Rare Color Film…5 “Colgate Comedy Hour” Stars At El Capitan
At the link, you will see Eddie Cantor, Bud Abbott & Lou Costello and Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis arriving at NBC’s El Capitan Theater in Hollywood in 1953.
This is a short, but sweet color home movie shot on the south side of the theater, as they arrive for rehearsal. Because the hosts rotated on a weekly basis, it would be rare for all of them to be there at the same time, but I looks like that may have been the case.
In the film, you can see the stairs pictured below. If the building looks familiar, in ’63, ABC took over the lease and called this, The Hollywood Palace.
The El Capitan is at 1735 North Vine Street, just a couple of blocks north of where NBC’s Radio City West was located, and was NBC’s first “spill-over” location for television once AT&T linked the coast with the rest of the country in 1951.
On April 1, 1951 the El Capitan Theatre was leased to NBC for fifteen years at a cost of $30,500 per year. On Sunday, September 30, 1951, “The Colgate Comedy Hour” became NBC’s first regularly scheduled west-to-east television broadcast, and it came from The El Capitan, on a bi-weekly basis, with the other weeks done in New York. Thanks to our friend Rick Scheckman for sharing this clip. Enjoy! -Bobby Ellerbee
First time i see Abbot & Costello in color !
a very interesting bit of film – they look so much more like real people here
This most likely was a rehearsal for the “100th episode” in which Eddie Cantor, A&C, and M&L all appeared on.
Dean was beyond cool…….
I could not resist going to a Google street view and checking it out. I left all the screen info on there so as not to make folks think it was my photo. Cool.
Very cool film.
The theater was named the “Jerry Lewis Theater” in 1963 and was the site of Jerry’s short lived ABC talk show. The theater was renamed the “Hollywood Palace” the beginning of 1964.
This was also the facility where then-V.P. Richard Nixon delivered his infamous “Checkers Speech.”
Great piece of history. The wonders of the internet
So it would’ve been broadcast live to the East and Midwest, and a kinescope replay for the west coast?
Dean offering a dollar tip. Big money back then.
WOW! That is some cool footage. It was broadcast on Sunday night? For some reason I thought Saturday night would have been more appropriate, but I guess that was Caesar’s night. And If I’m not mistaken, didn’t the CCH broadcast at least once in color in 1953? With Donald O’Connor?
Great place to do a show. I worked on a few episodes of “Rock of the ’80’s” there. If the walls could talk…
Enjoyed that, thanks!
Love it!!
Nixon gave the Checkers speech there in 1952. It later got renamed The Jerry Lewis Theatre, then Hollywood Palace, and back.
Fascinating! Show biz icons!
i was in thi building late 80’s taping some charity concert. was still pretty nice inside at that time.