The Ed Mirvish Theatre, also currently known by
naming rights
Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization whereby a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event, typically for a defined period of t ...
sponsorship as CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre,
is a historic film and play theatre in the
downtown core
The Downtown Core is the historical and downtown centre of the city-state of Singapore and the main commercial area in Singapore excluding reclaimed lands with many integrated resorts such as the Marina Bay Sands, one of the most expensive buildi ...
of
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
, Canada. It was initially known as the Pantages Theatre, then became the Imperial Theatre, and Canon Theatre before being renamed in honour of
Ed Mirvish
Edwin "Honest Ed" Mirvish, (July 24, 1914 – July 11, 2007) was an American-Canadian businessman, philanthropist and theatrical impresario who lived in Toronto, Ontario. He is known for his flagship business, Honest Ed's, a landmark disc ...
, a well-known businessman and theatre impresario. The theatre first opened in 1920 and is located near
Yonge–Dundas Square
Yonge–Dundas Square, or Dundas Square, is a public square at the southeast corner of the intersection of Yonge Street and Dundas Street East in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Designed by Brown and Storey Architects, the square was conceiv ...
.
History
Early years
The Pantages Theatre opened in 1920 as a combination
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
and
motion picture house. Designed by the theatre architect
Thomas W. Lamb, it was the largest cinema in Canada (originally having 3373 seats) and one of the most elegant.
[Doherty, Brennan (August 27, 2016)]
"This week in history: August 28, 1920, Pantages Theatre opens"
''Toronto Star
The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and pa ...
''. Retrieved July 15, 2022.
The Pantages was built by the Canadian motion picture distributor Nathan L. Nathanson, founder of
Famous Players
Famous Players Limited Partnership, DBA Famous Players, is a Canadian-based subsidiary of Cineplex Entertainment. As an independent company, it existed as a film exhibitor and cable television service provider. Famous Players operated numerous m ...
Canadian Corporation, the Canadian motion picture distributing arm of
Adolph Zukor's
Paramount Pictures. While Famous Players retained ownership, management and booking were turned over to the Pantages organization, one of the largest vaudeville and motion picture theatre circuits in North America.
The Pantages circuit had its beginnings in Canada, in the Yukon.
Alexander Pantages had been a sailor on a Greek merchant ship who left the sea in search of riches during the great 1897
Klondike Gold Rush. Although he found no gold, he became part owner of a small theatre in
Dawson City
Dawson City, officially the City of Dawson, is a town in the Canadian territory of Yukon. It is inseparably linked to the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–99). Its population was 1,577 as of the 2021 census, making it the second-largest town in Yuko ...
, the Orpheum, that staged vaudeville and burlesque shows.
From this beginning, he built over a period of 30 years a large entertainment company that would eventually include a Hollywood film studio, a vaudeville booking agency and ownership or control of more than 120 theatres across Canada and the western
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
– most of which were known as "The Pantages". The Toronto theatre was the easternmost house of the Pantages circuit, which then dominated the western market; in the east development was blocked by competition from the
Keith-Albee-Orpheum
The Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation was the owner of a chain of vaudeville and motion picture theatres. It was formed by the merger of the holdings of Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee II and Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit.
Hist ...
vaudeville chain.
In 1929 Alexander Pantages was convicted of the rape of
Eunice Pringle, a 17-year-old chorus girl, and sentenced to 50 years in prison. Although the conviction was overturned on appeal, the scandal and the legal costs ruined Pantages. To the public, he had "got away with it" thanks to a clever lawyer. In 1930, he was forced to sell his theatres at a loss; most of his assets were bought by
RKO Pictures.
![Imperial Theatre Toronto](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Imperial_Theatre_Toronto.jpg)
With the collapse of the Pantages circuit, the Pantages name came off the marquees of almost all the theatres. In 1930 the Toronto Pantages was renamed the Imperial, and became exclusively a cinema with no more live vaudeville. Management and control were taken over by
Famous Players
Famous Players Limited Partnership, DBA Famous Players, is a Canadian-based subsidiary of Cineplex Entertainment. As an independent company, it existed as a film exhibitor and cable television service provider. Famous Players operated numerous m ...
