Majestic Theatre

The Majestic at 1925 Elm Street is the third Dallas theater of that name. Karl Hoblitzelle's Interstate Amusement Company opened the first Majestic at Commerce and St. Paul streets in 1905; after it burned in 1916, Hoblitzelle hired Chicago architect John Eberson to design a replacement. Construction began in February 1920, and the new Majestic opened on April 11, 1921, with a gala featuring actress Olga Petrova. It cost about $2 million and served as the flagship of the Interstate chain, whose headquarters filled the offices on its upper floors.

Eberson gave the five-story Renaissance Revival building a "Roman gardens" auditorium with a ceiling sky of drifting clouds and twinkling stars, 2,400 seats on three levels, and a children's playroom called Majesticland. The Majestic was the first Dallas vaudeville house to admit Black patrons, though only to a segregated fourth-floor balcony with its own entrance. Mae West, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Harry Houdini and Duke Ellington appeared there, and Ginger Rogers began her career on its stage.

Movies were added to the vaudeville bill in 1922, and in 1932 the Majestic gave up full vaudeville seasons as film took over. Hoblitzelle sold Interstate to RKO in 1930, was asked to take over management of their Texas theaters in the 1933 reorganization, and kept managing them after Paramount bought his interest in 1950. It became known as the city's "action house" for adventure pictures, and in 1965 Thunderball set its one-week record of $75,000. Falling downtown attendance closed the Majestic on July 16, 1973, after a showing of Live and Let Die.

While it stood empty, Brian De Palma's crew spent five days in the building filming Phantom of the Paradise, with the Majestic standing in for the film's Paradise theater. Hoblitzelle had died in 1967, leaving the building to the Hoblitzelle Foundation, which gave it to the City of Dallas in 1976. In 1977 it became the first Dallas building listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Voters approved $4 million in city bonds, a private campaign pledged $1 million, and a $5.9 million renovation ran from 1981 to 1982. Seating dropped to 1,570 to enlarge the orchestra pit. The theater was rededicated on January 16, 1983, and has since been a city-owned performing-arts hall for dance, theater, concerts and comedy.