Samuel Lionel Rothafel was born in Stillwater, Minn. , the eldest of three children of Gustave and Cecelia (Schwerzens) Rothapfel. His father was the village shoemaker; his forebears had emigrated from Germany about 1820. When Roxy was a small boy the family moved from Stillwater to Brooklyn, N. Y.
He completed grammar school in Brooklyn, the only formal education he received.
At fourteen Rothafel ran away from home, and for some half dozen years he led a shiftless life, seldom holding a job for more than a week or two without either quitting or being discharged. On May 24, 1902, according to the official records, but several years earlier by family tradition, he enlisted in the United States Marines. His three and one half years as private and corporal in the Marines (chiefly spent on a gunboat in American waters) had a remarkable influence on young Roxy and gave him many of the ideas he later applied to theatre operation.
After being discharged in Norfolk, Va. , on October 13, 1905, he returned to New York and soon became a traveling salesman selling sets of Stoddard's Lectures by the popular John Lawson Stoddard. In 1908 he obtained a job working for the owner of a tavern in Forest City, Pa. It was in the upstairs room of the tavern, converted into a movie theatre, that Roxy had his first contact with motion picture exhibition, and before long his efforts at showmanship attracted attention well beyond Forest City. In 1912 he became manager of the Lyric Theatre in Minneapolis, where he put into practice his first ideas about the proper stage presentation to accompany a motion picture show. A year later he came to New York to manage the Regent Theatre, and in a short time he had become the most successful and best-known motion picture theatre operator in the world. In succession he was the managing director of the Strand, Rialto, Rivoli, and Capitol theatres, all in New York City. At the Rivoli he embellished his plan of presentations, including an excellent orchestra and world-famous singers and musicians on the program, in addition to important feature films.
Later he introduced precision dancing, with a troupe first called "Roxyettes" and then "Rockettes, " and subsequently a corps de ballet. During his years of greatest success three theatres costing in the tens of millions were built especially for Roxy. The first of these, named the Roxy, was the last word in theatre magnificence when it opened in 1927. Roxy's compensation was $1, 000 a week during the construction and after the opening $2, 000 a week plus ten per cent of the profits. He resigned in the fall of 1931 to join the Radio-Keith-Orpheum organization in developing the two theatres planned for the new Rockefeller Center in New York City. The principal Rockefeller Center theatre, the Radio City Music Hall, was Roxy's dream. By this time he thought he had outgrown the need for the feature film, and the theatrical presentation, with orchestra and stage acts, was to be the whole show. The opening, on December 27, 1932, was a dismal failure, and the Music Hall soon shifted to the policy of first-run films plus stage show. But this left the other theatre in Radio City, which had originally been planned for motion pictures, in complement to the Music Hall's all-stage-show policy, without a distinctive purpose. First known as the RKO Roxy, then as the RKO Center, then as just the Center, it never prospered, and Roxy's contract was terminated in October 1933.
Besides his theatre work Roxy was a pioneer in popular network radio. At the Capitol Theatre (of which he was manager from 1920 to 1927) he organized a radio program known as "Roxy and His Gang, " a "folksy" variety show in which he served as master of ceremonies, chatting informally with the participants. Though always popular with the public, Roxy was no favorite with his contemporaries in the theatre business, who found him vain and domineering and perhaps also resented his success. He was, however, generous to his friends and charitable to his numerous retainers.
His passions--beyond entertaining the public--were music and card playing. Small of stature, he became most animated when leading his theatre orchestra or talking over the radio to his nationwide audience. Death from a heart attack came to him in his sleep in New York. Burial was in Linden Hills Cemetery, Brooklyn.
Rothafel was noted for developing the lavish presentation of silent films in the deluxe movie palace theaters of the 1910s and 1920s. He had known unparalleled success, and he had a great and continuing impact on the techniques of motion picture theatre operation. Theatre managers everywhere, in this country and even abroad, looked up to his theatres as the ideal. Only a few of the largest theatres could copy his elaborate musical and stage presentations, but managers everywhere could--and did--follow some of the practices that Roxy made famous, such as well-uniformed ushers, polite ticket-takers, and a generally luxurious decor that made the movie theatre an attractive place to attend. Roxy also made a name for himself on network radio, where he began broadcasting. In the mid-1920's his was one of the best-known radio voices in the country.
On January 31, 1909, Rothafel married, Rosa Freedman. Two children, Beta and Arthur, were born of the marriage, which lasted until Roxy's death.