, which retained ownership for more than 50 years.
Multiplex
In 1972, the Imperial closed after a 9-month run of ''
The Godfather
''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel of the same title. The film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caa ...
'', and was divided into six separate cinemas by Toronto architect Mandel Sprachman. The Yonge façade was replaced with a modern front without canopy. It was officially reopened by Mayor
David Crombie
David Edward Crombie (born April 24, 1936) is a Canadian former academic and politician who served as the 56th mayor of Toronto from 1972 to 1978. Crombie was elected to Parliament following his tenure as mayor. A member of the Progressive Cons ...
in 1973 as the "Imperial Six". Cinema 1 was built forward from the balcony edge toward the top half of the stage
proscenium arch. Cinema 2 was located on the original balcony. Cinemas 3 and 4 were built in the original stage house, with cinema 3 being on top in the loft and cinema 4 underneath on the stage floor, and both accessed by a long glass walkway that ran the length of the building exterior above Victoria Street. Cinemas 5 and 6 were in the original main floor seating area, divided in half by a partition wall.
All traces of its elegant past, including the gold leaf and faux marble balustrades, were painted over with bold colours of yellow, red, blue, black, and silver, with the walls carpeted in red and blue. The entrance at
Yonge Street
Yonge Street (; pronounced "young") is a major arterial route in the Canadian province of Ontario connecting the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto to Lake Simcoe, a gateway to the Upper Great Lakes.
Once the southernmost leg of provincial H ...
was a modern-looking, aluminum-paneled front, with no canopy or vertical, featuring a large circle opening above the entrance into a brightly lit open outdoor square with bright modern marquee panels above on 3 sides, and 6 television screens on each side of the approach to the entrance doors showing movie trailers of features and coming attractions. The TV screens were later replaced by poster cases due to visibility problems with sunlight washing out the TV screens and technical problems with the early 1-inch video tape machines (12 in total, a separate machine for each screen).
The Imperial Six was a big money-maker for Famous Players throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, playing all the big releases including all the
James Bond
The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...
and
Rocky
''Rocky'' is a 1976 American sports drama film directed by John G. Avildsen and written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. It is the first installment in the ''Rocky'' franchise and stars Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, and Burge ...
releases. It had the same manager, Philip A. Traynor, from well before it closed for renovations in 1972, until its last day of operations by Famous Players in 1986. Following the closing of the Imperial Six, Traynor moved to the Plaza Cinemas and subsequently retired from Famous Players.
Division of ownership
The Imperial Six sat on three separate lots. Famous Players owned the Yonge Street entrance, which bridged an alley and connected to the main building on Victoria Street, and they also owned the front half of the main theatre building, from the centre of the dome to the back wall of the stage house. The other half of the main theatre building, from the centre of the dome to the north wall of the main lobby, was leased from Edna Rakas in Michigan, whose family had owned the property previous to the original construction of the theatre in 1920.
Famous Players Development Corp., an arms-length real estate company spun off from Famous Players Ltd. in the 1970s, and based in New York, attempted to negotiate with Rakas in February 1986 to renew the lease at a more favourable rate. When the lease expired on May 24, 1986, with no agreement in place, Rakas announced her intention to approach Famous Players' rival cinema chain,
Cineplex Odeon Corporation
Cineplex Odeon Corporation was one of North America's largest movie theatre operators and live theatre, with theatres in its home country of Canada and the United States. The Cineplex Odeon brand is still being used by Cineplex Entertainment at ...
. The representatives for Famous Players Development suggested that Cineplex Odeon would have no use for "half a theatre".
They were wrong however,
Garth Drabinsky
Garth Drabinsky (born 1949)Charlebois, Gaetan, and Anne NothofDrabinsky, Garth Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia. Athabasca University. Anne Nothof, ed. "Ontario-based entrepreneur, born in Toronto in 1949." is a Canadian film and theatrical producer a ...
