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The Memories on H Project began in 2021 as a way to connect with our community and create a book filled with the history of our beautiful theater – a book that will help preserve, entertain and educate the general public about this majestic theater for generations to come.
We need your help to bring the pages of this book together. If you have photos or records you would like to submit we’ve created an easy form you can fill out which is available here. You can also email us at history@thebakersfieldfox.com.
The Memories on H Library was created to store and display photographs, documents, and interviews submitted by our community. With help from the Kern County Museum, many of these items have been digitized for the first time and have never been seen by the public! For information on commercial use or reproduction of any images please Contact Us.
The Memories on H Project began in 2021 as a way to connect with our community and create a book filled with the history of our beautiful theater – a book that will help preserve, entertain and educate the general public about this majestic theater for generations to come.
We need your help to bring the pages of this book together. If you have photos or records you would like to submit we’ve created an easy form you can fill out which is available here. You can also email us at history@thebakersfieldfox.com.
The Memories on H Library was created to store and display photographs, documents, and interviews submitted by our community. With help from the Kern County Museum, many of these items have been digitized for the first time and have never been seen by the public! For information on commercial use or reproduction of any images please Contact Us.
In 1983, the Fox Theater closed and was put up for sale, so William “Bill” Pierce decided to take a tour. During the few months it was closed squatters had broken in, stealing precious items and destroying many areas inside. Several parties were interested in using the land and Pierce was afraid to see it torn down, so he decided to take on the operation and signed a lease-purchase agreement with its owners, the Granada Hills-based Martinez family. Pierce was an established promoter and musician in the Los Angeles area and this purchase allowed him to use his experience in the entertainment business in his hometown.
The Fox needed a lot of work, so he and his family spent much of their own money preparing and restoring the theater for events, spending approximately $500,000. Drapes, seats, scaffolding, stage equipment repairs, bat removal, and gold leaf painting are just some of the projects the Pierce family undertook to refurbish the newly named Fox Performing Arts Theater. He visited UCLA to view original blueprints and had the opportunity to speak with the legendary S. Charles Lee himself, the architect of the Fox Theater.
As a kid, he remembers seeing George Day and Zippy the Clown during matinee movies, and he continued a matinee movie tradition on the weekends. He developed Fox Follies, a live performance show for kids that was similar to Star Search. During his time running the theater, he brought acts like Tammy Wynette, Merle Haggard, Howie Mandel, Pointer Sisters, Chaka Khan, David Chazelle, Stanley Turrentine, and more. Despite the popular artists coming in, operating the theater ended up being too costly to handle on his own and his company ended up in bankruptcy in 1984. The Martinez family closed the theater once again and it remained vacant until the Fox Theater Foundation formed to save it. But we recognize Pierce’s work as an important piece of the Fox Theater’s history.
Greg donated over a dozen of posters of past Fox shows — he used to be a graphic designer for the theater! Greg grew up by the Potomac River and told us he was interested in graphics as a kid. He enlisted in the Air Force to become a hydraulics repairman and later became an illustrator for their designs. He came to California in the 1980s (his wife at the time was from Bakersfield) and ended up doing work at the Emporium Western Store, which is where he met Danny Lipco, a former operations manager of the Fox Theater.
Danny Lipco was part owner of the store at the time and asked Greg to start working on the posters of the concerts he was promoting. Here’s how it works: Greg would get the advertising materials, known as an “admat”, from Danny, who got them from an artist’s agents and tour management. Some shows had a poster fully designed, and others needed Greg to create the poster out of a photo of the artist. Once the poster was designed, Greg would take them to Truck Imaging to get a proof. Once he signed off to approve the printing the company would produce 11×17 posters to be distributed around town. Danny was bringing big acts to the Kern County Fair, Paso Robles, and the Bakersfield Fox Theater. Some memorable shows were Anne Murray, The Moody Blues, John Fogerty, Doobie Brothers, BB King, George Thurgood, Arlo Guthrie, and Justin Hayward.
May 1, 2023, was the 70th Anniversary of the Fox’s interior remodel to Art Deco! In the late 1940s and 1950s Fox West Coast Theatres, headed by Charles P. Skouras, initiated a remodeling campaign of its theatres to attract audiences back to their big screens. On May 1, 1953, we opened our doors with a fresh new Art Deco design by architect Carl G. Moeller. The theatre went from an atmospheric Spanish Colonial design to an Art Deco one featuring gold scrollwork on the left and right sidewalls of the auditorium with fanciful drapes. Now 70 years later, the Historic Bakersfield Fox Theater is one of the last remaining and best-preserved examples of this unique “Skouras-ized” style! Photos by Mike Hume of historictheatrephotos.com | Read more on our History page
We came across binders with newspaper clippings of past Fox Theater events and one binder from 2003 had a small notecard with only Mary Durham’s name, phone number, and address. We called the number— and Mary answered! Mary Durham was born on December 23, 1936, in Oklahoma. Because of the agriculture opportunities available in California, she and her family moved, and her seventh birthday was the first one spent in Arvin. The Fox Theater had many community members volunteer as ushers, docents, and more after its reopening in 1994. In the early 2000s, Mary got in contact with Linda Dodson, a Fox Theater office employee. The theater needed ushers for their events, and Mary volunteered! Mary got to see many of the events while she was ushering. One event she remembers at the Fox was actress/comedian Bret Butler; she even bought her book Knee Deep in Paradise, which she still owns! While she volunteered she was also an employee at the Kern High School District, where she worked for 25 years. She has been living in Bakersfield for 44 years and enjoys breakfast at Molly J’s.
