was enough evidence there to prove beyond a reasonable doubt” that a crime was committed.

Arky said she did not consider civil prosecution an option because it could not accomplish anything. “The major remedy in a civil prosecution would be to get restitution, and these people basically have no money,” she said.

Now, letters to about 120 people who filed complaints against Excalibur are being prepared for mailing this week, Bissell said. The documents will inform the ticket buyers that the matter is closed, and nothing further can be done.

Case Closed

So ended the case of the Excalibur Theatre and its 29-year-old founder, whose flair for dramatic imagery awakened the Valley’s interest in Broadway-style entertainment, but wasn’t, in the end, matched by equivalent business acumen.

According to investigators who examined the Excalibur Theatre’s business practices, poor accounting and financial commitments based on faith in unseen investors all worked together to dissipate at least $300,000 without a trace.

Pickering liked to boast that he got his start on a stage in Cheyenne, Wyo., as a 3-month-old, diaper-clad member of the “Bouncing Pickerings,” a family juggling and trampoline act. He later progressed to writer, producer and host of a children’s TV show, but was making a living as an organ salesman when he embarked upon the Woodland Hills project.

On his resume, Pickering listed his heroes as Jesus Christ, Walt Disney, Capt. James T. Kirk and Superman.

When he showed up in the Valley in 1985, shortly after a two-year stint as co-host of “Blinky’s Fan Club” on KWGN-TV in Denver, Pickering invoked the Arthurian legend of the magical sword to herald his plan for a major theater where his own creations would play alongside famous Broadway fare.

Cinema Leased

He and Cole, a former actress and controller-accountant for an entertainment firm, formed Excalibur Productions, leased the El Camino Shopping Center’s former Valley Circle Cinema in the 23000 block of Mulholland Drive and had designs drawn up for its conversion to a 914-seat live performance hall.

In the fall of 1986, Excalibur announced a three-production season, to begin that December with “Sawdust in My Shoes,” a show Pickering wrote. A telephone campaign solicited sales of tickets that ranged from $25 to $54.75.

Pickering said publicly that he had recruited investors to cover nearly all of the $700,000 that would be needed for construction of a stage and renovation of the theater.

Tickets sold briskly. Ventura Boulevard merchants responded. So did a temple’s social director. Eventually, 5,000 tickets were purchased for a theater that was still just a promise.

With patron contributions of up to $1,000, outside investments and receipts for advertisements that were to run in the printed season program, Excalibur brought in at least $300,000, Bissell said.

At the high point of the venture, Pickering signed a contract with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra to use the theater in its 1986-87 concert season. The orchestra ended up using the Reseda High School auditorium before finding a home in a Van Nuys church.

Early in 1987, however, ticket buyers still were receiving acknowledgment of their checks with no mention of an opening date. Later, Pickering sent an undated letter announcing a May 15 opening.

“The delay is of a technical nature and is in the process of being resolved,” he said.

The true problem, Bissell said, was that the investors Pickering counted on, if they ever existed, had dropped away, probably as early as November. Money taken in for ticket sales, which continued through April, was spent on operations, including salaries, travel expenses, and rent and maintenance fees of about $13,000 a month on the theater.

“They only had one bank account,” Bissell said. “Money from ticket sales, from patron accounts, investors, it all went into the same place. . . . You had, in effect, people who paid money for tickets, and it was being used for venture capital.”

Meanwhile, Pickering found what he hoped would be a new source of capital through his sales manager, Lorin Schmucker, who said he was in contact with large overseas investors.

In April, Excalibur Productions was evicted from the theater for non-payment of rent.

Pickering began to receive requests for ticket refunds that same month. He acknowledged some of them by mail, but said later in an interview that the funds to pay them were frozen.

Confidence Expressed

In his last interview with The Times in May, 1987, he insisted that he still was confident of receiving funds from investors in Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong through Schmucker. A letter received by a ticket purchaser in June said the “situation is awkward, but certainly not hopeless” and talked of $1.5 million in committed but undelivered funds.

Today, the theater remains as it was then, dark and without any seats. It has become an unpleasant reminder for those who are still waiting for delivery of their tickets.

“It’s seldom that I walk up to that building that somebody doesn’t drive up to the parking lot and make inquiries,” said Jan Humble, manager of the shopping center. “They want to know where the Excalibur is.”

