Riverside to Raze Charred Classic Theater

A fire of suspicious origin has destroyed a century-old landmark theater in Riverside where such stars as Sarah Bernhardt and W. C. Fields performed, and city officials decided Friday to demolish what remains of the building.

Fire broke out in the Golden State Theater late Thursday, gutting the facility, which had been boarded up and unoccupied since 1973.

“There was no reason for the fire to start on its own,” said Deputy Fire Marshal Ed Couchman, noting that the building had no gas or electrical hookups.

Originally known as the Loring Opera House, the 900-seat theater opened in 1890 to serve vacationing Easterners as well as the young Riverside community. Fannie Brice and Al Jolson played there while touring with the Orpheum vaudeville circuit, according to Alan Curl, administrative curator for the Riverside Municipal Museum.

In 1918, the Romanesque-style exterior was remodeled to give it a Spanish look complementing the Mission Inn. By that time, Riverside had become a preview town for the burgeoning silent movie industry. “It was close enough to Los Angeles--you could get there in an hour or two--but it was like the Midwest,” Curl said. “You didn’t have to go to Peoria (to test a film’s popularity).”

One classic film that had its first public showing at the theater in 1915 was D. W. Griffith’s “The Klansman,” later retitled “Birth of a Nation.” But by the 1970s, the Golden State, no longer able to compete with modern theater complexes, was forced to close. Although there had been much talk in recent years about having the city purchase, restore and stabilize the unreinforced brick theater, it was only recently that the effort seemed to be making any headway, Curl said.

“I’m deeply saddened,” he said, adding that the Golden State “wasn’t a sterile multiplex theater. It was a real place.”

Thursday’s fire was the latest in a series of suspicious blazes at the facility, Couchman said.