City: Atlanta, GA

Category: Tours & Attractions

Telephone: (404) 881-2100

Address: 660 Peachtree St. NE

Description: To visit the Fox Theatre is to be swept into another world. In an age of minimalist architecture and 12-plex movies in minimalls, the Fox is the real deal: no mere theater but a complete environment, lush and ornate almost beyond belief. This dazzling movie palace is so closely associated with Atlanta today that it’s inconceivable it was almost torn down in 1975. Planning for the structure began in 1916. It was to be the headquarters for the Yaarab Temple of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (the Shriners). In 1929, as it neared completion, financial difficulties forced the Shriners into a deal with movie magnate William Fox, and the temple’s plans were altered to include a spectacular movie theater and exterior street-level retail space. Oozing with Middle Eastern opulence, the Fox opened on Christmas Day 1929. One awed newspaper reporter wrote that the building possessed “an almost disturbing grandeur beyond imagination.” But after a mere 125 weeks featuring talking pictures, the Fox, squeezed by the Great Depression, closed. After having been built at a cost of more than $2.75 million, it was sold at auction for $75,000. The theater reopened in 1935. Then in 1947, when the Fox gained immeasurable prestige, it became the venue for the touring Metropolitan Opera’s Atlanta performances. Beneath the great theater’s twinkling starry ceiling, thousands thrilled to such vocal greats as Ezio Pinza, Robert Merrill, Richard Tucker, Renata Tebaldi, Roberta Peters, Anna Moffo, Teresa Stratas, Montserrat Caballe, and others. The Met’s stars often got lost inside the Fox’s cavernous backstage areas until someone came up with an ingenious solution: The names of the New York streets around the Metropolitan Opera House were chalked on the Fox’s walls to help the singers find their way. The Met’s annual springtime visits to the Fox were a high point in Atlanta’s social year. Tickets were much-sought after treasures, and music lovers from around the South poured in for the week-long round of parties, performances, and midnight suppers. Peachtree was closed to allow patrons easy access to the Georgian Terrace Hotel (and its bar) across the street from the theater. By 1975, unable to fill its nearly 5,000 seats as a first-run movie house, the Fox closed again; this time things looked grim indeed. Plans were to raze the theater to make way for the skyscraper headquarters of Southern Bell. Distraught by the looming loss of this architectural jewel, thousands of Atlantans joined in the work of Atlanta Landmarks Inc., a nonprofit organization. The necessary $1.8 million was raised six months in advance of the deadline, and the Fox was saved and reopened in time to celebrate its 50th birthday. Since then, the group has spent more than $6 million to fix the Fox. Today, the Fox is a favorite venue for concerts and touring Broadway shows; a summer film series still affords the unequaled experience of seeing a movie in a “real” movie theater. The Fox is too amazing to describe briefly, but here are a few highlights and tips: With six motorized elevator lifts, the 140-foot-wide stage remains one of the largest ever built. Another elevator raises and lowers the 3,622-pipe, four-keyboard Mighty Moeller organ, which is played for a sing-along before each movie during the summer film series, just as it was in the 1930s. The ceiling of the 64,000-square-foot auditorium suggests night under a Bedouin chieftain’s tent beneath a clear desert sky. The tent is not canvas, as might be expected, but a reinforced plaster canopy that helps draw sound up to the rear of the balcony. The 96 stars twinkling in the blue sky are 11-watt bulbs fixed above 2-inch crystals. Clouds, rain, and other special effects are produced by projector. The premovie sing-along usually includes “Sunrise, Sunset,” during which the theater’s sky brightens from darkness to day before slipping back to dusk. The entire second level of the Fox (the loge, first and second dress circles, and gallery) and the front of the orchestra section enjoy views of the sky. To the rear of row M in the orchestra section, the balcony overhang hides the sky. Especially for movies, the front rows of the loge are the best in the house. Don’t miss the marble and velvet restrooms and lounges! Even these areas are fabulous in the Fox. Several full bars serve cocktails and other beverages during all events, including movies, and you’re welcome to enjoy drinks and snacks inside the auditorium during most performances. Smoking is permitted only in the exterior entrance arcade and on the smoking porch facing Ponce de Leon Avenue.