Jack Tillmany
Jack Edwin Tillmany graduated from St. Monica's Grammar School in June 1950, and received a Classical Diploma from St. Ignatius College Preparatory High School in June 1954. He next attended the University of California in Berkeley, from which he graduated in January 1959, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree, and a commission as an officer in the Quartermaster Corps. of the United States Army.
After serving two years active duty at Ft. Dix, New Jersey, he returned to California and began his civilian career as a motion picture theatre manager, first at the Del Mar in San Leandro, and then to the Sutter in Yuba City and El Rey in Chico. He returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in October 1963, when he took over management of the Piedmont in Oakland, where, two years later, he was promoted to General Manager for Martin Foster Enterprises, with additional supervisory responsibilities over the Parkway in Oakland and Albany in Albany.
In March 1969, together with business partner James Joy, he took over the Lorenzo Theatre in San Lorenzo, leasing it from United California Theatres, and renaming it the New Lorenzo; about this time Tillmany also found time to be one of the co-founders of the Theatre Historical Society of America (THS), based in Chicago, Illinois. Two years later, he bought out Joy's share of the partnership and continued to operate the New Lorenzo on his own until March 1974. During that time, in December 1970, he also took over management and control of the Gateway Cinema, located in the Golden Gateway Center, at 215 Jackson Street, in San Francisco, from its original owner Roslyn Landberg.
At the Gateway, Tillmany inaugurated a policy of revival film programming, with an emphasis on what are now regarded as the Classics of Hollywood's Golden Age of Film Making. Up until this time, the only opportunity to see such films was on commercial television, where 16mm copies were presented, usually cut to fit a pre-determined time slot, with frequent commercial interruptions. In this pre-VCR era, if a film was broadcast in the wee small hours of the morning, on the Late, Late Show, or on the All Night Movies, as they often were, the only way to see it was to actually stay up and watch it as it was being broadcast, and hope that it would be shown intact, regardless of the hour.
Tillmany's policy was to offer complete and uncut 35MM prints, often freshly struck from the original negatives, if no satisfactory copies were presently in circulation. Gateway patrons, most of whom were too young to have seen the films when they were first released, were introduced for the first time to theatrical presentations of such evergreens as Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, Grand Hotel, Dinner at Eight, The Wizard of Oz, the Busby Berkeley musicals, the dancing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and the Marx Brothers comedy classics of the 1930s. The presentation of MGM's San Francisco (1936) with Clark Gable and Jeanette MacDonald, became an annual event that brought capacity crowds each and every April when it was shown on the anniversary of the 1906 Earthquake that nearly destroyed San Francisco seven decades earlier. The success of the revival of It Happened One Night (1934) and His Girl Friday (1939) at the Gateway in December 1974, followed by Lost Horizon (1937), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), stimulated Columbia Pictures to begin their own Classics program, reprinting from their original negatives whatever titles Tillmany and other revival exhibitors, who by now operated similar venues across the country, requested. In 1976 Tillmany subsidized a Technicolor restoration of The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), which by that time was only available in B&W prints left over over from a 1956 re-release, and turnaway crowds attested to its renewed popularity.
Because many of the films patrons requested were simply not available in 35MM, or of more limited commercial appeal, or both, in 1975 Tillmany took over operation of San Francisco's Richelieu Cinema, on Geary near Van Ness, a smaller alternate venue, with both 35mm and 16mm capabilities. Among the most popular offerings none compared to the perennial success of The Red Shoes, or the offbeat offering of Just Imagine, a bizarre early talkie, filmed in 1930, but taking place in the futuristic world of 1980, which Tillmany showed to capacity audiences on the 50th anniversary of its production, i.e. in 1980. The forgotten and overlooked I Am a Camera (1955) was shown in tandem with its better known musical remake, Cabaret (1972), another crowd pleasing combination.
An unhappy note was struck at the Richelieu on a Tuesday evening in June 1980 when a revival of the controversial Birth of a Nation (1915), which had been playing to capacity audiences, stirred up the ire of a group of Berkeley anarchists, who proceeded to invade the theatre and destroy as much of it as they were able to; luckily the audience remained calm and no one was hurt. For the record, the San Francisco District Attorney refused to take action against the mobsters.
By March 1981, Tillmany felt that he had done what he had set out to do, had introduced thousands upon thousands of cinema enthusiasts to hundreds of films they would have never otherwise been able to experience theatrically, and stimulated the operation of similar other venues from one end of the country to the other. But a lucrative offer to sell out his interest in the Gateway was too good to resist, and the following June, Tillmany also shut down the Richelieu, plagued by irreconcilable architectural problems, and grasped an enviable opportunity to take a long and much needed rest. The new owners of the Gateway did not choose to pursue vintage film programming, and so another golden moment faded into history. In the San Francisco Examiner (15 March 1981), columnist John Stark described Tillmany as being "considered by many to be the father of repertory cinema in America."
Following his retirement from active motion picture exhibition, Tillmany once again pursued his long time interests in San Francisco theatrical and transit history, his photo and data documentation being second to none. In September 2005, Arcadia Publishing Company published his Theatres of San Francisco as part of their Images of America series, in October 2006 his Theatres of Oakland (with co-author Jennifer Dowling), and in August 2011 his Theatres of the San Francisco Peninsula (with co-author Gary Lee Parks).
As a tribute to his past efforts, author Lorri Ungaretti selected Tillmany to be one of the subjects for her Legendary Locals of San Francisco's Richmond, Sunset and Golden Gate Park, also from the Arcadia Publishing Company, in December 2014.
For the past 45 years, Tillmany has resided in Walnut Creek CA, at the same apartment complex where he lives today on Creekside Drive. A grateful cancer survivor, his favorite indoor sport is contributing information to the Internet Movie Database; with over a million and a half lines (by actual count) to his credit, his name has been on their Top Contributors List each and every year since 1998, achieving the #1 position in 2004.
