![]() Then came “Alone in the World,” about a bitter Creole, a cotton speculator, and a lucky lottery ticket. ![]() The Bijou, for several years, became what some old timers have called a “family theater.” Its specialty remained melodrama and included such offerings as “A Midnight Marriage,” concerning a poor but honest gal who met a millionaire in the Bowery. Here lovers murmured, and many a sedate business man took his wife there. Potted palms were nodding there, a romantic spot in the moonlight. For 1904, the figure would suggest its business was highly profitable. This was to the right of the main building, and it must have been a booming concern. And then - just in the nick of time, Holmes used his cigar to burn the ropes that held him.Īt intermission, scores poured into the Bijou’s cafe. It sputtered wildly on the stage, and 1,600 Nashvillians sat somewhat agog. The convicts tied Holmes to a huge can of explosive. From the waves of applause, they went for this yarn of Agra treason, stolen by four convicts of British India. The star was Walter Edwards, a little husky for the cadaverous Sherlock Holmes, but the audience didn’t seem to mind. The Bijou’s first offering was a melodrama, “Sign of the Four,” an adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s hair-raising hit novel. ![]() (Not until the Tennessee Theater opened in 1952, with 2,030 seats, was the Bijou to be outstripped in capacity.) So the new Bijou had two competitors, both of smaller seating capacity. And the Vendome was flourishing at 615 Church St. The old Alephi had been called The Grand at the time it burned to ashes, and its stock company had moved on to 422 Church St., the Grand Opera House. ![]() This had been the famed old Adelphi, which had borne various names since Jenny Lind, “the Swedish Nightingale,” sang there in 1851, and in which such musical giants as Vieuxtemps, immortal violinist, and Thalberg, the great pianist, once had shared a program. Too, this theater stood upon the foundation of a theater which also had burned, about 1902, around Christmas time. months before, 602 persons had perished in the Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago. Jake Wells, out of Norfolk, who sponsored her, had known it would be. Up in the gallery, or “roost,” 524 more seats were jammed, at 15 to 25 cents.Īll were intrigued - and reassured - by the red lights glowing above her 12 exits - “500 feet of exit space.” For this huge audience was safety-minded. The first balcony accommodated 433, at 35 cents each. “But probably the most beautiful feature,” wrote a reporter next day, “were hand-painted figures on her ceiling.” They were life size. Upon entering, they saw pink marble wainscoting, a tiled vestibule, and a softly green interior, trimmed with white and gold. (“None of the demimonde shall enter the playhouse at any time,” said a house rule.) These seats cost patrons 50 cents each. So did the 633 respectable citizens filling her 633 blue leather seats on the ground floor. They revolved, so that the fortunate occupants could look “in any direction.” They saw plenty. She had 1,642 seats, and “not a single seat remained unoccupied.” After that, there was a “a scramble for standing room.” And the crowd outside keep shoving, trying to get in, “as far out in the street as the car tracks.”Ĭivic dignitaries and many a proud old name filled her 52 box seats. They were struggling to enter Nashville’s “largest theater … a jewel of a playhouse … with elegance and beauty everywhere.” Two thousand Nashvillians became “a seething, writhing mass of humanity” in front of her marquee. It’s been 53 years since her brightest hour, Sept. SHE WAS a great lady once, the old Bijou Theater at 423 Fourth Ave., North. PART I, from the Nashville Banner, July 19, 1957
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