Comments from wavery

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wavery
wavery commented about Mesa Theatre on Apr 2, 2012 at 3:28 pm

In 1959, my brother was the Assistant Manager at the Mesa. I was 12-years-old at the time and he used to have me help him set the marquee. When I turned 15, I was hired to set the marquee and I did that for 4 years (until I was 19) at which time, I got married and bought a house in Van Nuys. I then set the marquee at the Victory Drive-in.

The Mesa Theater had a row of dressing rooms, in the basement under the stage. One of the rooms was set up with all of the ~15" square plastic letters, arranged in alphabetical order, for setting up the movie manes and the name of the star player was in smaller letters (maybe 9" square). We had a ~10' x 4' platform on wheels that was about 10' high and it was on wheels. I rolled it around in front of the Marqueee every Wednesday evening @ 9:PM. I got $24 for 3 hours work. That was a ton of $ at that time. I have lots of fond memories of that place and the people that I worked with.

wavery
wavery commented about Victory Drive-In on Apr 2, 2012 at 3:08 pm

I used to set the marquee at the Victory drive-in in 1969. I was 19-years old and I had just bought my 1st home on Atoll Ave (about 3-blocks away) for $19,000. My house payments were $94 a month and my 3 hour a week job of setting that marquee more than made my house payments. When I was 15-17 yrs old, I set the marquee at the Mesa Theater on Crenshaw and Slauson in South Los Angeles. My older brother was the Asst Manager at that theater.