News   Mar 28, 2024
 1K     2 
News   Mar 28, 2024
 566     2 
News   Mar 28, 2024
 865     0 

Evocative Images of Lost Toronto

Could that be Peter Sellers - with Sterling Hayden?

Sure looks like him!

they wouldn't meet for another 20 years!

dr-strangelove1.jpg
 
Nothing seems sadder or more evocative of time passing by than the demolition of a theatre (thanks, deepend for the Princess shots). Back to La Swanson at the demolition of the Roxy in New York, taken for LIFE Magazine October 1960 (and the inspiration for Stephen Sondheim's musical "Follies"). Felt the same when the University and Odeon Carlton bit the dust:

gloriaswansonroxy.jpg
 
Hey, no one has dug out any of the beauty contest pics from the archives? There are tons of those.:)

Beauty contests? How about burlesque?

2009_08_01Cup_Cake_Ad_StarJuly29-19.jpg


(Parental guidance is advised for the following pictures; some of the following images may be offensive to those viewers who believe in the myth of "Toronto the Good")

luxtheatre.jpg


f1257_s1057_it0477.jpg


f1257_s1057_it0479.jpg


f1257_s1057_it0480.jpg


f1257_s1057_it0481.jpg


f1257_s1057_it0488.jpg


f1257_s1057_it0485.jpg


f1257_s1057_it0487.jpg


f1257_s1057_it0483.jpg
 
Last edited:
Off to the burlesque show

Honey, why are you wearing your trench coat just to go to the bar?

Oh, um, it's a bit chilly today.
 
Honey, why are you wearing your trench coat just to go to the bar?

Oh, um, it's a bit chilly today.

What adds extra interest to the photos of the girls on the street is the location. The Lux was at 362 College Street (just west of Brunswick), which in 1960 was still solidly Jewish/Italian middle-class. Hard to think of that "live and let live attitude" existing today.
 
Did they go any further (or less) clothing wise in those days? If not certainly tame as compared to today.

Of course. the main reason burlesque was tolerated was the assumption that burlesque performers would stay within a socially and legally defined limit. Public nudity in all forms was illegal, and public morality squads guaranteed this was the case. An exposed breast would land you in the Don in a heartbeat. it was a time of twirling tassels and pasties, shimmy belts and opera gloves. all that changed in the late sixties with the rise of ‘topless go-go dancing', and the invention of ‘stripping’ as we know it….
 
Last edited:
here is another big Hollywood star who visited Toronto back in the day, and another who is associated with a fantastic Stanley Kubrick film. its James Mason at Eaton's College Street in 1948! he was here helping his then wife Pamela Kellino promote her book Del Palma. that's her on the left...

f1257_s1057_it3645.jpg


f1257_s1057_it3646.jpg


f1257_s1057_it3647.jpg


f1257_s1057_it3648.jpg


f1257_s1057_it3649.jpg
 
Nothing seems sadder or more evocative of time passing by than the demolition of a theatre (thanks, deepend for the Princess shots). Back to La Swanson at the demolition of the Roxy in New York, taken for LIFE Magazine October 1960 (and the inspiration for Stephen Sondheim's musical "Follies"). Felt the same when the University and Odeon Carlton bit the dust:

gloriaswansonroxy.jpg

I suspect a lot of the sadness seems to come from the fact that theatres were places that represented freedom and fantasy; a refuge for the imagination, and a place to escape from the mundane, the difficult, and the drudgery of everyday life. To see one of these ‘dream palaces’ laid low by the wrecker’s ball is heartbreaking because it represents the ultimate victory of an ugly or banal commercial ‘reality’ over the world of art and imagination…

On a total side note—and speaking of devastated monumental spaces, I took a trip to Detroit a few months ago and spent a while photographing their abandoned train station. It is also a very poignant remnant of a ‘better time’….

detroit6.jpg


detroit7.jpg


detroit1.jpg


detroit4.jpg


detroit3.jpg


detroit2.jpg


detroit5.jpg
 
On a total side note—and speaking of devastated monumental spaces, I took a trip to Detroit a few months ago and spent a while photographing their abandoned train station. It is also a very poignant remnant of a ‘better time’….

detroit6.jpg

There's a long tradition of portraying ruins in Western painting ("The Pleasure of Ruins" was the title of a book by Rose Macauley). Perhaps what's so poignant about Detroit is that it's all happened within our lifetime (not over centuries like in Rome) and that we have parents and grandparents who remember Detroit in its glory.

cgfa_panini5.jpg
 

Back
Top