Pickering could not be reached for comment.

According to Cole, Schmucker eventually said the would-be investors had gone bankrupt.

By then, Bissell’s office was receiving complaints from ticket buyers who were losing faith in Pickering’s promises.

About 120 people eventually filed complaints. Bissell said ticket buyers reported that they were told their money would be bonded or insured. Pickering and Cole both told investigators that there was no bonding or insurance, Bissell said.

Bissell said Cole told investigators that Pickering returned to Denver last summer to be with his ailing mother.

Schmucker, the man who said he had overseas investors, was briefly employed at Galpin Ford as a salesman last summer, but has since dropped from sight, Bissell said.

Although Cole remained in Los Angeles and retained records of the company, those records have not been audited, Bissell said.

Bissell said Cole told him she had not declared bankruptcy because there was no money left to pay for the proceedings.

In a cursory inspection of the records, Bissell said, his investigators found no evidence that any money remained.

It appeared that some funds were converted to personal use by both Pickering and Cole, who received no regular salaries but wrote checks to themselves for cash amounting to about $20,000 each, Bissell said. Some of those checks were noted as payments for expenses that included travel and Christian seminars, Bissell said.

Cole told him that she had loaned at least $50,000 of her own money to the project.

She told The Times that the withdrawals represented partial payment on deferred salaries.

“What we did is that, instead of paying a salary, since the company couldn’t afford to pay a salary, we paid a partial salary,” Cole said. “But in my case, the partial salary was much, much less than the loans. . . . We were basically doing this for nothing because our whole goal was to make it work.”

Took Out Loans

Cole said she took out personal loans to provide funds for the company.

“I’m paying them off very slowly,” she said. “Personally, it would have been better to declare bankruptcy myself.”

Cole disputed Bissell’s estimate of the company’s revenue.

“We didn’t take in more than $250,000,” Cole said.

Bissell said, however, that the company’s bank records showed deposits totaling at least $300,000, of which he believes about $250,000 was from ticket sales.

Although Bissell said he regretted the lack of an exact accounting, he said he concluded that there was no fraud because Pickering and Cole actually intended to open a theater and believed they could, even if their hope was naive.

“As far as we can tell, the money went to operating expenses of the business and to paying employee salaries,” Bissell said. “There certainly appears to have been an intent to open and operate a live theater.”

Early on in the investigation, which he described as the strangest in his 12 years with the Office of Consumer Affairs, Bissell briefed the district attorney’s office on the case but was referred to the city attorney’s office, he said.

In March, Bissell presented a case based solely on the ticket sellers’ promises that purchases were insured when, in fact, the money was being spent on operations. He recommended misdemeanor prosecution under the Business and Professional Code’s section that prohibits the making of false and misleading statements to sell a product.

Cole, expressing surprise at the recommendation, said she believed it was not misleading to say that ticket funds were insured because the company’s investors had promised to stand behind the tickets.

“If our investors had stayed solvent that wouldn’t have happened because they gave us a personal guarantee,” Cole said. “They said if anything happened, if somebody lit a torch to the building and burned it down, they would still guarantee the funds.”

Arky, the deputy city attorney who reviewed the case, declined to elaborate on why she did not think it could be won.

A disappointed Bissell tried his best to draw a lesson.

“In kind of a larger scheme of things, this fits into the problem of people buying goods and services before the operation actually exists,” Bissell said. “We would certainly caution people not to purchase tickets or memberships for things which aren’t in operation.”

Pickering, in his last interview with The Times, gave a bright interpretation to his failing enterprise. He said the outpouring of response proved beyond a doubt the Valley’s enthusiasm for the theater.

Some who showed that enthusiasm, however, now say it has been dampened.

“This has been a sad story for us and the friends who attempted to support a budding cultural attraction,” said Woodland Hills real estate agent Dave Anderson, who spent $435 for a set of 10 tickets at the senior citizens’ rate. “This will discourage many people, I think, from investing in any similar project without some assurance of opening.”

The affair has also soured the owner of the Valley Circle Cinema, who once said he was looking forward to the role of patron of the arts.

Humble, the shopping center manager, said he occasionally receives inquiries from other promoters of live theater, but that the owner, Henry Selvin, isn’t interested.

Selvin, he said, wants the movie house to become a retail outlet and, if he doesn’t get the right offer, will consider tearing it down.