After serving two years active duty at Ft. Dix, New Jersey, he returned to California and began his civilian career as a motion picture theatre manager, first at the Del Mar in San Leandro, and then to the Sutter in Yuba City and El Rey in Chico. He returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in October 1963, when he took over management of the Piedmont in Oakland, where, two years later, he was promoted to General Manager for Martin Foster Enterprises, with additional supervisory responsibilities over the Parkway in Oakland and Albany in Albany.
In March 1969, together with business partner James Joy, he took over the Lorenzo Theatre in San Lorenzo, leasing it from United California Theatres, and renaming it the New Lorenzo; about this time Tillmany also found time to be one of the co-founders of the Theatre Historical Society of America (THS), based in Chicago, Illinois. Two years later, he bought out Joy's share of the partnership and continued to operate the New Lorenzo on his own until March 1974. During that time, in December 1970, he also took over management and control of the Gateway Cinema, located in the Golden Gateway Center, at 215 Jackson Street, in San Francisco, from its original owner Roslyn Landberg.
At the Gateway, Tillmany inaugurated a policy of revival film programming, with an emphasis on what are now regarded as the Classics of Hollywood's Golden Age of Film Making. Up until this time, the only opportunity to see such films was on commercial television, where 16mm copies were presented, usually cut to fit a pre-determined time slot, with frequent commercial interruptions. In this pre-VCR era, if a film was broadcast in the wee small hours of the morning, on the Late, Late Show, or on the All Night Movies, as they often were, the only way to see it was to actually stay up and watch it as it was being broadcast, and hope that it would be shown intact, regardless of the hour.
Tillmany's policy was to offer complete and uncut 35MM prints, often freshly struck from the original negatives, if no satisfactory copies were presently in circulation. Gateway patrons, most of whom were too young to have seen the films when they were first released, were introduced for the first time to theatrical presentations of such evergreens as Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, Grand Hotel, Dinner at Eight, The Wizard of Oz, the Busby Berkeley musicals, the dancing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and the Marx Brothers comedy classics of the 1930s. The presentation of MGM's San Francisco (1936) with Clark Gable and Jeanette MacDonald, became an annual event that brought capacity crowds each and every April when it was shown on the anniversary of the 1906 Earthquake that nearly destroyed San Francisco seven decades earlier. The success of the revival of It Happened One Night (1934) and His Girl Friday (1939) at the Gateway in December 1974, followed by Lost Horizon (1937), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), stimulated Columbia Pictures to begin their own Classics program, reprinting from their original negatives whatever titles Tillmany and other revival exhibitors, who by now operated similar venues across the country, requested. In 1976 Tillmany subsidized a Technicolor restoration of The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), which by that time was only available in B&W prints left over over from a 1956 re-release, and turnaway crowds attested to its renewed popularity.
Because many of the films patrons requested were simply not available in 35MM, or of more limited commercial appeal, or both, in 1975 Tillmany took over operation of San Francisco's Richelieu Cinema, on Geary near Van Ness, a smaller alternate venue, with both 35mm and 16mm capabilities. Among the most popular offerings none compared to the perennial success of The Red Shoes, or the offbeat offering of Just Imagine, a bizarre early talkie, filmed in 1930, but taking place in the futuristic world of 1980, which Tillmany showed to capacity audiences on the 50th anniversary of its production, i.e. in 1980. The forgotten and overlooked I Am a Camera (1955) was shown in tandem with its better known musical remake, Cabaret (1972), another crowd pleasing combination.
An unhappy note was struck at the Richelieu on a Tuesday evening in June 1980 when a revival of the controversial Birth of a Nation (1915), which had been playing to capacity audiences, stirred up the ire of a group of Berkeley anarchists, who proceeded to invade the theatre and destroy as much of it as they were able to; luckily the audience remained calm and no one was hurt. For the record, the San Francisco District Attorney refused to take action against the mobsters.
By March 1981, Tillmany felt that he had done what he had set out to do, had introduced thousands upon thousands of cinema enthusiasts to hundreds of films they would have never otherwise been able to experience theatrically, and stimulated the operation of similar other venues from one end of the country to the other. But a lucrative offer to sell out his interest in the Gateway was too good to resist, and the following June, Tillmany also shut down the Richelieu, plagued by irreconcilable architectural problems, and grasped an enviable opportunity to take a long and much needed rest. The new owners of the Gateway did not choose to pursue vintage film programming, and so another golden moment faded into history. In the San Francisco Examiner (15 March 1981), columnist John Stark described Tillmany as being "considered by many to be the father of repertory cinema in America."
Following his retirement from active motion picture exhibition, Tillmany once again pursued his long time interests in San Francisco theatrical and transit history, his photo and data documentation being second to none. In September 2005, Arcadia Publishing Company published his Theatres of San Francisco as part of their Images of America series, in October 2006 his Theatres of Oakland (with co-author Jennifer Dowling), and in August 2011 his Theatres of the San Francisco Peninsula (with co-author Gary Lee Parks).
As a tribute to his past efforts, author Lorri Ungaretti selected Tillmany to be one of the subjects for her Legendary Locals of San Francisco's Richmond, Sunset and Golden Gate Park, also from the Arcadia Publishing Company, in December 2014.
For the past 45 years, Tillmany has resided in Walnut Creek CA, at the same apartment complex where he lives today on Creekside Drive. A grateful cancer survivor, his favorite indoor sport is contributing information to the Internet Movie Database; with over a million and a half lines (by actual count) to his credit, his name has been on their Top Contributors List each and every year since 1998, achieving the #1 position in 2004.