(This column first appeared in the August print edition of the Hendersonian.)
I never saw a film in the Kentucky Theater at 230 Second St., though I do have an original painting by Henderson artist Terry Rone that shows the movie house in a 1940s-vintage streetscape.
They say the Kentucky, opened in the new Masonic Temple in 1929, was the upscale cinema of its day here, showing classics such as Laurence Olivier’s “Hamlet” and Walt Disney’s animated “Cinderella” while the Kraver Theater on Main Street screened shoot-’em-ups or Tarzan flicks.
Alas, the Kentucky closed as a movie theater in 1960; some years later, it was used by the Henderson Community College Players for plays and musicals.
It had a rebirth as the 7 Arts Cinema in 1970, according to press reports of the day. In its early years, it showed mainstream second-run movies, such as “M*A*S*H” a year after it premiered. But by 1974, it was showing mostly kung fu and horror movies with titles such as “Sting of the Dragon Masters” and “Crucible of Horror,” amid even stranger fare.
The 7 Arts didn’t survive past the 1970s; it evidently was closed by the time the former Old Orchard Twin Cinemas opened in August 1977. Some years later, the Kentucky Theater building was remodeled into the Citi-Center Mall, and that was that.
While I never saw a movie at Henderson’s Kentucky Theater, I do have memories of a Kentucky Theatre, the one on Main Street in Lexington.
In the middle of the 20th century, Lexington boasted five downtown cinemas: the Ben Ali, the Strand, the State, the Opera House … and the Kentucky. By the late 1960s, when I matured into a state of semi-clarity, the downtown movie scene was not at its best. The once-grand Ben Ali had been demolished, replaced with a concrete parking garage of the same name. Not long after that, the Opera House was reported to have rats roaming around while the State was showing adult movies.
At least the Kentucky and Strand were hanging on. In 1968, the Strand for the sixth time since 1939 showed “Gone with the Wind.” My memory from age 9 was of a near-capacity crowd, with us being shown seats by a uniformed usher toting a flashlight. At about the same time, the Kentucky was still showing premier films such as “The Sound of Music.”
The Strand’s days were numbered, though. It was demolished in 1974 and replaced with an office building, according to cinematreasures.org. The Kentucky, meanwhile, had been superseded by new suburban and mall cinemas; it was relegated to showing second-run features.
But that same year, a momentous event — at least for a teenaged me— was unfolding. In 1974, a new album-oriented rock radio station, WKQQ (or “Double Q”) went on the air at 98.1 FM. It upended the pop and Top 40 stations, at least among my friends and me. I tuned my car stereo to 98.1 and, for years, never changed it.
On Double Q, we long-hairs heard the Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, Bowie, Bob Marley & the Wailers, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Dylan, Patti Smith, Springsteen … and, on the last day of the school year, Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out.”
Sometime around then, Double Q and the Fred Mills, the venerable manager of the Kentucky Theatre, hit upon a scheme. On Friday and Saturday nights, the Kentucky would host a midnight showing of some hip, classic or independent film that was promoted by WKQQ and priced at just 98 cents (corresponding with Double Q’s place on the dial).
“It was just wild,” Mills told a Lexington writer in 2012. “As many as a thousand people were here every Friday and Saturday night. It didn’t make any difference what was shown — ‘Soylent Green,’ ‘Death Race 2000’ or whatever — we had big crowds. It was the place to be.”
I was among those crowds on many late nights, including for my first viewing of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” back before movie-goers knew to throw toast at the screen when the lead character, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, proposes a toast at dinner.
Between Mills’ skilled management of the theater as an art house, the 98-cent nights and the movie calendars that were stuck to refrigerators all over the Bluegrass, the Kentucky became a beloved institution.
Not even a 1987 fire next door that covered the Kentucky Theatre in black soot and kept it closed for five years was a death knell. It reopened, magnificently restored, in 1992. (The State and the Opera House have likewise been restored.)
The Kentucky, now a non-profit enterprise, rocks to this day. Among the films it showed in July were “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “My Fair Lady” starring Audrey Hepburn. It sometimes hosts live music, too.
If only Henderson’s own Kentucky Theater could have enjoyed such a second (or third) act.
