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Remembering the Russell
by Nick Clooney |
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Let me tell you about Russell Theater in Maysville, Ky. For the children of the '40s, the Russell was not so much an escape as it was the launching pad of our dreams. Maybe it was the same in your town. The name could have been the ''Strand'' or the ''Bijou'' or the ''Palace,'' but the treasure in its darkened space was the same. It was hope.
The Russell was not the only movie house in Maysville, but it was the best. First-run films, first-rate facility, first-class staff. It was also beautiful. The Russell was what we came to describe later as a ''movie palace.'' We didn't know that. We, and every other youngster in town lucky enough to be there, simply knew that when the lights were dimmed, we, individually, were transported to unimaginable places. Our tiny, circumscribed world exploded into sparkling shards of possibilities with names like Singapore, Rome, the Congo, San Francisco, Venice. Movies of that period have often been called ''escape'' fare. That wasn't what I felt. I wasn't running away from anything on those glorious Saturdays. I was running toward something. I am not sure I have ever stopped running toward whatever beckoned from that silver screen. What a remarkable gift the lovely old theater gave us. Unfortunately, we gave it little in return. The Russell is, today, a shambles. Perhaps on Saturday we can begin to redress our ingratitude, with a great deal of help from our friends, near and far. The Russell opened its Spanish/Moorish doors in December 1930. It was named for the man who envisioned it and paid for it, M.C. Russell, a Maysville businessman described in contemporary accounts as ''flamboyant.'' The theater had every gee-gaw, gargoyle, mask, column and wonderfully exhibitionist appurtenance available. No big-city movie house would out-do it in tiles, statuary, twinkling stars, moving clouds, even a rainbow when the movie was completed. It was a remarkable run. In 1953, the Russell was the site of a genuine Hollywood premiere. My sister Rosemary requested that her first movie open in her hometown and in the theater where the three of us had seen in those phony clouds something transcendent. The premiere was a resounding success. But the world kept turning, TV arrived, and when the Russell closed in 1983 because of the encroachment of multiplexes, it appeared nothing could be done to same the old movie palace. A few efforts were made, in vain. Seats were stripped out and sold. Little repair work was done. The roof leaked. Prospects were bleak. They may be bleak yet, but not if ''Rescue the Russell'' has anything to say about it. This is a doughty group of individuals and businesses who have undertaken nothing less than to bring the Russell back to glory. True, they were staggered to learn that the price tag for getting it back into shape as a museum and a performing arts space would be more than $3 million. Staggered, but not intimidated. That was a zero or two more than they bargained for. They now knew that they wouldn't be able to raise the money with bake sales and style shows. Thus was born the Rosemary Clooney Music Festival. A proposed annual event of nationwide importance. The principal evening, plus satellite events, corporate sponsorships and grants might - just might - make it all happen. Perhaps a new generation can, after all, learn that the theater space itself can be part of the performing arts experience. There are many who say this project has no chance. Too big. Too ambitious. Too many stars in too many eyes. Perhaps. But the stars sparkling in the Russell's faux sky-ceiling for all those years inspired, I submit, a lot of young Kentuckians to a reach that exceeded their grasp. I'll bet it was the same in your town. A remarkable number of them succeeded against stunning odds. One of the success stories will be singing on a makeshift stage outside the Russell Saturday night. Whatever the songs, Rosemary Clooney will be sending a message from all of us long-ago children to the children yet to come. That life can be better than it is and you are the one who can make it so. That dreams can come true, if you have the courage to pursue them. That anger and hate eventually fall to honor and compassion. That love is real, even if it sometimes seems only a flickering image on a screen. Most of all, my sister will sing for all those who left the anonymous darkness of a Saturday matinee believing that endings could be happy. Even for shattered, tattered, forgotten movie palaces. |
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My
sisters Rosemary and Betty and I, the Clooney kids of Maysville,
lived for Saturday afternoons. If we had been good all week - and if
Grandma Guilfoyle had been able, somehow, to produce the spare cash
in those late Depression days - we would walk down Third Street to
Market, one block to Second, a quick right and... there it was: the
Russell Theater.