Background
Frederick Freeman Proctor was born to Alpheus Proctor and Lucy Ann Tufts in Dexter, Maine, where his father was a physician.
Frederick Freeman Proctor was born to Alpheus Proctor and Lucy Ann Tufts in Dexter, Maine, where his father was a physician.
He opened the Twenty-third Street Theatre in New York City. Warren G. Harris writes:
Proctor"s in downtown Newark was one of the rare "double decker" theatres. Designed by architect John William Merrow, the eight-story complex had a large 2,300-seat theatre at ground level and a smaller theatre of about 900 seats occupying the top four floors beneath the roof.
This fairly narrow building contained only the lobby of the larger theatre, which had its auditorium behind lieutenant
Very little has been reported about the operation of the upstairs theatre, which was apparently seldom used until the early 1960s, when it was renovated for the presentation of "foreign" films as the Penthouse Cinema. But the main theatre, with its cavernous two balconies, was always one of Newark"s leaders, first with vaudeville only and eventually taken over by movies exclusively.
When all of F.F. Proctor"s theatres were acquired by Radio-Keith-Orpheum, it became known as Proctor"son The theatre eventually fell victim to the urban decline of Newark and to "s merger with Stanley-Warner, which operated the nearby and larger Branford.
The new management decided to close Proctor"s, and it has been standing more or less derelict ever since.
Proctor opened his first theater in in 1912, near the Erie Canal. On April 14, 1925, ground was broken for the "new" Proctor"s Theatre in at its present site. Designed by famed theater architect Thomas West. Lamb, the theater cost $1.5 million to build and had a seating capacity of 2,700.
On December 27, 1926, Proctor"s Theatre opened with a showing of Stranded in Paris, a silent film starring Bebe Daniels.
Inside was a $50,000 Wurlitzer organization Over 7,100 paid admissions were collected.
In 1928, sound equipment was installed for the "talkies". On May 22, 1930, Proctor"s was the site of the first public demonstration of television
An orchestra led by the image of a conductor that was sent from the General Electric laboratories over a mile away, and projected onto a seven-foot screen.
The experiment was by Ernst Alexanderson. In 1929 the chain was sold to the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corporation (). Frederick F. Proctor died in 1929 at his home in Larchmont, New York, aged 78 years.
Death was due to congestion of his lungs.