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rose up to eye-level, dressed as a pirate-
girl brandishing a sword. Behind me
was a huge block of Old Jamaica
chocolate (mock, of course) which took
up all the stage. The wrapper was an
imitation of the real thing and I was the
three-dimensional focus of it. I was
paid five pounds ($10) for standing for
ten minutes for three nights. I had
asked for the night off but the manager
said “No, you’re it!” Well, it was a
special night, literally in the spotlight.
Horace Weber is the organist most
people associate with the Capitol,but
in my time I think he was at the
Regent. Stanfield Holliday was on our
Wurlitzer. He didn’t really mix with us
but was always polite if he saw one of
us on his way to his dressing room, or
up the small stairway to the organ.
Sometimes after a night show he would
practice, opening up the pipes and
letting rip! Magnificent music filled the
great theatre.
Anyone who deals with the public
knows some funny stories. After the
show had started one Saturday
afternoon and the place was rather full
(it was not a block ticket session), a
patron came in to the back stalls and I
thought “Oh where can I put him?” So
we went down the aisle together, me
scanning each row for an empty seat.
It’s usually easy to find an empty one
in a crowd because faces show up in
the dark. Well, I saw a seat in the
Top: November 1950. Capitol manager Mr. Noel Keil (centre) receives a shield from
middle of a row, told him to go in and
the head of 20th Century Fox Melbourne, presented for achieving record all-time takings
watched as he pushed past those
for Broken Arrow. Loraine Wood, with collar wings out, is third from right.
already seated. Just back at my post, I
Above: The void into the back stalls, seen from the lounge foyer. saw him running up the aisle. He had
sat down on the knee of a black man!
with the auditorium entrance at the sick. We weren’t snobby about ‘lesser’
Of course the community wasn’t so
level of the highest rows of seats. This theatres, (the Esquire and Lyceum
racially diverse in those days. I don’t
spacious innovation was lost in the weren't exactly plum assignments), but
know who got the bigger shock.
carve-up to a smaller theatre. it was nice working in a prestige one.
We had a pageboy dressed in a
I don’t know how we managed to There was no Christmas staff party, smaller version of the Commissionaire’s
lift our skirts on those stairs while although there was a Show Business uniform. He stood at the top of the
holding torch and tickets and walk Ball each year, usually held at the St stairs selling Screen News, the
straight at the same time. “No stooping Kilda Town Hall.
magazine that told stories about the
girls”, as June Dally Watkins (a We had picnics to Healsville, but
stars and their forthcoming films. He
deportment identity) would say. these were private outings arranged
was about 14 and that uniform made
The void or ‘well’ from the lounge amongst the staff. One Sunday we were him look cute. He was also precocious.
foyer into the stalls was the bane of our marooned at Healeville when the road When not at his post selling he would
shift. Kids were always tossing lolly flooded. We had to stay the night and follow us around asking questions
wrappers into it and down they floated there was a bit of a panic, as some of about sex. I think he knew more than
on to the patrons below. We dreaded the us, including assistant manager Bob we did.
possibility of a curious child leaning in Callaway were rostered on for the next Naturally enough, after seeing big
and falling. day.
stars on our big screen, some of the
Our staff were a self-contained unit, My 2lst birthday was memorable girls would get a crush on a particular
as was the case at all Hoyts theatres. for more than one reason. I was asked actor and write to them. After watching
We did not have contact with other to take part in a promotion for Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope many times, I
usherettes and were never asked to help concessionaire sales. At Interval, I wrote to Farley Grainger asking him to
out at another location if someone was stood at the front of the band pit as it

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