Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome back to socaw with Bell, where we explore the
vibrant people, places, and passions that make Southern California definitely
one of a kind. When I first had the opportunity
to host this show, one of the very first places
that I knew I wanted to feature was the Lido
Theater with its unique history, its unforgettable character, it's coastal charm.
(00:47):
It's definitely not just a movie theater. It's not a
movie house. It's a living piece of Southern California magic.
It's definitely an experience. Located in the heart of Newport
b which is Ledo Marina Village, This historic gym has
recently been restored, was taken off the market, out of
commission for a while, and restore took I mean well
(01:09):
over a year. It's been beautifully restored, now blending old
Hollywood glamour with a fresh, inviting energy. And who better
to guide us through this story than in Nees Scandal,
the general manager who's helping bring this icon to life again.
From themed classics and film society questions and answers to
(01:32):
morning coffee and cinema experiences and upcoming TV festivals, Ins
is currently curating something truly special for film lovers, art lovers,
and the community alike. So let's take our seats, roll
up your window if you're driving, turn up your volume,
and let's discover the magic of the Lido Theater. Welcome
(01:55):
Inness Scandal.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Val.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I'm super excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I'm excited to be here. And I should tell all
of our guests and our listeners and our viewers that
when you go to the Lido Theater for any event
in USA, is there greeting you. And she's so nice
and she remembers your name. So her background in media,
in entertainment, in marketing, and in the arts is certainly catching.
(02:24):
Her passion is catching, and she's someone you want to
see when you enter the door. So, Innes, tell us,
first of all, a little bit about your background. I
think you have a master's in entertainment marketing. Exactly what
is that? It sounds exciting? Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Thank you for the kind words. First of all, that's
so great to hear. I'm glad and I will say
to all of our listeners and viewers it's a pleasure
to have Val walk through the door. She's always smiling,
and I would say she's come to at least eighty
five percent of the movies we put on, and it's
the highlight of my night when she walks through the door.
So thank you for that. I appreciate that. Yes, Mike,
(03:00):
my history is in entertainment communication management. That is what
my master's degree is in. I earned my master's and
bachelor's from the University of Southern California, which actually brought
me to California from Seattle, where I was born and raised.
And throughout college I worked a lot in live performing arts.
I worked a lot in the filmed arts. We did
(03:20):
a lot of different projects that were managerial but also
entertainment and arts focused, a lot of communication based things.
And from there I've worked as a producer in a
number of different arts fields. I have worked at Paramount Pictures.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. I just didn't love
the commute from Newport to.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
LA I can get that.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
That was a wonderful, wonderful experience, and since living in Newport,
this has just been the next logical step. I hadn't
been here since it had been opened, and once it did,
I was very, very excited to be a part of
the team.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Well, I'm sure they're glad to have you. So, going
through that experience in getting your education, what did you
hope you would become? What was your vision? What was
your dream job?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
That's a great question. I have a number of dream jobs.
I think you can find that among a lot of creative,
artistic people. I like to think of myself as a
going through different phases rather than one single dream job.
But when I look at what I'm doing now, it
is definitely a dream job. I joke with people and
I say, I get paid to watch movies. I eat
(04:28):
popcorn and watch some incredible movies in one of the
most beautiful theaters I have ever had the pleasure of
being in, much less hosted other people in. So it's
truly a dream job. You could say, and.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Were you Were you involved during the rehab process?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Good question, I was not so talking through.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
That ring model or rehabits a refreshing kind of yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
A restoration restoration. The language is only picky because a
restoration refers to restore something to the way it once
was or used to be. So the leader theater has
changed hands many times over it's over eighty five year
story passed and we have recently reopened it in October
under new management and where the current operators and the
(05:18):
landlords Fritz Duda Company were the ones overseeing the restoration.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
And I know it took a while, and many of
us would go to Starbucks and we'd try to peek
in and guys would come out. We'd say, what are
you doing in there? You know? Oh, you don't know,
you don't know. You know. Everybody had their own job exactly.
So what drew, Well, let's talk a little bit more
about the theater. So when many of us think about
the Leader Theater, although we weren't there at the time,
(05:44):
we hear one thing and that's about how Betty Davis
was a part of that. So tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
So Betty Davis lived in Corona del mar in CDM,
not too far and it so the legend goes, I
don't know if anyone really knows for sure, but she was
walking by the theater seeing it being built in the
late nineteen thirties and said, you better open with my picture,
which her next picture was Jezebel, And it did the
night it opened October twenty seventh, nineteen thirty nine. It
(06:15):
opened with Jezebel, and during construction she also said, well,
you should have a parlor room, a sitting room, a
smoking room, a fainting room. It has many different names.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Oh, is there right, I haven't heard the fainting room. Yes.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
In the women's room, which is actually still there today,
it's been beautifully restored. So if you go in there now,
the women's restroom, when you enter on the left, it
has a little sitting parlor which was very stereotypical of
the late nineteen thirties and on, where you would go
and pow do your noses and have a smoke and
chit chat with your girlfriends in between the movies or
(06:49):
before or after. It was a very common social aspect.
And that restroom actually during the restoration, they chose feathered
wallpaper because Betty Davis wore a lot of feat in.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Her cause that's the story.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yes, So that's why the wallpaper in that bathroom is
different than the rest of the bathrooms. And the tile.
I could go on about the history and what's original
and what's not, but the tile in that restroom is
also entirely original. So if you go in there, it
really is like stepping back in time.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So it's some of the things there are original from
the original theater.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
There's a lot actually in the theater. That's a great question.
The ticket booth is all original. The exterior is pretty
much entirely original, including the floral detailed cornices on the outside.
The marquee is original. The Lidos sign that lights up
the iconic sign you can actually see it from certain
angles if you're flying in or out of John Wayne Airport,
(07:42):
that is original. The torotzo is entirely original. All the
wood that you see in the lobby, such as the
crown molding, the pillars, and all but two of the
doors are entirely original. So the big heavy double doors
on either side of the lobby to get into the theater,
those are into entirely original. The staircase, the main layout
(08:03):
of the theater is original. The wall paintings have been
restored as what they were originally, so they had been
covered and changed over the years. But the restorators, the
Fritz du To Company, took special photography and they did months,
maybe years of research and looking back in the annals
(08:24):
of where the Lido has been in the last eighty
five years to capture exactly what the beautiful wall paintings
would have been in nineteen thirty nine. The little window
boxes on the side of the stage actually is a
really fun story. Nobody knew they were there. None of
the current owners knew that the little window boxes on
(08:46):
the side of the screen were there until they were
restoring in the theater and they found big holes in
the foundation, and so they decided to reincorporate it. But
if you went to the theater in the last before
it opened five years ago or before it closed five
years ago, in the most recent history, you wouldn't have
seen those because they were completely boarded up. So they
(09:08):
revitalized those, put curtains behind them at a bit of lighting,
and now it makes it feel much more grand. It's
a really really nice touch.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
What incredible and so exciting it must be to be
a part of history, especially in our area. Really we don't,
you know, things on on our part of the country
aren't really that old r as a general rule, you know,
not compared to if you live in Rhode Island or Boston.
You know our Connecticut or you know Martha's Vineyard, right,
(09:37):
I mean, some of those things they're really from the
beginning of our country and so here to be able
to find something with that history is really must be
fun to be a part of it. And I'm sure,
with your passion for the arts and for for really
unique experiences, you must love being there.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
So tell me when they came to you and presented
this opportunity. Where you looking for this or did someone
discover you? I think you were at Mulan, Is that true?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
That's a great question. Yes, I was actually working at Mulin.
I was working sort of under the manager over there,
and I was I speak French fluently, which was why
I worked well at Mulin. My family is French on
my mother's side, and a woman came in one day
asking for someone to give her French classes, and I said, well,
(10:26):
I can give you conversational French classes. So every really, yes,
it's such a funny kind of meandering story how I
ended up here. But every week I would meet up
with her because she was going on a trip to Paris,
and we would talk about conversational French and what you'll
use when you get there, how to order coffee and
get directions right versus left. All the basics. Oh, and
(10:48):
she was so wonderful and one day she asked me, well,
what do you really want to do. I'm not sure
if you want to stay here forever. And I said, well,
I love the arts. I have a master's in entertainment management,
and I love live theater, I love film, I love performing.
I've worked in opera, I've done dance, all the different things.
(11:09):
So anything to be back in the arts and entertainment
sphere would really just light up my soul. And she said, why,
I have a friend who's working on reopening a theater
and maybe he needs some help or something. Let me see.
And our friend was one Fritz Duda of the Fritz
Duda Company. So she put me in touch with him,
(11:31):
and he said, well, we're the landlords, but we will
not be the operators. Why don't I put you in
touch with Mickjee, who is the current operator. If you're
not familiar, he is a Hollywood director and producer a
number of fabulous films. He worked in music videos for
a very long time. A native to this area, and
(11:52):
Alito Theater is his passion project, you could say. So
I met with him and we immediately clicked. We discussed
the theater. He took me on a tour and we
talked about his vision and how I can completely see
that coming to life and it was a natural fit.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
That's amazing, And it's incredible how things like that happen
in life, Isn't it just I.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Was not looking at all? But you know, the right
things just get put in your path at the right time.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
And you know, if you had not been there at
that time and you had not responded, if you had thought,
I don't really want to do that, right, you would
this opportunity wouldn't be for you.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
So very true.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Just an example of responding to opportunities, being open to opportunities, right.
You never know, you know, there's so many things in
my life that it had I not been in that
place at that time, right.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
And taking the leap and just saying, you know, the
theater was closed at the time. I had no idea
what it was going to be, and I had never
met McGee before, I wasn't familiar with his work, So
it was very much a leap of faith and just
kind of trusting your gut in that sense.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
And then isn't there another group? I thought there was
maybe the people connected with the A restaurant? Are they
a part of this? Also?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yes, so McGee is a majority shareholder in River Jetty
Restaurant Group, so he works very closely with all of
the A Restaurants pch CDM A Market which is just
across the just a jump skipping away from us. And
so they're also very heavily and wonderfully involved in the
(13:33):
programming of the theater and the structure of the theater
and kind of the operations and how we moved through.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
It's interesting because again when thinking of this program when
I when it was first brought to me, I thought, well,
I need to do some vacation mentals, I need to
do the lead of theater. And actually the A Market
and A restaurant really is also very iconic. Yes, and one.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Else it's the oldest restaurant in Newport.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Beach, is it there? You go? You know, and all
the places in Orange County there are some, but certainly
those really are and of course Wilme's on the Balbell
Island very much a few others that have been around
for so long.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
So actually, excuse me, we actually have in the theater
a print of the newspaper from the day that the
Leado Theater opened. If you ever stop by, take a look.
