The Roxy Theater is a former movie theater located at 1527 Washington Avenue in

Miami Beach, Florida Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and artificial island, man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the ...

. In 1994, the Roxy was converted into an adult nightclub and renamed Club Madonna. It is owned and operated by theater and nightclub proprietor and former Broadway theater producer Leroy Griffith.

History

The Roxy, billed as "Miami Beach's newest and most fabulous theatre," opened on Friday, July 21, 1967. For its grand opening, the theater premiered ''

The Way West ''The Way West'' is a 1949 western novel by A. B. Guthrie, Jr. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1950 and became the basis for a film starring Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, and Richard Widmark. The novel is one in the sequence o ...

'', starring

Kirk Douglas Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in ''The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'' (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Do ...

, Robert Mitchum, and Richard Widmark. "The theater is luxurious, designed for comfort and seats 400," wrote ''Miami News'' columnist Herb Kelly. He also reported that Griffith planned to add vaudeville later. Griffith generated publicity there when, in 1967, he publicly invited city officials to a screening of the film, ''Man and Wife''. "It was advertised as the art of making love 49 different ways," he said in a 1993 interview. "I don't remember inviting them, but I vaguely remember the incident. I think that was the first hard-core movie ever shown down here." According to press accounts at the time, the officials seemed to think the movie was boring, but not obscene. In early 1994, Griffith converted the Roxy from an adult movie theater to an all-nude strip club (Club Madonna), which it remains today. He successfully withstood an attempt by attorneys for the pop singer

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...

to prevent him from using the name.

References

External links

Club Madonna
{{coord, 25, 47, 17.4, N, 80, 07, 54, W, region:US_source:kolossus-svwiki, display=title Roxy Theater Buildings and structures in Miami Beach, Florida 1967 establishments in Florida Theatres completed in 1967