Balloon Man Collage Palace Alden Theater The Great White Hope Set Globe Arizona 1969-2013 #2 Acrylic Print

"The Martin Theater was built in 1910. In 1925, the theater underwent changes to become the Fox Theater. It had a beautiful Fox marquee. In the 1950's, the Alden family bought the theater. They removed the Fox marquee and added a triangular style marquee with cursive writing stating, 'Alden'.

It remained showing first run movies until the 1970's. It sustained roof damage in a 1981 fire at the Old Dominion Hotel, two doors down. They Alden family later tore down the building."

To save money movie sets are often dressed to be photographed in one direction.

The Palace (1910-1981), which seated 600, is showing Olga Lindo in "Naughty Cinderella" while the Alden is screening Joseph Cotten in "Hell Benders."

The balloon man is my favorite extra on the Globe set.

I first became obsessed with photography and motion pictures while growing up in post WW2 Manila in the Philippine Islands in the late 1940's/early 1950's. Film noirs were a particular influence. But my first love remains the theater. I acted in numerous amateur productions from 1958 to 1978. In 1979 I earned a MA in drama from the University of Arizona; earlier getting a BA in English from the University of Minnesota, where I co-founded the first film society on campus and ran it for four years. While at the U of A, I studied with the master black and white photo essayist W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) the last year of his life. I am the last person cited in Jim Hughes' definitive biography of Gene, as I wrote about attending his final...