At that newspaper. It's really fun. You can read all
the little details. But one of them says, the Arches
restaurant congratulates the Leado Theater, and the Arches is what
is now A. So they took the A and kept that.
(14:38):
So A is the Arches.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
That's yeah, that's fascinating. I haven't seen that. Isn't in
the lobby.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
It's in the lobby on your left hand side, right
before the stairs.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Oh okay, so I'll have to go over there and
look at it.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
So those of us listening, I'm making the lobby sound
very large. I promise you it's very small and you
won't be lost. It's the restaurant and the lobby and
all that.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah, yeah, me. So the restoration is stunning. When he
took you through it was it started what yes, trying
to think now, what stage was it in when you
first saw it.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
I believe we toured in September of twenty twenty four,
maybe late August, and we reopened in October, and the
restoration finished that summer twenty twenty four, so it was
in its completed stages different than it is now. We've
made some just minor tweaks, such as you know, adding
(15:39):
in a different soda machine, adding in this kind of
you know, just little tiny differences, but it's exactly pretty
much the way it is when you go see it now.
So it was completely finished.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So the vibe when you go into it now is
pretty much the same as it was in the early days, exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yes, we actually have photo in the ticket booth that
show what the outside of the theater looked like in
the nineteen thirties and on opening day. It's very very interesting.
The lobby was a little bit different. They didn't have
as large a concession stand. There was only one restroom
downstairs and one restroom upstairs, so the gentlemen had to
(16:20):
go up the stairs to use the restroom. So that's
been changed. And it actually had a lot more seats.
So wait, now we have a little over five hundred
seats including the downstairs level and the balcony, but when
it opened it had over seven hundred seats, so you
have to think add on another balcony worth of seating
and they would have all been crammed in there.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And is that where the other seating was? Was there
an additional balcony?
Speaker 2 (16:45):
The stage actually was a lot smaller, For one, it
was minimal. It wasn't really meant to be used as
a stage. Nowadays we have performances on there, we have
speaker series, we're adding comedians to our lineup, we have concerts.
But it was very skinny, barely meant to be used
as a stage at all. And the seats had a
much shorter pitch, so the space between your knees and
(17:07):
the person in front of you would have been much shorter.
So they had more room in the front, and then
more room throughout because the seats were smaller and closer together.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Okay, but two hundred seats different, that's a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
It is a lot. I try to picture it, and
it sounds like like Cramp's waiting to happen.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Yeah, yes, definitely, But now you have to provide different things,
you know, for people to be able to navigate with
My mom comes with a wheelchair or her walker and
so forth, so you're required to do that. And we
certainly could take a minute here to do a commercial
for the lobby. Well, I'll say from personal experience, you
(17:48):
have one ice one popcorn, which is really if you
can see theater popcorn being healthy, I mean it's health
yest version of theater popcorn I've ever had, and the
concessions are somewhat limited, but you have what you need.
You have red vines and those kind of things, and
(18:10):
some drinks and how is how is all that determined,
especially from a restaurant tour.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Good question. So, yes, we do serve popcorn, delicious, healthy,
but delicious.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I will say I have to have some every time.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Definitely, we buttered and salted, and it's quite nice. You
know when you go in. Like I mentioned, the lobby
isn't that large, and we do have a seating capacity
of five hundred. So when you think about five hundred
people over forty five minutes getting popcorn, soda, candy, you
have to think about your efficiency at the end of
(18:47):
the day. So what can we serve people that will
allow them to enjoy their movie that will also allow
us to be able to serve everybody. So popcorn is
an absolute must. And then we have of all the
classic sodas, and we have bottles of water, and we
have candy, and we recently added charcuterie boxes to our lineup,
(19:09):
so those are catered by a market. They're little there,
it's like a six by five inch little box with
various cheeses, meats, fresh fruit, dried fruit, crackers, fig spread.
It's actually a quite nice accompaniment if you need just
a little bit more of a snack for your meal.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Or you need a meal because you're running from work
or running from somewhere else and haven't added chance to
have dinner. Well that's nice. I haven't. We haven't. We
haven't discovered that yet, but I'm sure we will on
our coming visit and we'll be at the TV Fest
pretty soon hopefully. So how do you select? I'm sure
everyone wants to know with the theater that's unique like this,
(19:49):
So describe for our viewers and our listeners. What is
your theater, what, how do you what kind of movies
do you have? What's your itinerary? What's your schedule? What
do you do at a theater that doesn't do big
run movies?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Great question. So we do a lot of pre released movies,
movies that have already come out that maybe people didn't
get a chance to see on the big screen, or
they're the kinds of movies that you need to see
on the big screen. We have had different series. I
like to curate themed weeks or even themed months, For example,
(20:28):
we just wrapped up our Gangster Week. We had The Godfather, Goodfellas,
and Scarface. We did an Audrey Hepburn week with Roman Holiday,
Sabrina and Breakfast to Tiffany's. That was a very fun week,
very different than the Gangster Week. I will say, all
of April we did our Eighties month, so we had
(20:50):
movies like The Goonies and The Princess Bride. It was
a lot of fun, and we did Star Wars run.
We did the original trilogy leading up to May the fourth,
which is casually known as Star Wars Day.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yes, Yes, And for Sinco de Mayo.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
We had the Three of Egos, which was we had
margarita served at the concessions counter, which is pretty rare.
We are technically a dry theater, but sometimes we'll bring
in a bit of alcohol for special occasions or private events,
and that will change in the future. We will have alcohol,
so hoping to add that in the next year or so.
(21:29):
But we also had tacos available that night and yes,
great night.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
It was really fun. So for again for the people
who can't see outside the theater, but inside there's a
little small fence around the main ticket booth outside and
in that area was contained and there were tacos served
there and all the things that go on tacos, and
then there were margarita's inside, and so everybody's socialized outside.
(21:58):
The food is amazing, Beyonce was great. And then to
go inside and grab some popcorn if you wanted it,
which we always do, and watch the Three Amigos and
it was so fun. Does a really fun, unique way
to celebrate sin Gootomile.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Well, I'm glad you came, thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
We did. Yeah, And we always like to meet other people.
Because it's a small enough group, you get to be
around other people and meet them very much and make
a few community friends. So how do you decide going forward?
What do you have a committee? Are you on the
committee who gets to finally make those decisions?
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Great questions. So I start with a lot of research.
So I look into movies that come out over the
summer that do really well. I look at movies that
are high grossing both in theaters and at home, movies
that do well on streaming, movies that have recently been
taken off streaming, movies that might have a sequel coming
up or an anniversary coming up. And then We do
(22:55):
a lot of market research, so people come into the
theater and say, oh, I really wish you would play
such and such. Oh well, we'll take that under advisement
and we write that down. Every time you make a
suggestion across social media, we get so many suggestions. We
recently put out a post asking folks what they would
love to see, and we compile this all into a
(23:16):
big list, and I kind of take a look at
what can slot into which days, which days are most successful.
I'm going to show a better movie on Friday and
Saturday than maybe a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, and thinking
about that, and then I grab a big list, put
all the dates in. I run it by my colleagues
at the A Restaurants. Matt Hardiman. He's absolutely wonderful, delight
(23:40):
to work with, and he works with me on so
many great things. We talk about programming and private events
and a lot of other things. But we kind of
discuss that between the two of us, I have one
very stereotypical view. I'm a younger, white female with no kids,
and he's slightly older than me, black male with kids.
So we have kind of a varying opinions there. So
(24:01):
we get a little bit of a breadth of thought,
and he brings up things that I might not have
thought of, and I bring up movies he might not
have thought of, and between the two of us we
compile a list. We run that by McGee. McGee takes
a look and says, I'd really love to play this
on that day, or that's a great choice, but move
it to here. He suggests things I'd never thought of.
(24:23):
Of course, he works in films, so he has incredible
taste and wonderful suggestions all the time. And after we
kind of discuss this it as a team, I go
out license the movies from the studios and programming is born.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
That's that's it. Huh So tell it? Of course it
sounds pretty easy, but I'm sure it's not. So tell us.
How about how far in advance do you plan?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
We do one to two months typically, okay, so not
too far in advance. We do a lot of private events,
so we host folks for things like we've had pre
wedding screenings. Father of the Bride is a really popular one.
We've had fun very far.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
So then a family will rent it the theater to speak.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, so the couple will rent it for like the
whole wedding party, maybe the night before the wedding or
after the rehearsal dinner. That's a lot of fun. It's
funny every time we get one of those requests. It's
always Father of the Brade. That's the only movie they
want to show. Yeah, right, yeah, but it's a classic.
It it's fabulous. And then we get things like birthday parties,
sometimes for little kids. Sometimes At fortieth fiftieth sixtieth birthday party,
(25:30):
we had a book signing that just took place in
the lobby, which is so beautiful. They had catered charcouterie
and wine served and she was signing her books. Greer Wilder, Yes,
that was a lot of fun. We've had corporate speaker
types that come in and disseminate information to their team
or sales sort of situation. We have a breadth of
(25:53):
private rentals and we want to work with them on
availability and when they can come in and host their events.
Fridays and Saturdays tend to be the most popular, so
if we program too far out, that blocks off a
lot of days for folks to come in and celebrate
their own times. And after all, we are here for
the community, so we'll have to sort of make space
(26:13):
for that, and then things come up. You know, we
ended up doing the Top Gun movies because of Val
Kilmer's recent passing, and that was sort of a.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Note time I wondered about that.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, and we did a Gene Hackman series a couple
of weeks ago, so you know, we also don't want
to get ahead of ourselves in terms of planning so
that we can pivot quickly.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
And all of your showings, at least so far, I think,
are one night only correct.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Correct in the past they have been. We've only been
open for who I Want what now six seven months,
so we're still in the early phases of figuring out
what really works at the Lido. Over the summer, we
are going to open up Greece will be playing for
two nights. That's going to be June twenty eighth and
twenty ninth, so that is a classic. We've got some
(27:01):
movies also up on our website as well if you
want to take a look for our listeners and viewers.
But yeah, mostly one night, so catch it while it's there.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, and I think that makes it even a little
bit more interesting because you do feel like you need.
It makes it seem really special, like, oh, we better
go get it while we can. So we look in advance,
and we tend to buy for nights. Last night something happened,
we couldn't come, and we're always sorry, but we're mostly sorry.
We're sorry weed some movies and we're sorry we don't
(27:33):
get to see you because we know you're right there
at the front, and to an experience, just an experience
for us, we enjoy it very very very much. So Actually,
when you go on your calendar, when someone goes and
they look at the Aldo Theater and it says something
is a private event, it really is a private event. Yes,
that's fascinating because most of the bigger theaters just aren't
(27:57):
available for that, and it's not the same intimate feeling
come to the leadout theater. It's all just one location.