We got in touch with Norma Craig Johnson and heard the story of her first date at the Fox Theater It was the late summer of 1958 when Norma and a group of friends hopped into a Volkswagen in Buttonwillow. At the time, Norma was a student at Shafter High School, where she was involved with the school’s Commercial Club, Pep Club, and Athletic Association. The friends were headed to the Fox Theater to see a movie and they broke off into couples–which is how Norma ended up on a first date with William “Bill” Johnson.
Bill also attended Shafter High School and was a top student; He was a member of the California Scholarship Federation and in 1959 he was chosen as the school’s “Principal for a Day”. Norma says she doesn’t remember much about the movie (other than paying less than a dollar to sit in the balcony), but the date ended with them falling in love and getting married in 1961 Bill earned a full-ride scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley, and the family moved north. After he graduated the couple returned to Buttonwillow and expanded their family. Mr. & Mrs. Johnson were married for 60 years and raised 3 daughters together. Bill passed away in 2021, but we hope that by sharing this story his memory will live on.
John Stevenson was born on February 17, 1892, in Knoxville, Iowa. By 1905 he and his family had moved to California, and a few years later he began working as a Motion Picture operator for Charles Grogg, the owner of several theatres in Bakersfield. Additionally, he began acting as a hobby and became a member of the Hart Players, a traveling acting troupe known for their plays and vaudeville acts. His career was briefly put on hold while he served as a United States army private during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. After completing his service, Stevenson returned to the movie projection business and worked for Fox West Coast Theatres, which by the end of the 1930s operated the Bakersfield Fox Theater, Nile Theater, California Theater, Rex Theater, and Kern Theater. The scrapbook contained several photographs of Mr. Stevenson and his fellow Hart Players in costume, as well as photographs from the war. He is billed in the plays The Love of Su Shong, The Bird of Paradise, and more, most of which took place at the Hart Theatre in Long Beach in the 1920s. He appeared in plays locally, performing with the Warrenton Players at the Nile Theater. Mr. Stevenson was more than just a projectionist; he became one of the co-founders of the local chapter of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). The gold card is a Moving Picture Machine Operator’s Life Membership Card, issued to him for his work for the community and the union. He retired in 1956 after serving more than four decades as a projectionist.
Tom Downs is a former Fox Theater employee. In 1973, Tom recalls hearing that the Fox was hiring, so came down to H Street and spoke with the manager himself, Herbert Gunn. At the time, the Fox Theater (and operator National General Corporation) had recently been acquired by Mann Theatres. While Mr. Gunn gave off a gruff demeanor at first, he hired Tom, and so begins the story of how he got his first job! Tom’s duties would be anything from ushering in the balcony, changing the marquee, or working the snack bar. His uniform was black pants, a white shirt, and a blue blazer. The Fox operated as a first-run-movie theater and he found himself working plenty of Saturday morning matinees.
He also solved the mystery of the gray panel located above the storage closet. We hadn’t noticed it and didn’t know what it was used for, but he told us that it was used as a door sensor. Any time one of the four exit doors it was programmed to was opened, he ran from the lobby to the door’s location to check if any kids were sneaking in and out; it was quite a workout! Despite all that went into managing hundreds of kids during movies, he says this job was the most fun he ever had. According to Tom, Mr. Gunn had a signed portrait hanging in the office. He didn’t know it then, but he was working for a former movie star! Earlier this year we covered Herbert Gunn’s Hollywood career, read more about it by scrolling down.
Herbert Gunn was the manager of the Bakersfield Fox Theater from the late 1960s to the late 1970s. Before that, he used the stage name Gordon McDonald and starred on Broadway in New York City. He also appeared in the films Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), Always in My Heart (1942), and more. After leaving the acting business he began working for the Mann Theatre organization, leading him to Bakersfield. Gunn went on to work at the Fremont Theater in the 1980s and lived out the rest of his life in San Luis Obispo.
Frank G. Heller became manager of the Bakersfield Fox Theater in 1934 and remained in that position until 1937. His son, Milton Heller, owned the Milton Heller School of Dance which gave annual recitals and revues at the Fox Theater in the 1930s. Milton’s wife Delores made a name for herself as a costumer and historian in Bakersfield.
ackie Lee Bryan (née Gentle) was born on October 27th, 1924 in Los Angeles, California. Her family lived in Fresno when she was very young, but moved to Bakersfield when her father, Jimmy, was offered a job as the graphic designer/window trimmer at the popular Weill’s Department Store on 19th Street. Jackie soon became interested in the performing arts around age 10. In the mid-1930’s, she joined Milton Heller’s School of the Dance, which was located at the Bakersfield Women’s Club. Spring recitals at The Fox Theater became an annual event, allowing Jackie to share the spotlight with other young Bakersfield talents (including her usual dance partner, Don Ray Rapp). “Milton Heller’s Continental Revue” packed the house on select evenings in May and June, with heavy promotion within the pages of The Bakersfield Californian newspaper. Jackie’s father, Jimmy Gentle, also became highly involved in each production by helping design the colorful set decorations and backgrounds for the theater’s grand stage. In addition to dancing in the springtime revues, Jackie also participated in the entertainment offerings for the original Mickey Mouse Club, with the local Bakersfield chapter’s big program held at The Fox in December 1935. Jackie loved to share her fondest memories performing on The Fox Theater’s stage. Even into her 90’s, she could still sing and dance a step or two to one of her favorite performances “The Music Goes Round and Round” from 1936. Jackie danced her way into heaven on April 23rd, 2021 and she would’ve been thrilled to know that her proud hometown legacy was captured in the spotlight at The Fox Theater.Written and Submitted by Colby Ross