Byde-A-Wyle Theatre

Byde-A-Wyle Theatre

Opened: March 02, 1908 (later named the Unique Theatre, 1911)

Address: 336, The Pike—”Walk of a Thousand Lights”

Balboa Films 13: In 1908, for example, “Fatty” Roscoe Arbuckle, who later returned to live and work in Long Beach, had been doing summer stock in Long Beach, receiving $50 a week as a singer and comedian. That summer, Arbuckle performed at the fashionable Pike amusement area of Long Beach, at the Byde A Wyle Theatre. During Arbuckle’s theatre tour in Long Beach, he met and fell in love with a young dancer, Minta Durfee. Chris Callard’s article, “Long Beach Story: The Balboa Amusements Producing Company” reports that Arbuckle proposed marriage to the dancer while strolling along the Pine Avenue Pier (22).

The pictures, exterior and interior, are provided by the Ronald W. Mahan & Joseph J. Musil Photo Theatre Collection.