You aren't going to a big theater and then you're
like room number five exactly. You get the experience of
coming to your venue.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
You get some people who come in the door and
they say, where do I go? Where's the theater? And
I said, it's just one big screen, just straight through
the double doors on either side. But it is kind
of baffling. When you think about a one screen movie theater.
It's not very common nowadays, but we are the largest
single auditorium theater in Orange County by seating, so single screen,
(28:35):
over five hundred seats were the largest.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
But are there really that many theaters like yours, even
in southern California. I'm sure there must be some in LA.
Maybe in LA.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Yes, just not that many left over. Even in the country,
they're they're dwindling at movie theaters as a whole are dwindling,
which is sad because I love seeing movies in a theater.
It really changes the slant. Example is when I watched
Breakfast at Tiffany's. I've been watching that movie with my
mom since I was a little girl, and I've always
loved it. But there were some parts that, you know,
(29:08):
the score is kind of funky, and I would think, huh,
I wonder what's going on there. Maybe it was just
something about it was a nineteen sixties thing and that's
what they did, and I just chalped it up to
cultural changes. And when I watched it in the theater
with over one hundred people, they were laughing at parts
that I never realized were funny. And it completely informs
(29:30):
and changes how you received the information of the film.
Watching the Avengers movies, for example, is completely different. I
remember watching them at home alone and I just wanted
a big crowd to stand up and cheer with me
when good things happen. Or watching Top Gun and we
all applaud when they make it back. It's completely completely different.
(29:53):
And that is something that's different about the Leado Theater
that you might not get in a regular movie theaters.
That these our movies that a lot of people have
seen before. So we know when to clap and we
know when to laugh. We know when our favorite parts
are coming up, and our favorite people. So it creates
almost more of a casual environment where it all just
feels like a big community. Exactly who comes in and
(30:16):
watches and cheers all together. It completely changes. So I
love watching movies in the Leado Theater specifically.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
And a lot of times there's just like you said,
there's parts of the movie that I'll say, I didn't
remember that right Roman Holiday, I didn't. I remembered very
little of it. And there was another one we saw
recently that I thought I didn't remember that it ended
like that. So but of course, as you said, a
(30:44):
lot of it depends on you know, I may have
seen it, you know, when I was in college or
something and just had a different context, right, and now
I'm seeing it in a different light. Yeah. Absolutely. And
the one movie I wanted to see, which unfortunately miss
was Bonnie and Clyde.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Ah. That was a fun night as well. That was
my first time seeing it.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Is that right? Yes, I thought that would be a
really fun movie and wessed it. My husband was born
and raised in Holland, and so he didn't see a
lot of the movies that I've seen, so for some
of them, you know, he wasn't so into Audrey. Hepburn
that when when I was and Mama Mia you showed
how was that for Mother's Day? Was Mother's Day?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yes, Mamma Mia was actually our biggest night since Christmas,
really our most successful evening. We had a fabulous turnout
and it was so fun to see the mom groups,
the uh, the families come in, the mom and daughter groups.
It's always fun because, as Val mentioned, I run the door,
(31:48):
so I check everybody in. I love meeting all the
guests as they come in, and so it's fun to
kind of see who's coming in on what particular nights,
and what films strike a chord with which audiences. And
Yadill did so well that will actually be bringing it
back this summer as well.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Oh great. Yeah, and we didn't get to come to that.
It sounds like I'm come to fewer than I don't
come to more than I come to, But that's not true.
We do come to a lot of them. So, from
Star Wars to Audrey Hepburn, what themed movie has surprised
you or delighted you the most?
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Oh, that is a fabulous question. I love seeing movies
that I've never seen before in the theater because since
I basically live and work there, it feels like a
second home, and I do sit upstairs to kind of
watch over downstairs, make sure all is going well. I'm
(32:42):
close to the projector room if anything needs to happen.
Sometimes I'm sending some quick emails at nine o'clock at night.
Everyone loves to receive those, I'm sure. But it's fun
watching movies I've never seen because I can kind of
be in this little bubble of my own cozy theater
that I know so well now, and I've got, you know,
my coworkers are with me. I absolutely love everyone I
(33:04):
work with. We've got an incredible team at the Lido.
If you ever come, and I mean our projectionist Jovon,
or serve by any one of our wonderful cast members,
you'll you'll see all the big smiles. And I have
to say, I'm truly blessed with a wonderful, wonderful team.
So I would just have to say anything that is
that I've never seen. For example, I'd never seen The
Godfather until last night, and it.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Was oh, really, m hm, So what did you think?
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Oh, it's fabulous. I understand why. It's completely iconic. It's
funny knowing the references to the Godfather and then watching
The Godfather and going, oh, that's where that comes from.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Yeah. Absolutely. Was there any movie well, Mama Mia was
it was a hit? Is there anything that really surprised
you or that you might not have chosen but you
were surprised with the acceptance in the community, you know?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
I don't. I don't think, So I have to say
we did show. We showed The Princess Bride in April
during our eighties month, and that was one of our
biggest nights as well. That was really really popular. But
I am a huge fan of The Princess Bride. I
completely love that film, so I understand. But you know,
it's always kind of a surprise when things blow up,
(34:20):
and it's a lovely surprise, a pleasant surprise.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Yes, yes, it was. One of the things that makes
this special, actually, I think is its acceptance and connection
with the community. And part of that comes because it is,
you know, the type of venue that it is where
it's a small, intimate theater. But have you had any
comments from the community or any memorable moments or comments
(34:45):
from anyone anyone who was ever there at the beginning?
Maybe is anyone that nobody's really nobody's that old, right, everybody's.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
When we first opened, I was at the theater a lot,
right before opening day in October. I was there like
twelve hours a day for a few weeks, just getting
everything set up. And one Monday morning I looked over
at Woodies, the restaurant which is across the walkway, and
there was a group of gentlemen over there. They ended
up coming to talk to me. They were a bit older,
and they said, well, I came when I was a
(35:17):
little boy in the forties, I came with my dad
and they were all sharing their stories of the history
and how they used to come to the Lido, and
that was a really really wonderful moment, especially in those
early days. For me, it really solidified the idea that.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
I'm just sort of holding space for this beautiful, beautiful
community center that has been here for so much longer
than I have and will continue to be hopefully for
so so many years and serve the community in that sense.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
That was really a beautiful moment for me.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
That is very, very very special. Yeah, that's pretty amazing.
So tell us about your relationship with Orange County Film Society.
How does that work? What do you show for them?
Are you their host venue of choice? Now?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
We are, so we host the Orange County Film Society,
who work in collaboration, are the same company as the
Newport Beach Film Festival and the Newport Beach TV Festival,
and it's a membership based society where you pay one
membership fee and you're welcome to any of their screenings.
They host, usually screenings of movies that are yet to
(36:29):
come out or have just released. For example, we show
Admission Impossible, the Final Reckoning recently for them, and it's
a wonderful opportunity for the community to kind of see
these movies in unique instances come to the theater. You
don't have to worry about getting tickets. You just get
emailed what's coming up and you come watch. For example,
(36:50):
they have a double screening of When Harry Met Sally
and the Materialists a new movie coming out, so they
do a lot of really fun sort of programming like that.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Tell us how the film festival works, now the film
Is it correct that the TV festt's coming up is
one showing at a time? Correct?
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yes? So the TV Festival June fifth to eighth, Yes,
is the inaugural television festival for the Newport Beach Film Festival.
This is the first time they're going to be doing it,
and it is entirely hosted at the Lido Theater. So
one showing Thursday, one showing Friday, and then a whole
(37:31):
bunch across the weekend. But it's going to be stars
of current popular TV shows. We're having Kate Hudson from
Running Point, We're hosting Adam Brody from Nobody Wants This,
the stars from Yellowjackets, Cobra, Kai having Ralph Macho and
William Zaka having I mean.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
I saw Landman also Yes Landman.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Dan Fogelman will be there, Sam Rockwell from White Low.
It's going to be really, really wonderful and a lot
of it is live podcasts, so each event is about
an hour and they'll be doing similar to what we're
doing now, chatting about the show and the creation. There's
some awards panels as well. It's a really really incredible
lineup and it's going to be really fun for us
(38:17):
as the theater and also all the guests that come
to be a part of this inaugural television festival.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
This is the first time they also have ever done
anything like this, correct exactly how exciting I saw the
announcement and we of course participated. After being with you,
we became members of the Film Society because this is
way too much fun and my husband loves movies. We
love foreign films a lot, and so this was just
(38:45):
perfect for us and we can just come and doesn't
take us long to get there, so it's perfect. So
having producers and directors and authors come for movie discussions,
it adds so much depth. I think that only happens
with the Orange County Film Society. Viewings correct up until now.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Yes, but we are in the process of bringing in
different people cast and crew who have worked on films
that we will be showing. So for our summer lineup,
you never know, you might see someone who worked on
the props or worked on the set design, or a
sound designer, or maybe assisted director or an editor, or
(39:24):
maybe a supporting actor. We'll kind of see where we
go with that, but we're definitely hoping to add more
qata's and that kind of a thing to our screenings
as well. But yes, the OC Film Society does a
fabulous job of bringing in people related to the film
as well when possible.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Any behind the scenes stories you can tell us about
about anybody being in the theater.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
And oh gosh, you know, I met Flavor. Flav that
was sort of a never on my bucket list and
I think that would happen at a water polo event
screening for the United States Olympic water polo team, So
that was kind of fun. He was actually a delight.
(40:08):
He did not stop taking photos until every single person
who wanted to take photos with him and taking photos.
He was decked out in Olympic water polo gear. He
had the little hat cap on and he was actually
really really wonderful with all the guests. I met Phineas
O'Connell and his dad last year during the film festival.
(40:31):
Actually didn't talk too much to Phineas, but I talked
to his dad, which was a true delight And it's
funny how normal these people are. It's delightful how normal
they are. He said, Oh, Dad, I didn't know you
were coming. He said, yeah, yeah, I thought i'd just
stopped by. You know, they live in la But it's
just it's kind of a pleasure just seeing these people
in again in my sort of home space and just
(40:52):
walking around the same places that I walk. It really
humanizes them and you say, we're all the same, We're
all just people. So whenever we'd have people come through, we.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Are so talk about the morning event. What is the
morning like at the Lido Theater. I happen to just
drive by one day saw the door was open. I
think I'm going to go in and tell our viewers
and our listeners what people discover in the mornings.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
That's super unique. We are open every day from seven
am to two pm, even Saturday and Sunday as a
pop up cafe, so from seven to two we serve
coffee and tea, breakfast pastries such as croissants, cookies, scones.
