A community’s love of a landmark theater and faith in its future pay off in the $6.5-million restoration of THE ALEX

“It was like that, you know . . . the stars, the searchlights, the excitement. Very elegant--very posh. And so was Alex.” --From “Alexander Then and Now,” written, directed and choreographed by Paul Shipton

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Flash back to the Roaring ‘20s, to a hangout called the Sum Drug Store, where a young soda jerk named Morrison dishes up the best ice-cream sodas in town.

His buddy at Glendale High School, a kid named Bob Caskey, works as a ticket-taker at the Alexander Theatre, where he soon becomes assistant manager--for $17.10 a week.

Together, they cut a deal that’s as sweet as two scoops of cherry-vanilla and a double feature: Caskey gets free sodas, and Morrison watches free movies at the Alexander.

From there, young Morrison goes on to earn a scholarship to USC, works summers as a carpenter at Fox Studios, gets bit parts in the movies and plays the lead in a Western called “The Big Trail.”

But all that happens before Marion Michael Morrison blazes even bigger trails to the Alexander’s big screen and one day swaggers to an Oscar in the film “True Grit” . . . as John Wayne.

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It happens before the Alexander--born in 1925 as one of Southern California’s premiere movie and vaudeville palaces and named for a child of a local theater-chain owner--would, like Marion Morrison, shorten its name . . . to Alex.

It happens, too, before the Alex would star in its own real-life suspense thriller--surviving a backstage fire in 1948, dodging bullets from TV’s invasion in the 1950s, escaping the wrecking ball in the 1990s.

Now, downtown Glendale’s born-again-and-again landmark--its 100-foot-tall Art Deco tower on Brand Boulevard ablaze in red-white-and-blue neon, as if reaching for stars once more--is gussied up for a grand reopening as a performing arts and cultural center (seating capacity: 1,460).

The curtain goes up with a New Year’s Eve gala featuring vocalist Robert Guillaume (“Phantom of the Opera”), host Peter Marshall and a homecoming by the Glendale Symphony Orchestra, which, starting next fall, will leave Los Angeles’ Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, its home since 1965, to perform at the Alex--at least for the 1994-95 season.

A free public open house, as well as the formal dedication and ribbon-cutting, will take place Jan. 2, from noon to 3 p.m.

And soon, three big-name musicals will help christen the new Alex’s inaugural season: an adaptation of James Michener’s novel “Sayonara” (Jan. 27 through Feb. 13), “Mame,” starring Juliet Prowse (April 7 through 24) and “Fame, the musical” (May 19 through June 5). All have been booked by the Alex’s Pasadena-based operator, the Theatre Corp. of America, which also operates the long-popular Pasadena Playhouse and other venues.

Already, many are shouting “Bravo!” in Glendale--once a bedroom community right out of TV’s “Ozzie and Harriet” and now a multiethnic, increasingly urban financial center--whose population of 180,038 is Los Angeles County’s third-largest among 84 cities (behind Los Angeles and Long Beach).

Some old-timers haven’t seen such excitement since the days when Glendale turned up in gags on Jack Benny’s radio show--or when Hollywood’s glitterati flocked to the Alex’s studio previews. Elizabeth Taylor and her mother arrived late to see “National Velvet” and stood in back, not taking seats until some viewers left early. Bing Crosby sat in the lobby during “Going My Way,” fearful that the audience would scoff at him in the role of a priest.

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“The Alex is the most loved building in Glendale,” says Andrea Humberger, the Glendale Historical Society’s past president, who sits on the theater’s board. “Here, people of every generation share so many fond stories about the Alex--those who go all the way back to the vaudeville days, those who remember their first dates there, their first kiss there.”

For Sean Clark, who has coordinated the Alex’s restoration on behalf of the city’s Glendale Redevelopment Agency (GRA), the theater holds a special meaning: He and his wife spent their first date there.

And for Jack Germain, who managed the project’s 11-month reconstruction, the new and improved Alex lives up to his own code of excellence: “We wanted to give some kind of ‘Wow!’ effect to the people when they walk in--so they’re blown off their feet.”

Today, the Alex’s latest reincarnation stands as testimony to a community’s self-esteem, emboldened in 1992 when the Redevelopment Agency purchased the building from Mann Theatres and the open-air forecourt from the Christian Science Church, all for $837,556, then earmarked $6.5 million in agency funding for restoration and upgrades.

“It brings a community soul to Glendale,” Jeanne Armstrong, the GRA’s development director, says of the theater’s rebirth. “This is our agency’s first truly public project--the first real pay-back to the citizens for all our commercial projects and the taxes they’ve generated since redevelopment started in 1972.”

But it never would have happened without gritty perseverance by a rag-tag cavalry of Glendale Historical Society activists, who became all but hysterical over the prospect that the theater’s days and nights might be numbered.

Galloping to the Alex’s rescue, they conducted a study in 1988 that urged saving the historic theater, pointing out that others have succeeded in cities such as Cleveland, Tampa, Fla., and Santa Barbara. Their cause got a boost from Life magazine, whose October, 1989, issue carried an article--”One-Hundred and One Things Worth Saving” in America--and cited just one single-screen movie house: the Alex.

Along the way, the preservationists battled naysayers who warned that the Alex would fail--as so many other performing arts centers have across the nation--and that by purchasing the Alex, the city would fritter away hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars.