, (CEO of Cineplex Odeon at the time), flew to Michigan the same day that his company was contacted by Rakas' lawyers, and signed a lease. The following day, May 31, 1986, with the assistance of a bailiff and paid security, Cineplex Odeon seized control of the north half of the Imperial Six, thus effectively locked Famous Players out of their flagship downtown Toronto theatre, including the theatre offices, all the lobby space, four of the six projection booths, all of Cinema 2, and the back half of Cinemas 5 and 6. Temporary walls were erected to keep Famous Players out of Cineplex Odeon's space. The
Supreme Court of Ontario
The Supreme Court of Ontario was a superior court of the Canadian province of Ontario. Created in 1881 pursuant to the Ontario Judicature Act (1881), the Supreme Court of Ontario had two branches: the High Court of Justice Division and the Appell ...
dismissed Famous Players' application of an injunction blocking Cineplex Odeon's lease on June 2, 1986.
Cineplex Odeon made plans to open their half of the theatre despite the lack of an entrance on Yonge Street. This meant replacing the fire exits, which were all on the Famous Players' end of the main theatre building. Initial plans were to completely gut their half and build a new multiplex cinema, which would augment the nearby
Eaton Centre Cineplex, increasing their presence in downtown Toronto. However, because of the elegant grand lobby, vaulted ornate plaster ceilings, columns and grand staircase, plans to gut the building and build as many as eight screens were dropped, and instead plans were drawn up for a three-screen cinema utilizing as much of the existing interior as possible. This would maintain the historic grandness which did not exist in any of the other theatre properties owned and operated by Cineplex Odeon, as most of them dated from after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
when
J. Arthur Rank came to
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
to start Odeon Theatres of Canada.
The need for new fire exits, and the fact that the grand lobby occupied a major part of the space under the original balcony, made the construction of two smaller cinemas on the main floor impractical. The final plan was for a single-screen 800-seat stadium-style cinema utilizing the only complete auditorium on their half, which had been Cinema 2 on the original balcony.
After a costly construction project, the single-screen Pantages Cinema opened on December 12, 1987. The cinema entrance was located on Victoria Street, which did not get as much foot traffic as Yonge Street.
The loss of the Imperial Six led to a corporate shakeup at Famous Players' head office, which saw the ousting of their long-time President George Destounis, even though Famous Players Ltd. in Toronto was not involved with the failed lease renegotiation. Famous Players responded in late 1987 when the company planned to built 11 theatres with 60 screens in eight Canadian cities.
The war between Famous Players and Cineplex Odeon continued; the bitterness between the two rival chains was very much in play at the gala opening of the Pantages Cinema. In an attempt to disrupt the screening of ''
Wall Street'', Famous Players organized a construction crew to stand by with jackhammers 5 feet behind the Pantages screen, on the other side of the drywall partition between the two companies' halves of the property. Famous Players also called in a complaint about the fire exits; less than an hour before the scheduled gala event, a
Toronto Fire Department inspection confirmed that the fire exits were still incomplete, with wet concrete, and the gala was moved to the Varsity Cinemas.
Crews worked around the clock to finish the fire exits, and the cinema opened to the public the next day with its scheduled run of ''Wall Street''. Following the opening, Famous Players removed the doors from every fire exit on their half to allow freezing cold winter air to fill their portion of the building. The partition wall between Cineplex Odeon and Famous Players had been built as a fire wall and was not insulated as an exterior wall.
Other films that showed during this brief time as a single-screen cinema were ''
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
''The Unbearable Lightness of Being'' ( cs, Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí) is a 1984 novel by Milan Kundera, about two women, two men, a dog and their lives in the 1968 Prague Spring period of Czechoslovak history. Although written in 1982, the no ...
'', ''Colors'', and a gala screening attended by director
Robert Redford for the launch of his film ''
The Milagro Beanfield War
''The Milagro Beanfield War'' is a 1988 American comedy-drama film directed by Robert Redford from a screenplay written by John Nichols and David S. Ward based on Nichols's novel of the same name. The ensemble cast includes Ruben Blades, Richar ...
''.
Live theatre
After a long, bitter legal fight, Famous Players eventually agreed to sell their portions of the original theatre and Yonge Street entrance to Cineplex Odeon, but the victory was a
pyrrhic
A pyrrhic (; el, πυρρίχιος ''pyrrichios'', from πυρρίχη ''pyrrichē'') is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. It consists of two unaccented, short syllables. It is also known as a dibrach.