That's all catered by a market. Shelley is the head
(41:39):
chef over there. She does a fabulous job of curating
our menu. We also have delicious breakfast sandwiches, avocado toast
and salads and chips and popcorn. It's a really fun
way to kind of start your morning. People would say, well,
that's odd, why would you need to do that, But
we have a lot of older folks in the community
(42:00):
who might be retired and they get up early in
the morning. They want something to do. You know, maybe
you walk to the lido, you take a little morning stretch,
or you're walking by with your kids if you work
from home and they have a day off. We show
family movies on Saturday and Sunday. That's the other thing,
so during the cafes open hours we show one movie
(42:21):
per day. Rolling and entrance is free with any purchase
of a brewed coffee or a food item, so you
can get your breakfast, sit inside the theater and watch
Kindergarten cop we played the other day, or Legally Blonde,
or on the weekend's toy story something fun like that,
and it's kept super casual. The morning shows showings are
(42:44):
shown on our Instagram story, so those are posted the
day before. Just I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
I didn't know that, Okay.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
So if you go to Lido Theater, Newport Beach on
Instagram and check out our Instagram stories, you'll see what's
playing for the following day. You come on a weekend,
it'll be more family oriented. But we show fabulous movies
there every day, i'd say, and it's a lot of fun.
You may not come right when the movie's starting, but
you pop in for a little bit, pop out. It's
(43:13):
a really nice, nice time for the community.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
So you feel like you just need to take a
little break or get away a little bit, just pop
into the lead up theater and have a croissan and
a coffee, sit down and just take your weight off
your shoulders and your mind off of your work and
sit and watch a movie for a few minutes. And
when you need to just get up and leave, because
as she said, it's rolling, so the movie doesn't know.
(43:37):
Where you step in doesn't really matter because it doesn't
really start and then it stops. It just keeps going,
and so anytime between seven and two people can come in.
So let me ask you a question. So is your
viewership for that families? I mean, I've been there a
couple of times where I've seen parents and kids there.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
It's a myriad, a lot of families, a lot of
stay at home workers, employees maybe bring their laptop who
work in the theater. We have a lot of businesses
in the area. There's a lot of adorable shops on Lido,
so maybe on your lunch break you come in, sit down,
watch twenty minutes of a movie. There's some offices in
the area. They'll come get coffee for the office, or
(44:16):
just grab a pastry if you want to switch it up.
There's a lot of fabulous bakeries and cafes in Lido,
so we're just adding to the noise there. But you know,
it's a little bit different than what everybody does, and
it's certainly different than what you might ever seen in
any other movie theater. And I was actually surprised at
how many regulars we get for the cafe. We've got
one gentleman he comes in almost every day and he
(44:37):
is so kind, he loves coming. He grabs a coffee
and sits and hangs out. So I love our regulars,
including you. They're all fabulous. And it's really the people
that come back time and time again that like you said,
I recognize, I remember their names, and it makes the
lido feel more like a community. So it's not just
what we do, it's you all coming back and supporting
(44:59):
us and showing us that this is a wonderful place.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
To be and for the grips of people who haven't
or for the benefit of people who haven't been there.
There are I think two maybe two bar top tables
in the lobby area where people can sit and work
on their laptop or just sit and take a little
break so you don't have to stand up or go
in and watch a movie. Maybe they're the right time
(45:21):
or space available. And aren't there a few tables outside
as well?
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Exactly So we have b strow tables both inside and outside,
little be strochairs, so if you wanted to stop in
and have your breakfast outside, you could do that. If
you want to step into the lobby and just enjoy
our curated playlist of we have an oldies playlist where
we also intersperse old movie songs, so old scores from
fabulous films. You can do that or you can pop
(45:48):
into the movie.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Do you have a special and I would guess this
is probably a hard question to answer. Do you have
a favorite part of the theater that you really means
a lot to you. There's so many details, and you've
talked about so much, and there's so much to love,
from the Betty Davis bathroom and parlor to the little
(46:10):
windows that we're hidden. But there's something that you do
that's really you.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Well, I'll talk about one of my favorite sort of
hidden gems, and then I'll talk about what is really me. Okay,
So one of my favorite hidden gems is the dumb waiter.
Dumbwaiter is sort of an elevator for non people, right
and back in the day when the theater opened, there
only had film reels, so it was big strips on
metal reels usually and they're really really heavy. So movie
(46:39):
theaters developed a system of dumb waiters. So if you
go into the Lido, it's actually in our back closet.
It's not accessible to guests, but I'll give you sort
of an auditory exploration. There is a little door against
one of the walls and if you look straight up inside,
it's a shaft that goes right into the project and
(47:00):
if you go up two and a half lights of
stairs up into the projector room, which is at the
very very top of the theater, I call it the
little mouse hole. There's the second door. And back in
the day, the film studios would send a courier, usually
from Hollywood with forty pounds of film reels to the theater.
And we don't have an elevator or anything like that,
(47:22):
so they would have a separate key. They could unlock
the side door and just drop the film reels right
into the dumb waiter, close the door, and head back
out on their next deliveries. And when the projectionist would
come in before the movie, they would go straight upstairs,
unlock the dumbwaiter door, and pully the system all the
way back up. There's even a hole in the wall
(47:44):
at the bottom in the projector room for the dumb
waiter to kind of roll for the projectionists to roll
the film strip into the projector room where there used
to be film projectors. Now we only have a digital projector,
but all the windows actually, if you ever earned the
theater and you look way back up. There's multiple windows
(48:04):
in that room and that used to be for all
the different projectors because they all had different film strip sizes,
so you had to have multiples of that, and then
there are multiple windows in the wall to be able
to project onto the screen.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
This is fascinating. No one would know unless we heard
it directly from you. They really didn't have to even
preserve that, right.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
It was not in use, actually, but they did preserve it.
All the past owners of the Lido Theater did preserve it.
And you can still open it up and look down.
The cables are all cut, but it's still there. If
I dropped a cheetoh you could open your mouth and
eat it from downstairs.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
Oh, we want to try that.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
And now it's just HVAC kind of running through there.
So it's a practical sense. But yeah, the doors are
still there. And when I hire new cast members to
work at the Lido, it's one of my favorite parts
of showing them the tour. I say, pop in here
and yell down and the people down below will hear you.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
And with all the advancement of technology, I mean, you
really never know what that might become very much, you know,
we don't think we would use it, but you never
know what you might end up using it for. But
then you were going to tell us your part.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Yes, So that's one of my favorite tidbits. But I
would say the part that feels the most to me
is the stage. As corny as that sounds, I grew
up in theater. I grew up doing plays from a
very young age. I did ballet from the age of three.
I've been singing all my life, so performing is in
my blood. And sometimes I'll just sit on stage and
(49:34):
type my emails or getting up there and setting up something,
sweeping the stage. It just sort of there's a there's
a certain feeling that I get from from being on
a stage, and I love that it gets to be
in somewhere that I get to call home. It's really
beautiful and really really special.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
I will ask you something you don't you don't have
to answer, but are you ever in there by yourself?
I'm going to even tear up asking this, Are you
ever in the by yourself? And you're on the stage
and you're just thinking, this is kind of my place,
and you kind of in your own mind imagine yourself
performing there.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
I think one of the first times I was there alone,
it kind of hit me what I had signed on to,
what I had been welcomed into, really this beautiful gift
that had been handed to me. I'm learning more about
the theater and what I do there every day. It's
a very unique place to be. But the first time
(50:32):
I was there all alone, I went up on the
stage and I changed the lights so it was just
the spotlights and you can't see anyone in the audience,
and I pictured, you know, how little ens would be
so proud of where I am now, and I think
I teared up as well. It was a very I've
made it kind of moment. It was very special.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
That's yes, that is very special. Is there something that
you hope I'm sure there is. What is it that
you hope people walk away with when they've been in
your theater and they leave, What do you hope they
feel in their heart and their soul about being a
(51:13):
part of the lead of theater experience.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
I've had people walk away and say I had no
idea it was going to be like this, and people
that say this is my new favorite date spot. Oh, sure,
that's my favorite thing. I want people to feel like
this is their theater. This is their chance to step
back and relive the memories of the past while sharing
(51:37):
in the stories that we all watch on the screen.
I call our employees cast members, and I tell them
all during training we are part of a bigger story,
not just the story that we're about to play on screen,
but we're part of the storied past of the Lido
and the story of our community and how this has
touched so many people's lives. And we remember your names,
we remember your faces. We say welcome back because we
(52:01):
want you to feel like this is your place to
come and enjoy as well.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
If you could host a dream screening with any special guest,
past or present, what film would you show and who
would you join for discussion?
Speaker 2 (52:18):
Oh, that is a fabulous question, Val, I'm already torn
between dozens of different films in my head. Oh, I'm
sure you know. I We just watched Mama Mia and
that was so fun and watching during the credits the
whole cast just hanging out and singing extra songs. I've
(52:38):
heard so much more about that movie and how they
filmed it, and the Cassime's so connected. I think that
would be a fabulous other screening to show with. I mean,
Meryl Streep is one of my all time favorite actresses ever,
rightfully so, so I think it'd be very fun to
have her and the entire cast there as well, maybe
(52:59):
the directors talking about what it's like to get that
sort of a performance. And that's sort of a feeling
out of a movie because we've shown other movies. I've
seen lots of movies there, but something about the energy
that night, it was electric. I was up in the
last row of the theater dancing on the on the
little the little staircase, and I was just so excited.
(53:22):
There's something about that movie that does even though people say,
oh it's it's a lighthearted, it's a feel good you know,
the blending of the music at acting, it all just
comes together. So that is what comes to mind.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
I can imagine you on the stage as a part
of that. Thank you, Yes, let me add there. Unfortunately
our time is up. Thank you for holding this piece
of history in your hands so well and making it
something alive for the community and for all the people
in the arts whose movies are a part of that.
(53:57):
And you're the cast members that you've developed in the
management team, who's blessed all of us with having you
there every night, and for your feeling that I know
you must feel. You just get to hold this time
in your hands, and sometimes somebody else will come and
take it. They took it, and now it's your turn,
(54:18):
and what a great feeling. We're so glad to have
you here. From Golden era Glamour Today's created curated cinema experiences,
the Lead Out Theater is certainly much more than a building.
It's a portal into everything we love about stories, artistry,
and community. A huge thank you in a scandal for
(54:39):
giving us a behind the scenes look at what it
takes to keep this historic gem shining, bright and alive.
So whether you're a film buff, a coffee lover, or
just someone seeking a little escape, the Lido welcomes you
with open doors and a vintage marquee. So we will
see you there hopefully until the next time. Keep exploring
(55:02):
so cow with val and thank you, Enes
Speaker 2 (55:06):
Thank you so much.