To galvanize community support (and counter skepticism among city leaders), the historical society filled the Alex on successive nights in 1990 with a multimedia stage show--”Alexander Then and Now”--a song-and-dance, slides-and-film romp through the theater’s and America’s history. The show was written, directed and choreographed by Paul Shipton, a Broadway showman-turned Glendale resident, who died at 52 this month after a long illness, unable to live his dream of a reborn Alex.

So smashing was Shipton’s extravaganza that Bob Hope appeared as a warm - up act. “I didn’t know how important the Alex was,” Hope cracked, “until I saw a group of whales holding signs that said ‘Save the Alex.’ ”

And now that the Alex’s own life has been spared, its boosters hope that it will breathe night life into Brand Boulevard’s recession-battered restaurants and retail shops.

“This area of Brand needs some reinvigoration,” says attorney Larry Clarke, who serves as chairman of the nonprofit Alex Regional Theatre Board, which oversees and maintains the facility on the city’s behalf. “The theater lends a certain panache to the area. Obviously, more has to be done than this--but it’s a start.”

With a goal of 150 dates next year (about 90 are filled) and 10,000 season subscriptions to the three musicals already sold, the Alex’s promoters are optimistic that the theater will eventually ride out the slump and, if not dramatically strengthen Glendale’s economy, at least enrich the community’s culture.

Besides music and dramatic theater and the Glendale Symphony, the Alex stands available for dance companies, light-opera productions, headline entertainers, chamber orchestras and film retrospectives, documentaries and festivals, as well as lectures, town hall meetings and high school commencements. The promenade forecourt can accommodate social functions such as mixers, weddings and bar mitzvahs.

It’s no wonder, then, that many community leaders envision the Alex as more than a commitment of dollars, more than a hoped-for return on investment.

“There’s no guarantee that it will be profit-making or how soon it will be--it may not make money for a while,” says City Councilwoman Eileen Givens, chairwoman of the Redevelopment Agency. “But it gives us, at long last, a performing arts center--and it enhances this city’s stature and our quality of life.”

“A preferred preview house by most of the major studios, the Alex was Louis B. Mayer’s personal favorite because of its incomparable acoustics. . . . They just don’t build them like they used to.”

--From “Alexander Then and Now.”

Even during the Alex’s waning days and nights as a movie house, a stroll from the street-side box office through the spacious, canopied forecourt to the theater itself made you feel as if you’re the star of your very own world premiere.

Now, the long metal canopy has been removed--after city leaders squabbled about whether to save or scrap it, just as they quarreled over reviving the name Alexander (to exude formality) or keeping Alex (which noted theater architect S. Charles Lee had said fit better into the Alex’s snazzy Art Deco marquee and tower he designed to replace the dreary original facade in 1940).

What you see now before you enter the theater--designed by Glendale architects Arthur G. Lindley and Charles R. Selkirk--are open skies and 10 towering, newly planted palm trees, illuminated by floodlights. The massive twin columns flanking the front door carry out the Alex’s Greek and Egyptian design so effectively that it’s easy to wonder if you’ve stumbled onto the courtyard set of the epic film “Spartacus.”

It’s a setting that looks more lavish than even its $6.5-million restoration price tag suggests.

“One study said it would cost between $15 million and $24 million to renovate this theater--which is ridiculous,” says project manager Jack Germain of Glendale, adding that he and his co-developers from the Los Angeles-based Ratkovich Co. restored the Wiltern Theatre for $5.2 million.

“Most of the planners for this place were sensible business types. They understood that you simply could not spend $15 million. But, $6 million ought to buy a lot of something .”

What those scaled-down dollars have bought at the Alex--besides restoration of appointments such as crown moldings and artwork on walls and ceilings--are what Germain calls “creature comforts.”

That meant improving sight lines, widening the stage and installing new lights, seats and fresh carpeting, as well as platforms for patrons who are disabled. It also meant removing asbestos, meeting earthquake and other codes and putting in restrooms in the balcony (where none had existed) and expanding those on the main floor.

As Germain points out, “In a movie house, people use the restrooms at any time throughout the movie. But, at a live production, everyone goes to the restrooms at the same time--at intermission.”

So now that Glendale has said, “The show must go on!” the star itself--the grand old Alex--can boast of not just cosmetic surgery but what its fan club hopes is a long-term lease on life.

“Anybody can put up a new building,” Givens says, “but now we have what most communities don’t have. We’ve restored a real treasure.”

About all that’s missing is another treasure--the late John Wayne himself, riding across center stage on horseback, tipping his hat to those who soon will sit where he long ago watched movies for free.

What better way to imagine toasting the Alex Theatre’s new life--and his old hometown’s true grit?

WHERE AND WHEN

What: The Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale.

Gala: New Year’s Eve Gala schedule: 8 to 9 p.m. Dec. 31, inaugural open house; 9:15 p.m., grand opening ribbon-cutting; 9:45 p.m., pop vocalist Robert Guillaume (“Phantom of the Opera”), the Glendale Symphony Orchestra and host Peter Marshall; 11:15 p.m. to 1 a.m., live music and dancing in the street with international hit band Maiden Voyage, Marty Williams Jazz Quartet and Dwight Kennedy’s New Orleans Dixie Kings.

Price: $200, $150, $100. ($75 tickets sold out).

Call: Alex Theatre Regional Board: (818) 552-5263.

Open House: Noon to 3 p.m., Jan. 2, dedication, ribbon-cutting and tours guided by Glendale Historical Society docents. Free and open to the public.

Call: Sean Clark of Glendale Redevelopment Agency, or Glendale Historic Preservation Commission: (818) 548-2005.