Poetic use in English
Tennyson u ...
one: as was standard practice for Famous Players when they sold a major downtown theatre property, they attached a condition to the sale forbidding Cineplex from ever again using the theatre for motion pictures. The last film ever to play in the Pantages Cinema was ''
Die Hard
''Die Hard'' is a 1988 American action film directed by John McTiernan, with a screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza. Based on the 1979 novel '' Nothing Lasts Forever'', by Roderick Thorp, it stars Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Al ...
''.
Even before the Pantages closed to movies on August 26, 1988,
Garth Drabinsky
Garth Drabinsky (born 1949)Charlebois, Gaetan, and Anne NothofDrabinsky, Garth Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia. Athabasca University. Anne Nothof, ed. "Ontario-based entrepreneur, born in Toronto in 1949." is a Canadian film and theatrical producer a ...
had a vision for restoring the complete theatre intact to its original 1920 look and creating a new live entertainment division of Cineplex Odeon. At the time, Toronto was experiencing a renaissance in live theatre, and there was an interest both to restore large historic theatres; such as the ambitious restoration at the
Elgin & Winter Garden Theatre by the
Ontario Heritage Foundation
The Ontario Heritage Trust (french: link=no, Fiducie du patrimoine ontarien) is a non-profit agency of the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Culture. It is responsible for protecting, preserving and promoting the built, natural and cultural herita ...
only one block to the south, and to create more venues that could attract big successful
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
shows to Toronto, such as the successful runs that ''
Cats'' had enjoyed earlier in the 1980s.
With the successful acquisition of Famous Players' remaining portions of the theatre, it was announced that the cinema would close and be restored to its former 1920 glory. Work began in earnest immediately following the closing of the cinema, with interior demolition work removing all the 1973 partition walls, floors, fire exits and passageways, as well as excavating the entire basement underneath the original theatre floor to allow for deeper below grade spaces to accommodate modern live theatre amenities. All of the original plasterwork, some of which had been hidden behind drywall during the 1973 multiplexing, was kept and restored. The original paint colours from 1920 were researched, with experts on scaffolds using fine instruments to pick away layer after layer of paint. Black and white original photos were studied to faithfully recreate everything from the fountain on the grand staircase, to the ticket box in the Yonge Street link, to the ornate marquee and canopy on Yonge Street with the original Pantages vertical as it had looked at its original opening in 1920.
The "new" 2,200-seat Pantages reopened in 1989 with its first legitimate theatre production,
Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical ''
The Phantom of the Opera
''The Phantom of the Opera'' (french: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) is a novel by French author Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serial in from 23 September 1909 to 8 January 1910, and was released in volume form in late March 1910 by Pier ...
'', starring
Colm Wilkinson
Colm Wilkinson (born 5 June 1944), also known as C. T. Wilkinson, is an Irish tenor and actor who is best known for originating the lead role of Jean Valjean in ''Les Misérables'' (in the West End and Broadway) and for taking the title role i ...
and
Rebecca Caine, which played at the Pantages for more than a decade.
The Pantages was operated by a division of Cineplex Odeon known as
Livent
The Live Entertainment Corporation of Canada, better known as Livent, was a theatre production company based in Toronto, Ontario. Founded in 1989 by former Cineplex Odeon executives Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb, the company initially found ...
. After a battle for control of Cineplex between its founder,
Garth Drabinsky
Garth Drabinsky (born 1949)Charlebois, Gaetan, and Anne NothofDrabinsky, Garth Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia. Athabasca University. Anne Nothof, ed. "Ontario-based entrepreneur, born in Toronto in 1949." is a Canadian film and theatrical producer a ...
, and Cineplex Odeon's majority shareholder,
MCA, Livent became an independent company, with no ties to the parent corporation. Livent continued to own and operate the Pantages until 1999, when the theatre was purchased, along with other assets of the bankrupt Livent, by
Clear Channel Entertainment
Live Nation was a former American events promoter and venue operator based in Beverly Hills, California. Founded in 1996 by Robert F. X. Sillerman as SFX Entertainment, the company's business was built around consolidating concert promoters int ...