Welcome back to socaw with Bell, where we explore the
vibrant people, places, and passions that make Southern California definitely
one of a kind. When I first had the opportunity
to host this show, one of the very first places
that I knew I wanted to feature was the Lido
Theater with its unique history, its unforgettable character, it's coastal charm.
(00:47):
It's definitely not just a movie theater. It's not a
movie house. It's a living piece of Southern California magic.
It's definitely an experience. Located in the heart of Newport
b which is Ledo Marina Village, This historic gym has
recently been restored, was taken off the market, out of
commission for a while, and restore took I mean well
(01:09):
over a year. It's been beautifully restored, now blending old
Hollywood glamour with a fresh, inviting energy. And who better
to guide us through this story than in Nees Scandal,
the general manager who's helping bring this icon to life again.
From themed classics and film society questions and answers to
(01:32):
morning coffee and cinema experiences and upcoming TV festivals, Ins
is currently curating something truly special for film lovers, art lovers,
and the community alike. So let's take our seats, roll
up your window if you're driving, turn up your volume,
and let's discover the magic of the Lido Theater. Welcome
(01:55):
Inness Scandal.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Val.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I'm super excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I'm excited to be here. And I should tell all
of our guests and our listeners and our viewers that
when you go to the Lido Theater for any event
in USA, is there greeting you. And she's so nice
and she remembers your name. So her background in media,
in entertainment, in marketing, and in the arts is certainly catching.
(02:24):
Her passion is catching, and she's someone you want to
see when you enter the door. So, Innes, tell us,
first of all, a little bit about your background. I
think you have a master's in entertainment marketing. Exactly what
is that? It sounds exciting? Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Thank you for the kind words. First of all, that's
so great to hear. I'm glad and I will say
to all of our listeners and viewers it's a pleasure
to have Val walk through the door. She's always smiling,
and I would say she's come to at least eighty
five percent of the movies we put on, and it's
the highlight of my night when she walks through the door.
So thank you for that. I appreciate that. Yes, Mike,
(03:00):
my history is in entertainment communication management. That is what
my master's degree is in. I earned my master's and
bachelor's from the University of Southern California, which actually brought
me to California from Seattle, where I was born and raised.
And throughout college I worked a lot in live performing arts.
I worked a lot in the filmed arts. We did
(03:20):
a lot of different projects that were managerial but also
entertainment and arts focused, a lot of communication based things.
And from there I've worked as a producer in a
number of different arts fields. I have worked at Paramount Pictures.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. I just didn't love
the commute from Newport to.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
LA I can get that.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
That was a wonderful, wonderful experience, and since living in Newport,
this has just been the next logical step. I hadn't
been here since it had been opened, and once it did,
I was very, very excited to be a part of
the team.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Well, I'm sure they're glad to have you. So, going
through that experience in getting your education, what did you
hope you would become? What was your vision? What was
your dream job?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
That's a great question. I have a number of dream jobs.
I think you can find that among a lot of creative,
artistic people. I like to think of myself as a
going through different phases rather than one single dream job.
But when I look at what I'm doing now, it
is definitely a dream job. I joke with people and
I say, I get paid to watch movies. I eat
(04:28):
popcorn and watch some incredible movies in one of the
most beautiful theaters I have ever had the pleasure of
being in, much less hosted other people in. So it's
truly a dream job. You could say, and.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Were you Were you involved during the rehab process?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Good question, I was not so talking through.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
That ring model or rehabits a refreshing kind of yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
A restoration restoration. The language is only picky because a
restoration refers to restore something to the way it once
was or used to be. So the leader theater has
changed hands many times over it's over eighty five year
story passed and we have recently reopened it in October
under new management and where the current operators and the
(05:18):
landlords Fritz Duda Company were the ones overseeing the restoration.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
And I know it took a while, and many of
us would go to Starbucks and we'd try to peek
in and guys would come out. We'd say, what are
you doing in there? You know? Oh, you don't know,
you don't know. You know. Everybody had their own job exactly.
So what drew, Well, let's talk a little bit more
about the theater. So when many of us think about
the Leader Theater, although we weren't there at the time,
(05:44):
we hear one thing and that's about how Betty Davis
was a part of that. So tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
So Betty Davis lived in Corona del mar in CDM,
not too far and it so the legend goes, I
don't know if anyone really knows for sure, but she was
walking by the theater seeing it being built in the
late nineteen thirties and said, you better open with my picture,
which her next picture was Jezebel, And it did the
night it opened October twenty seventh, nineteen thirty nine. It
(06:15):
opened with Jezebel, and during construction she also said, well,
you should have a parlor room, a sitting room, a
smoking room, a fainting room. It has many different names.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Oh, is there right, I haven't heard the fainting room. Yes.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
In the women's room, which is actually still there today,
it's been beautifully restored. So if you go in there now,
the women's restroom, when you enter on the left, it
has a little sitting parlor which was very stereotypical of
the late nineteen thirties and on, where you would go
and pow do your noses and have a smoke and
chit chat with your girlfriends in between the movies or
(06:49):
before or after. It was a very common social aspect.
And that restroom actually during the restoration, they chose feathered
wallpaper because Betty Davis wore a lot of feat in.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Her cause that's the story.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yes, So that's why the wallpaper in that bathroom is
different than the rest of the bathrooms. And the tile.
I could go on about the history and what's original
and what's not, but the tile in that restroom is
also entirely original. So if you go in there, it
really is like stepping back in time.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So it's some of the things there are original from
the original theater.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
There's a lot actually in the theater. That's a great question.
The ticket booth is all original. The exterior is pretty
much entirely original, including the floral detailed cornices on the outside.
The marquee is original. The Lidos sign that lights up
the iconic sign you can actually see it from certain
angles if you're flying in or out of John Wayne Airport,
(07:42):
that is original. The torotzo is entirely original. All the
wood that you see in the lobby, such as the
crown molding, the pillars, and all but two of the
doors are entirely original. So the big heavy double doors
on either side of the lobby to get into the theater,
those are into entirely original. The staircase, the main layout
(08:03):
of the theater is original. The wall paintings have been
restored as what they were originally, so they had been
covered and changed over the years. But the restorators, the
Fritz du To Company, took special photography and they did months,
maybe years of research and looking back in the annals
(08:24):
of where the Lido has been in the last eighty
five years to capture exactly what the beautiful wall paintings
would have been in nineteen thirty nine. The little window
boxes on the side of the stage actually is a
really fun story. Nobody knew they were there. None of
the current owners knew that the little window boxes on
(08:46):
the side of the screen were there until they were
restoring in the theater and they found big holes in
the foundation, and so they decided to reincorporate it. But
if you went to the theater in the last before
it opened five years ago or before it closed five
years ago, in the most recent history, you wouldn't have
seen those because they were completely boarded up. So they
(09:08):
revitalized those, put curtains behind them at a bit of lighting,
and now it makes it feel much more grand. It's
a really really nice touch.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
What incredible and so exciting it must be to be
a part of history, especially in our area. Really we don't,
you know, things on on our part of the country
aren't really that old r as a general rule, you know,
not compared to if you live in Rhode Island or Boston.
You know our Connecticut or you know Martha's Vineyard, right,
(09:37):
I mean, some of those things they're really from the
beginning of our country and so here to be able
to find something with that history is really must be
fun to be a part of it. And I'm sure,
with your passion for the arts and for for really
unique experiences, you must love being there.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
So tell me when they came to you and presented
this opportunity. Where you looking for this or did someone
discover you? I think you were at Mulan, Is that true?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
That's a great question. Yes, I was actually working at Mulin.
I was working sort of under the manager over there,
and I was I speak French fluently, which was why
I worked well at Mulin. My family is French on
my mother's side, and a woman came in one day
asking for someone to give her French classes, and I said, well,
(10:26):
I can give you conversational French classes. So every really, yes,
it's such a funny kind of meandering story how I
ended up here. But every week I would meet up
with her because she was going on a trip to Paris,
and we would talk about conversational French and what you'll
use when you get there, how to order coffee and
get directions right versus left. All the basics. Oh, and
(10:48):
she was so wonderful and one day she asked me, well,
what do you really want to do. I'm not sure
if you want to stay here forever. And I said, well,
I love the arts. I have a master's in entertainment management,
and I love live theater, I love film, I love performing.
I've worked in opera, I've done dance, all the different things.
(11:09):
So anything to be back in the arts and entertainment
sphere would really just light up my soul. And she said, why,
I have a friend who's working on reopening a theater
and maybe he needs some help or something. Let me see.
And our friend was one Fritz Duda of the Fritz
Duda Company. So she put me in touch with him,
(11:31):
and he said, well, we're the landlords, but we will
not be the operators. Why don't I put you in
touch with Mickjee, who is the current operator. If you're
not familiar, he is a Hollywood director and producer a
number of fabulous films. He worked in music videos for
a very long time. A native to this area, and
(11:52):
Alito Theater is his passion project, you could say. So
I met with him and we immediately clicked. We discussed
the theater. He took me on a tour and we
talked about his vision and how I can completely see
that coming to life and it was a natural fit.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
That's amazing, And it's incredible how things like that happen
in life, Isn't it just I.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Was not looking at all? But you know, the right
things just get put in your path at the right time.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
And you know, if you had not been there at
that time and you had not responded, if you had thought,
I don't really want to do that, right, you would
this opportunity wouldn't be for you.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
So very true.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Just an example of responding to opportunities, being open to opportunities, right.
You never know, you know, there's so many things in
my life that it had I not been in that
place at that time, right.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
And taking the leap and just saying, you know, the
theater was closed at the time. I had no idea
what it was going to be, and I had never
met McGee before, I wasn't familiar with his work, So
it was very much a leap of faith and just
kind of trusting your gut in that sense.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
And then isn't there another group? I thought there was
maybe the people connected with the A restaurant? Are they
a part of this? Also?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yes, so McGee is a majority shareholder in River Jetty
Restaurant Group, so he works very closely with all of
the A Restaurants pch CDM A Market which is just
across the just a jump skipping away from us. And
so they're also very heavily and wonderfully involved in the
(13:33):
programming of the theater and the structure of the theater
and kind of the operations and how we moved through.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
It's interesting because again when thinking of this program when
I when it was first brought to me, I thought, well,
I need to do some vacation mentals, I need to
do the lead of theater. And actually the A Market
and A restaurant really is also very iconic. Yes, and one.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Else it's the oldest restaurant in Newport.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Beach, is it there? You go? You know, and all
the places in Orange County there are some, but certainly
those really are and of course Wilme's on the Balbell
Island very much a few others that have been around
for so long.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
So actually, excuse me, we actually have in the theater
a print of the newspaper from the day that the
Leado Theater opened. If you ever stop by, take a look.
At that newspaper. It's really fun. You can read all
the little details. But one of them says, the Arches
restaurant congratulates the Leado Theater, and the Arches is what
is now A. So they took the A and kept that.
(14:38):
So A is the Arches.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
That's yeah, that's fascinating. I haven't seen that. Isn't in
the lobby.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
It's in the lobby on your left hand side, right
before the stairs.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Oh okay, so I'll have to go over there and
look at it.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
So those of us listening, I'm making the lobby sound
very large. I promise you it's very small and you
won't be lost. It's the restaurant and the lobby and
all that.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah, yeah, me. So the restoration is stunning. When he
took you through it was it started what yes, trying
to think now, what stage was it in when you
first saw it.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
I believe we toured in September of twenty twenty four,
maybe late August, and we reopened in October, and the
restoration finished that summer twenty twenty four, so it was
in its completed stages different than it is now. We've
made some just minor tweaks, such as you know, adding
(15:39):
in a different soda machine, adding in this kind of
you know, just little tiny differences, but it's exactly pretty
much the way it is when you go see it now.
So it was completely finished.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So the vibe when you go into it now is
pretty much the same as it was in the early days, exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yes, we actually have photo in the ticket booth that
show what the outside of the theater looked like in
the nineteen thirties and on opening day. It's very very interesting.
The lobby was a little bit different. They didn't have
as large a concession stand. There was only one restroom
downstairs and one restroom upstairs, so the gentlemen had to
(16:20):
go up the stairs to use the restroom. So that's
been changed. And it actually had a lot more seats.
So wait, now we have a little over five hundred
seats including the downstairs level and the balcony, but when
it opened it had over seven hundred seats, so you
have to think add on another balcony worth of seating
and they would have all been crammed in there.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And is that where the other seating was? Was there
an additional balcony?
Speaker 2 (16:45):
The stage actually was a lot smaller, For one, it
was minimal. It wasn't really meant to be used as
a stage. Nowadays we have performances on there, we have
speaker series, we're adding comedians to our lineup, we have concerts.
But it was very skinny, barely meant to be used
as a stage at all. And the seats had a
much shorter pitch, so the space between your knees and
(17:07):
the person in front of you would have been much shorter.
So they had more room in the front, and then
more room throughout because the seats were smaller and closer together.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Okay, but two hundred seats different, that's a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
It is a lot. I try to picture it, and
it sounds like like Cramp's waiting to happen.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Yeah, yes, definitely, But now you have to provide different things,
you know, for people to be able to navigate with
My mom comes with a wheelchair or her walker and
so forth, so you're required to do that. And we
certainly could take a minute here to do a commercial
for the lobby. Well, I'll say from personal experience, you
(17:48):
have one ice one popcorn, which is really if you
can see theater popcorn being healthy, I mean it's health
yest version of theater popcorn I've ever had, and the
concessions are somewhat limited, but you have what you need.
You have red vines and those kind of things, and
(18:10):
some drinks and how is how is all that determined,
especially from a restaurant tour.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Good question. So, yes, we do serve popcorn, delicious, healthy,
but delicious.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I will say I have to have some every time.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Definitely, we buttered and salted, and it's quite nice. You
know when you go in. Like I mentioned, the lobby
isn't that large, and we do have a seating capacity
of five hundred. So when you think about five hundred
people over forty five minutes getting popcorn, soda, candy, you
have to think about your efficiency at the end of
(18:47):
the day. So what can we serve people that will
allow them to enjoy their movie that will also allow
us to be able to serve everybody. So popcorn is
an absolute must. And then we have of all the
classic sodas, and we have bottles of water, and we
have candy, and we recently added charcuterie boxes to our lineup,
(19:09):
so those are catered by a market. They're little there,
it's like a six by five inch little box with
various cheeses, meats, fresh fruit, dried fruit, crackers, fig spread.
It's actually a quite nice accompaniment if you need just
a little bit more of a snack for your meal.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Or you need a meal because you're running from work
or running from somewhere else and haven't added chance to
have dinner. Well that's nice. I haven't. We haven't. We
haven't discovered that yet, but I'm sure we will on
our coming visit and we'll be at the TV Fest
pretty soon hopefully. So how do you select? I'm sure
everyone wants to know with the theater that's unique like this,
(19:49):
So describe for our viewers and our listeners. What is
your theater, what, how do you what kind of movies
do you have? What's your itinerary? What's your schedule? What
do you do at a theater that doesn't do big
run movies?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Great question. So we do a lot of pre released movies,
movies that have already come out that maybe people didn't
get a chance to see on the big screen, or
they're the kinds of movies that you need to see
on the big screen. We have had different series. I
like to curate themed weeks or even themed months, For example,
(20:28):
we just wrapped up our Gangster Week. We had The Godfather, Goodfellas,
and Scarface. We did an Audrey Hepburn week with Roman Holiday,
Sabrina and Breakfast to Tiffany's. That was a very fun week,
very different than the Gangster Week. I will say, all
of April we did our Eighties month, so we had
(20:50):
movies like The Goonies and The Princess Bride. It was
a lot of fun, and we did Star Wars run.
We did the original trilogy leading up to May the fourth,
which is casually known as Star Wars Day.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yes, Yes, And for Sinco de Mayo.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
We had the Three of Egos, which was we had
margarita served at the concessions counter, which is pretty rare.
We are technically a dry theater, but sometimes we'll bring
in a bit of alcohol for special occasions or private events,
and that will change in the future. We will have alcohol,
so hoping to add that in the next year or so.
(21:29):
But we also had tacos available that night and yes,
great night.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
It was really fun. So for again for the people
who can't see outside the theater, but inside there's a
little small fence around the main ticket booth outside and
in that area was contained and there were tacos served
there and all the things that go on tacos, and
then there were margarita's inside, and so everybody's socialized outside.
(21:58):
The food is amazing, Beyonce was great. And then to
go inside and grab some popcorn if you wanted it,
which we always do, and watch the Three Amigos and
it was so fun. Does a really fun, unique way
to celebrate sin Gootomile.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Well, I'm glad you came, thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
We did. Yeah, And we always like to meet other people.
Because it's a small enough group, you get to be
around other people and meet them very much and make
a few community friends. So how do you decide going forward?
What do you have a committee? Are you on the
committee who gets to finally make those decisions?
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Great questions. So I start with a lot of research.
So I look into movies that come out over the
summer that do really well. I look at movies that
are high grossing both in theaters and at home, movies
that do well on streaming, movies that have recently been
taken off streaming, movies that might have a sequel coming
up or an anniversary coming up. And then We do
(22:55):
a lot of market research, so people come into the
theater and say, oh, I really wish you would play
such and such. Oh well, we'll take that under advisement
and we write that down. Every time you make a
suggestion across social media, we get so many suggestions. We
recently put out a post asking folks what they would
love to see, and we compile this all into a
(23:16):
big list, and I kind of take a look at
what can slot into which days, which days are most successful.
I'm going to show a better movie on Friday and
Saturday than maybe a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, and thinking
about that, and then I grab a big list, put
all the dates in. I run it by my colleagues
at the A Restaurants. Matt Hardiman. He's absolutely wonderful, delight
(23:40):
to work with, and he works with me on so
many great things. We talk about programming and private events
and a lot of other things. But we kind of
discuss that between the two of us, I have one
very stereotypical view. I'm a younger, white female with no kids,
and he's slightly older than me, black male with kids.
So we have kind of a varying opinions there. So
(24:01):
we get a little bit of a breadth of thought,
and he brings up things that I might not have
thought of, and I bring up movies he might not
have thought of, and between the two of us we
compile a list. We run that by McGee. McGee takes
a look and says, I'd really love to play this
on that day, or that's a great choice, but move
it to here. He suggests things I'd never thought of.
(24:23):
Of course, he works in films, so he has incredible
taste and wonderful suggestions all the time. And after we
kind of discuss this it as a team, I go
out license the movies from the studios and programming is born.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
That's that's it. Huh So tell it? Of course it
sounds pretty easy, but I'm sure it's not. So tell us.
How about how far in advance do you plan?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
We do one to two months typically, okay, so not
too far in advance. We do a lot of private events,
so we host folks for things like we've had pre
wedding screenings. Father of the Bride is a really popular one.
We've had fun very far.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
So then a family will rent it the theater to speak.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, so the couple will rent it for like the
whole wedding party, maybe the night before the wedding or
after the rehearsal dinner. That's a lot of fun. It's
funny every time we get one of those requests. It's
always Father of the Brade. That's the only movie they
want to show. Yeah, right, yeah, but it's a classic.
It it's fabulous. And then we get things like birthday parties,
sometimes for little kids. Sometimes At fortieth fiftieth sixtieth birthday party,
(25:30):
we had a book signing that just took place in
the lobby, which is so beautiful. They had catered charcouterie
and wine served and she was signing her books. Greer Wilder, Yes,
that was a lot of fun. We've had corporate speaker
types that come in and disseminate information to their team
or sales sort of situation. We have a breadth of
(25:53):
private rentals and we want to work with them on
availability and when they can come in and host their events.
Fridays and Saturdays tend to be the most popular, so
if we program too far out, that blocks off a
lot of days for folks to come in and celebrate
their own times. And after all, we are here for
the community, so we'll have to sort of make space
(26:13):
for that, and then things come up. You know, we
ended up doing the Top Gun movies because of Val
Kilmer's recent passing, and that was sort of a.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Note time I wondered about that.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, and we did a Gene Hackman series a couple
of weeks ago, so you know, we also don't want
to get ahead of ourselves in terms of planning so
that we can pivot quickly.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
And all of your showings, at least so far, I think,
are one night only correct.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Correct in the past they have been. We've only been
open for who I Want what now six seven months,
so we're still in the early phases of figuring out
what really works at the Lido. Over the summer, we
are going to open up Greece will be playing for
two nights. That's going to be June twenty eighth and
twenty ninth, so that is a classic. We've got some
(27:01):
movies also up on our website as well if you
want to take a look for our listeners and viewers.
But yeah, mostly one night, so catch it while it's there.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, and I think that makes it even a little
bit more interesting because you do feel like you need.
It makes it seem really special, like, oh, we better
go get it while we can. So we look in advance,
and we tend to buy for nights. Last night something happened,
we couldn't come, and we're always sorry, but we're mostly sorry.
We're sorry weed some movies and we're sorry we don't
(27:33):
get to see you because we know you're right there
at the front, and to an experience, just an experience
for us, we enjoy it very very very much. So Actually,
when you go on your calendar, when someone goes and
they look at the Aldo Theater and it says something
is a private event, it really is a private event. Yes,
that's fascinating because most of the bigger theaters just aren't
(27:57):
available for that, and it's not the same intimate feeling
come to the leadout theater. It's all just one location.