.
Ownership fell to
Live Nation, owners of
Broadway Across Canada
Broadway Across Canada is a Toronto, Ontario-based theatrical presenter which presents touring Broadway shows, family productions and other live theatrical events across Canada.
Broadway Across Canada was formed by the amalgamation of the histori ...
and
Broadway Across America
Broadway Across America (BAA) is a presenter and producer of live theatrical events in the United States and Canada since 1982. It is currently owned by the John Gore Organization (formerly Key Brand Entertainment), which purchased it from Live ...
, a subsidiary of Clear Channel, which turned management of the facility over to
Mirvish Productions
Mirvish Productions is a Canadian based theatrical production company and promoter.
The company was founded in 1987 by David Mirvish, son of Toronto retailing icon and owner of the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Ed Mirvish.
The first assets acquired ...
, also giving Mirvish right of first negotiation should the theatre ever be put up for sale.
In July, 2001, Live Nation announced a sponsorship for the theatre from
Canon
Canon or Canons may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western ca ...
Canada, Inc. In recognition of this sponsorship, the theatre was renamed the Canon Theatre.
On January 24, 2008, Key Brand Entertainment announced that it had acquired all of Live Nation's North American theatrical assets. Key Brand Entertainment is owned and controlled by British theatre producer John Gore and led by entertainment industry veteran Thomas B. McGrath. As part of the financing arrangements for the purchase of Live Nation's assets, Key Brand agreed to sell both the Canon Theatre and the nearby
Panasonic Theatre. Honouring the original lease agreement between Mirvish Productions and Live Nation, Key Brand offered Mirvish Productions the right of first negotiation and Mirvish Productions successfully bid to purchase both theatres.
This bid prompted Toronto-based theatre producer
Aubrey Dan, of
Dancap Productions
Dancap Productions was a theatre production company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
It was founded in 2007 by Aubrey Dan. Since then, it has brought many productions to Toronto. Its longest running production is ''Jersey Boys''. The touring comp ...
, a minority shareholder in Key Brand, to seek an injunction forbidding the sale. Mr. Dan's injunction application was dismissed by the court on August 19, 2008, and sale of the theatres to Mirvish Productions was allowed to proceed.
On December 6, 2011, the theatre was renamed to honour
Ed Mirvish
Edwin "Honest Ed" Mirvish, (July 24, 1914 – July 11, 2007) was an American-Canadian businessman, philanthropist and theatrical impresario who lived in Toronto, Ontario. He is known for his flagship business, Honest Ed's, a landmark disc ...
, who died in July, 2007.
In September 2021, after forging partnerships between the
Canadian Automobile Association
The Canadian Automobile Association (CAA; french: Association canadienne des automobilistes) is a federation of eight regional not-for-profit automobile associations in Canada, founded in 1913. The constituent associations (also called "clubs") ...
South Central Ontario (CAA SCO) and Mirvish Productions, the theatre was renamed to CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre.
Heritage designations
On October 1, 1979, the City of Toronto listed the property on the
City of Toronto Heritage Property Inventory The City of Toronto's Heritage Property Inventory is a list of buildings, structures, and properties in Toronto that are identified by the city, for the purposes of preserving their original facades and appearances. The inclusion of any property on ...
. On June 13, 1988, the property was designated under Part IV of the ''
Ontario Heritage Act'' resulting in heritage protection for the theatre.
Honest Ed's sign
There are plans to relocate one of the iconic
Honest Ed's
Honest Ed's was a landmark discount store in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was named for its proprietor, Ed Mirvish, who opened the store in 1948 and oversaw its operations for almost 60 years until his death in 2007. The store continued to operat ...
signs to the façade at the 244 Victoria St. entrance of the theatre, pending city approval and restoration of the sign.
References
External links
*
{{Theatres in Toronto
Theatres in Toronto
Movie palaces
Former cinemas in Toronto
City of Toronto Heritage Properties
Mirvish family
Thomas W. Lamb buildings