You aren't going to a big theater and then you're
like room number five exactly. You get the experience of
coming to your venue.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
You get some people who come in the door and
they say, where do I go? Where's the theater? And
I said, it's just one big screen, just straight through
the double doors on either side. But it is kind
of baffling. When you think about a one screen movie theater.
It's not very common nowadays, but we are the largest
single auditorium theater in Orange County by seating, so single screen,
(28:35):
over five hundred seats were the largest.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
But are there really that many theaters like yours, even
in southern California. I'm sure there must be some in LA.
Maybe in LA.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Yes, just not that many left over. Even in the country,
they're they're dwindling at movie theaters as a whole are dwindling,
which is sad because I love seeing movies in a theater.
It really changes the slant. Example is when I watched
Breakfast at Tiffany's. I've been watching that movie with my
mom since I was a little girl, and I've always
loved it. But there were some parts that, you know,
(29:08):
the score is kind of funky, and I would think, huh,
I wonder what's going on there. Maybe it was just
something about it was a nineteen sixties thing and that's
what they did, and I just chalped it up to
cultural changes. And when I watched it in the theater
with over one hundred people, they were laughing at parts
that I never realized were funny. And it completely informs
(29:30):
and changes how you received the information of the film.
Watching the Avengers movies, for example, is completely different. I
remember watching them at home alone and I just wanted
a big crowd to stand up and cheer with me
when good things happen. Or watching Top Gun and we
all applaud when they make it back. It's completely completely different.
(29:53):
And that is something that's different about the Leado Theater
that you might not get in a regular movie theaters.
That these our movies that a lot of people have
seen before. So we know when to clap and we
know when to laugh. We know when our favorite parts
are coming up, and our favorite people. So it creates
almost more of a casual environment where it all just
feels like a big community. Exactly who comes in and
(30:16):
watches and cheers all together. It completely changes. So I
love watching movies in the Leado Theater specifically.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
And a lot of times there's just like you said,
there's parts of the movie that I'll say, I didn't
remember that right Roman Holiday, I didn't. I remembered very
little of it. And there was another one we saw
recently that I thought I didn't remember that it ended
like that. So but of course, as you said, a
(30:44):
lot of it depends on you know, I may have
seen it, you know, when I was in college or
something and just had a different context, right, and now
I'm seeing it in a different light. Yeah. Absolutely. And
the one movie I wanted to see, which unfortunately miss
was Bonnie and Clyde.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Ah. That was a fun night as well. That was
my first time seeing it.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Is that right? Yes, I thought that would be a
really fun movie and wessed it. My husband was born
and raised in Holland, and so he didn't see a
lot of the movies that I've seen, so for some
of them, you know, he wasn't so into Audrey. Hepburn
that when when I was and Mama Mia you showed
how was that for Mother's Day? Was Mother's Day?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yes, Mamma Mia was actually our biggest night since Christmas,
really our most successful evening. We had a fabulous turnout
and it was so fun to see the mom groups,
the uh, the families come in, the mom and daughter groups.
It's always fun because, as Val mentioned, I run the door,
(31:48):
so I check everybody in. I love meeting all the
guests as they come in, and so it's fun to
kind of see who's coming in on what particular nights,
and what films strike a chord with which audiences. And
Yadill did so well that will actually be bringing it
back this summer as well.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Oh great. Yeah, and we didn't get to come to that.
It sounds like I'm come to fewer than I don't
come to more than I come to, But that's not true.
We do come to a lot of them. So, from
Star Wars to Audrey Hepburn, what themed movie has surprised
you or delighted you the most?
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Oh, that is a fabulous question. I love seeing movies
that I've never seen before in the theater because since
I basically live and work there, it feels like a
second home, and I do sit upstairs to kind of
watch over downstairs, make sure all is going well. I'm
(32:42):
close to the projector room if anything needs to happen.
Sometimes I'm sending some quick emails at nine o'clock at night.
Everyone loves to receive those, I'm sure. But it's fun
watching movies I've never seen because I can kind of
be in this little bubble of my own cozy theater
that I know so well now, and I've got, you know,
my coworkers are with me. I absolutely love everyone I
(33:04):
work with. We've got an incredible team at the Lido.
If you ever come, and I mean our projectionist Jovon,
or serve by any one of our wonderful cast members,
you'll you'll see all the big smiles. And I have
to say, I'm truly blessed with a wonderful, wonderful team.
So I would just have to say anything that is
that I've never seen. For example, I'd never seen The
Godfather until last night, and it.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Was oh, really, m hm, So what did you think?
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Oh, it's fabulous. I understand why. It's completely iconic. It's
funny knowing the references to the Godfather and then watching
The Godfather and going, oh, that's where that comes from.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Yeah. Absolutely. Was there any movie well, Mama Mia was
it was a hit? Is there anything that really surprised
you or that you might not have chosen but you
were surprised with the acceptance in the community, you know?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
I don't. I don't think, So I have to say
we did show. We showed The Princess Bride in April
during our eighties month, and that was one of our
biggest nights as well. That was really really popular. But
I am a huge fan of The Princess Bride. I
completely love that film, so I understand. But you know,
it's always kind of a surprise when things blow up,
(34:20):
and it's a lovely surprise, a pleasant surprise.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Yes, yes, it was. One of the things that makes
this special, actually, I think is its acceptance and connection
with the community. And part of that comes because it is,
you know, the type of venue that it is where
it's a small, intimate theater. But have you had any
comments from the community or any memorable moments or comments
(34:45):
from anyone anyone who was ever there at the beginning?
Maybe is anyone that nobody's really nobody's that old, right, everybody's.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
When we first opened, I was at the theater a lot,
right before opening day in October. I was there like
twelve hours a day for a few weeks, just getting
everything set up. And one Monday morning I looked over
at Woodies, the restaurant which is across the walkway, and
there was a group of gentlemen over there. They ended
up coming to talk to me. They were a bit older,
and they said, well, I came when I was a
(35:17):
little boy in the forties, I came with my dad
and they were all sharing their stories of the history
and how they used to come to the Lido, and
that was a really really wonderful moment, especially in those
early days. For me, it really solidified the idea that.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
I'm just sort of holding space for this beautiful, beautiful
community center that has been here for so much longer
than I have and will continue to be hopefully for
so so many years and serve the community in that sense.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
That was really a beautiful moment for me.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
That is very, very very special. Yeah, that's pretty amazing.
So tell us about your relationship with Orange County Film Society.
How does that work? What do you show for them?
Are you their host venue of choice? Now?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
We are, so we host the Orange County Film Society,
who work in collaboration, are the same company as the
Newport Beach Film Festival and the Newport Beach TV Festival,
and it's a membership based society where you pay one
membership fee and you're welcome to any of their screenings.
They host, usually screenings of movies that are yet to
(36:29):
come out or have just released. For example, we show
Admission Impossible, the Final Reckoning recently for them, and it's
a wonderful opportunity for the community to kind of see
these movies in unique instances come to the theater. You
don't have to worry about getting tickets. You just get
emailed what's coming up and you come watch. For example,
(36:50):
they have a double screening of When Harry Met Sally
and the Materialists a new movie coming out, so they
do a lot of really fun sort of programming like that.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Tell us how the film festival works, now the film
Is it correct that the TV festt's coming up is
one showing at a time? Correct?
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yes? So the TV Festival June fifth to eighth, Yes,
is the inaugural television festival for the Newport Beach Film Festival.
This is the first time they're going to be doing it,
and it is entirely hosted at the Lido Theater. So
one showing Thursday, one showing Friday, and then a whole
(37:31):
bunch across the weekend. But it's going to be stars
of current popular TV shows. We're having Kate Hudson from
Running Point, We're hosting Adam Brody from Nobody Wants This,
the stars from Yellowjackets, Cobra, Kai having Ralph Macho and
William Zaka having I mean.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
I saw Landman also Yes Landman.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Dan Fogelman will be there, Sam Rockwell from White Low.
It's going to be really, really wonderful and a lot
of it is live podcasts, so each event is about
an hour and they'll be doing similar to what we're
doing now, chatting about the show and the creation. There's
some awards panels as well. It's a really really incredible
lineup and it's going to be really fun for us
(38:17):
as the theater and also all the guests that come
to be a part of this inaugural television festival.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
This is the first time they also have ever done
anything like this, correct exactly how exciting I saw the
announcement and we of course participated. After being with you,
we became members of the Film Society because this is
way too much fun and my husband loves movies. We
love foreign films a lot, and so this was just
(38:45):
perfect for us and we can just come and doesn't
take us long to get there, so it's perfect. So
having producers and directors and authors come for movie discussions,
it adds so much depth. I think that only happens
with the Orange County Film Society. Viewings correct up until now.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Yes, but we are in the process of bringing in
different people cast and crew who have worked on films
that we will be showing. So for our summer lineup,
you never know, you might see someone who worked on
the props or worked on the set design, or a
sound designer, or maybe assisted director or an editor, or
(39:24):
maybe a supporting actor. We'll kind of see where we
go with that, but we're definitely hoping to add more
qata's and that kind of a thing to our screenings
as well. But yes, the OC Film Society does a
fabulous job of bringing in people related to the film
as well when possible.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Any behind the scenes stories you can tell us about
about anybody being in the theater.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
And oh gosh, you know, I met Flavor. Flav that
was sort of a never on my bucket list and
I think that would happen at a water polo event
screening for the United States Olympic water polo team, So
that was kind of fun. He was actually a delight.
(40:08):
He did not stop taking photos until every single person
who wanted to take photos with him and taking photos.
He was decked out in Olympic water polo gear. He
had the little hat cap on and he was actually
really really wonderful with all the guests. I met Phineas
O'Connell and his dad last year during the film festival.
(40:31):
Actually didn't talk too much to Phineas, but I talked
to his dad, which was a true delight And it's
funny how normal these people are. It's delightful how normal
they are. He said, Oh, Dad, I didn't know you
were coming. He said, yeah, yeah, I thought i'd just
stopped by. You know, they live in la But it's
just it's kind of a pleasure just seeing these people
in again in my sort of home space and just
(40:52):
walking around the same places that I walk. It really
humanizes them and you say, we're all the same, We're
all just people. So whenever we'd have people come through, we.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Are so talk about the morning event. What is the
morning like at the Lido Theater. I happen to just
drive by one day saw the door was open. I
think I'm going to go in and tell our viewers
and our listeners what people discover in the mornings.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
That's super unique. We are open every day from seven
am to two pm, even Saturday and Sunday as a
pop up cafe, so from seven to two we serve
coffee and tea, breakfast pastries such as croissants, cookies, scones.
That's all catered by a market. Shelley is the head
(41:39):
chef over there. She does a fabulous job of curating
our menu. We also have delicious breakfast sandwiches, avocado toast
and salads and chips and popcorn. It's a really fun
way to kind of start your morning. People would say, well,
that's odd, why would you need to do that, But
we have a lot of older folks in the community
(42:00):
who might be retired and they get up early in
the morning. They want something to do. You know, maybe
you walk to the lido, you take a little morning stretch,
or you're walking by with your kids if you work
from home and they have a day off. We show
family movies on Saturday and Sunday. That's the other thing,
so during the cafes open hours we show one movie
(42:21):
per day. Rolling and entrance is free with any purchase
of a brewed coffee or a food item, so you
can get your breakfast, sit inside the theater and watch
Kindergarten cop we played the other day, or Legally Blonde,
or on the weekend's toy story something fun like that,
and it's kept super casual. The morning shows showings are
(42:44):
shown on our Instagram story, so those are posted the
day before. Just I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
I didn't know that, Okay.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
So if you go to Lido Theater, Newport Beach on
Instagram and check out our Instagram stories, you'll see what's
playing for the following day. You come on a weekend,
it'll be more family oriented. But we show fabulous movies
there every day, i'd say, and it's a lot of fun.
You may not come right when the movie's starting, but
you pop in for a little bit, pop out. It's
(43:13):
a really nice, nice time for the community.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
So you feel like you just need to take a
little break or get away a little bit, just pop
into the lead up theater and have a croissan and
a coffee, sit down and just take your weight off
your shoulders and your mind off of your work and
sit and watch a movie for a few minutes. And
when you need to just get up and leave, because
as she said, it's rolling, so the movie doesn't know.
(43:37):
Where you step in doesn't really matter because it doesn't
really start and then it stops. It just keeps going,
and so anytime between seven and two people can come in.
So let me ask you a question. So is your
viewership for that families? I mean, I've been there a
couple of times where I've seen parents and kids there.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
It's a myriad, a lot of families, a lot of
stay at home workers, employees maybe bring their laptop who
work in the theater. We have a lot of businesses
in the area. There's a lot of adorable shops on Lido,
so maybe on your lunch break you come in, sit down,
watch twenty minutes of a movie. There's some offices in
the area. They'll come get coffee for the office, or
(44:16):
just grab a pastry if you want to switch it up.
There's a lot of fabulous bakeries and cafes in Lido,
so we're just adding to the noise there. But you know,
it's a little bit different than what everybody does, and
it's certainly different than what you might ever seen in
any other movie theater. And I was actually surprised at
how many regulars we get for the cafe. We've got
one gentleman he comes in almost every day and he
(44:37):
is so kind, he loves coming. He grabs a coffee
and sits and hangs out. So I love our regulars,
including you. They're all fabulous. And it's really the people
that come back time and time again that like you said,
I recognize, I remember their names, and it makes the
lido feel more like a community. So it's not just
what we do, it's you all coming back and supporting
(44:59):
us and showing us that this is a wonderful place.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
To be and for the grips of people who haven't
or for the benefit of people who haven't been there.
There are I think two maybe two bar top tables
in the lobby area where people can sit and work
on their laptop or just sit and take a little
break so you don't have to stand up or go
in and watch a movie. Maybe they're the right time
(45:21):
or space available. And aren't there a few tables outside
as well?
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Exactly So we have b strow tables both inside and outside,
little be strochairs, so if you wanted to stop in
and have your breakfast outside, you could do that. If
you want to step into the lobby and just enjoy
our curated playlist of we have an oldies playlist where
we also intersperse old movie songs, so old scores from
fabulous films. You can do that or you can pop
(45:48):
into the movie.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Do you have a special and I would guess this
is probably a hard question to answer. Do you have
a favorite part of the theater that you really means
a lot to you. There's so many details, and you've
talked about so much, and there's so much to love,
from the Betty Davis bathroom and parlor to the little
(46:10):
windows that we're hidden. But there's something that you do
that's really you.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Well, I'll talk about one of my favorite sort of
hidden gems, and then I'll talk about what is really me. Okay,
So one of my favorite hidden gems is the dumb waiter.
Dumbwaiter is sort of an elevator for non people, right
and back in the day when the theater opened, there
only had film reels, so it was big strips on
metal reels usually and they're really really heavy. So movie
(46:39):
theaters developed a system of dumb waiters. So if you
go into the Lido, it's actually in our back closet.
It's not accessible to guests, but I'll give you sort
of an auditory exploration. There is a little door against
one of the walls and if you look straight up inside,
it's a shaft that goes right into the project and
(47:00):
if you go up two and a half lights of
stairs up into the projector room, which is at the
very very top of the theater, I call it the
little mouse hole. There's the second door. And back in
the day, the film studios would send a courier, usually
from Hollywood with forty pounds of film reels to the theater.
And we don't have an elevator or anything like that,
(47:22):
so they would have a separate key. They could unlock
the side door and just drop the film reels right
into the dumb waiter, close the door, and head back
out on their next deliveries. And when the projectionist would
come in before the movie, they would go straight upstairs,
unlock the dumbwaiter door, and pully the system all the
way back up. There's even a hole in the wall
(47:44):
at the bottom in the projector room for the dumb
waiter to kind of roll for the projectionists to roll
the film strip into the projector room where there used
to be film projectors. Now we only have a digital projector,
but all the windows actually, if you ever earned the
theater and you look way back up. There's multiple windows
(48:04):
in that room and that used to be for all
the different projectors because they all had different film strip sizes,
so you had to have multiples of that, and then
there are multiple windows in the wall to be able
to project onto the screen.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
This is fascinating. No one would know unless we heard
it directly from you. They really didn't have to even
preserve that, right.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
It was not in use, actually, but they did preserve it.
All the past owners of the Lido Theater did preserve it.
And you can still open it up and look down.
The cables are all cut, but it's still there. If
I dropped a cheetoh you could open your mouth and
eat it from downstairs.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
Oh, we want to try that.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
And now it's just HVAC kind of running through there.
So it's a practical sense. But yeah, the doors are
still there. And when I hire new cast members to
work at the Lido, it's one of my favorite parts
of showing them the tour. I say, pop in here
and yell down and the people down below will hear you.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
And with all the advancement of technology, I mean, you
really never know what that might become very much, you know,
we don't think we would use it, but you never
know what you might end up using it for. But
then you were going to tell us your part.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Yes, So that's one of my favorite tidbits. But I
would say the part that feels the most to me
is the stage. As corny as that sounds, I grew
up in theater. I grew up doing plays from a
very young age. I did ballet from the age of three.
I've been singing all my life, so performing is in
my blood. And sometimes I'll just sit on stage and
(49:34):
type my emails or getting up there and setting up something,
sweeping the stage. It just sort of there's a there's
a certain feeling that I get from from being on
a stage, and I love that it gets to be
in somewhere that I get to call home. It's really
beautiful and really really special.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
I will ask you something you don't you don't have
to answer, but are you ever in there by yourself?
I'm going to even tear up asking this, Are you
ever in the by yourself? And you're on the stage
and you're just thinking, this is kind of my place,
and you kind of in your own mind imagine yourself
performing there.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
I think one of the first times I was there alone,
it kind of hit me what I had signed on to,
what I had been welcomed into, really this beautiful gift
that had been handed to me. I'm learning more about
the theater and what I do there every day. It's
a very unique place to be. But the first time
(50:32):
I was there all alone, I went up on the
stage and I changed the lights so it was just
the spotlights and you can't see anyone in the audience,
and I pictured, you know, how little ens would be
so proud of where I am now, and I think
I teared up as well. It was a very I've
made it kind of moment. It was very special.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
That's yes, that is very special. Is there something that
you hope I'm sure there is. What is it that
you hope people walk away with when they've been in
your theater and they leave, What do you hope they
feel in their heart and their soul about being a
(51:13):
part of the lead of theater experience.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
I've had people walk away and say I had no
idea it was going to be like this, and people
that say this is my new favorite date spot. Oh, sure,
that's my favorite thing. I want people to feel like
this is their theater. This is their chance to step
back and relive the memories of the past while sharing
(51:37):
in the stories that we all watch on the screen.
I call our employees cast members, and I tell them
all during training we are part of a bigger story,
not just the story that we're about to play on screen,
but we're part of the storied past of the Lido
and the story of our community and how this has
touched so many people's lives. And we remember your names,
we remember your faces. We say welcome back because we
(52:01):
want you to feel like this is your place to
come and enjoy as well.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
If you could host a dream screening with any special guest,
past or present, what film would you show and who
would you join for discussion?
Speaker 2 (52:18):
Oh, that is a fabulous question, Val, I'm already torn
between dozens of different films in my head. Oh, I'm
sure you know. I We just watched Mama Mia and
that was so fun and watching during the credits the
whole cast just hanging out and singing extra songs. I've
(52:38):
heard so much more about that movie and how they
filmed it, and the Cassime's so connected. I think that
would be a fabulous other screening to show with. I mean,
Meryl Streep is one of my all time favorite actresses ever,
rightfully so, so I think it'd be very fun to
have her and the entire cast there as well, maybe
(52:59):
the directors talking about what it's like to get that
sort of a performance. And that's sort of a feeling
out of a movie because we've shown other movies. I've
seen lots of movies there, but something about the energy
that night, it was electric. I was up in the
last row of the theater dancing on the on the
little the little staircase, and I was just so excited.
(53:22):
There's something about that movie that does even though people say,
oh it's it's a lighthearted, it's a feel good you know,
the blending of the music at acting, it all just
comes together. So that is what comes to mind.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
I can imagine you on the stage as a part
of that. Thank you, Yes, let me add there. Unfortunately
our time is up. Thank you for holding this piece
of history in your hands so well and making it
something alive for the community and for all the people
in the arts whose movies are a part of that.
(53:57):
And you're the cast members that you've developed in the
management team, who's blessed all of us with having you
there every night, and for your feeling that I know
you must feel. You just get to hold this time
in your hands, and sometimes somebody else will come and
take it. They took it, and now it's your turn,
(54:18):
and what a great feeling. We're so glad to have
you here. From Golden era Glamour Today's created curated cinema experiences,
the Lead Out Theater is certainly much more than a building.
It's a portal into everything we love about stories, artistry,
and community. A huge thank you in a scandal for
(54:39):
giving us a behind the scenes look at what it
takes to keep this historic gem shining, bright and alive.
So whether you're a film buff, a coffee lover, or
just someone seeking a little escape, the Lido welcomes you
with open doors and a vintage marquee. So we will
see you there hopefully until the next time. Keep exploring
(55:02):
so cow with val and thank you, Enes
Speaker 2 (55:06):
Thank you so much.
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