Jack Clark founded Helena, Montana’s Family Theater in (then) Main Street’s St. Louis Block way back in 1906. The Family Theater was once the city’s premiere vaudeville house. The auditorium was refurbished for movies in 1915, and renamed the Liberty Theater.
Dentist Edward Cabbage, who changed his name to Bethell, operated a movie theater on the ground floor. He kept his dental office and apartment above the theater, which he named for himself. It operated as “a first run feature moving picture house,” and lasted only a year from 1925 before returning to the Liberty brand. During that one year, Bethell ran a promotion worth recalling.
Caught up in a celebrity wave
Wildly popular child star Jackie Coogan appeared in the film ‘Old Clothes,’ which saw its Helena premiere at the Bethell on December 27, 1925.
A promotion for the movie called for children to dress in old clothes like Coogan. The film was preceded by a Fox newsreel and Imperial comedy called ‘Sweet Marie.’ These performances were accompanied by a “snappy musical program by the new Bethell orchestra in the pit.”
Promised free admission for arriving in costume, three hundred youths showed up for the contest. The winner was aptly named two year old Junior Young, chosen by acclamation of the audience.
Meteoric rise (for a ‘kid’)
Jackie Coogan’s peak popularity occurred when he was five. In 1921, Charlie Chaplin enjoyed watching him in a family vaudeville act, and signed Coogan to co-star in ‘The Kid.’ It became a smash hit, quickly followed up by many more. By 1925 he was ten, and Hollywood’s first child superstar; more popular than Douglas Fairbanks or Rudolph Valentino. He once said, “other boys went to see Babe Ruth, but Babe Ruth came to see me.”
Coogan was a marketer’s dream, and he endorsed clothing, toothbrushes, dolls, and more. He owned a dedicated railway car, a mansion, Rolls-Royce autos and his own dairy farm. Under his parent’s active management, his touring ship brought tons of food and clothing to victims of the Greek-Turkish war.
During that journey a crowd of 40,000 greeted him in New York’s Prospect Park, and another 15,000 in Paris. He enjoyed a 20 minute audience with the Pope, a reception by the League of Nations in Geneva, and a conversation with Mussolini in Rome.
When he starred in Old Clothes, he shared the lead with a young dancer discovered by his father. MGM wasn’t fond of her birth name, Lucille LeSueur, and renamed her Joan Crawford.
Fads fade – grown ups aren’t so ‘cute’
Adolescence and friction between his parents dulled Coogan’s star. He starred in both ‘Tom Sawyer’ and ‘Huckleberry Finn’ for Paramount, but neither could fire up much enthusiasm among movie patrons.
In 1935, shortly before his 21st birthday, Jackie was thrown from the rumble seat of his father’s car. The auto hit a canyon wall and then plunged 45 feet down an embankment. Three of his friends, along with his father died in the accident. That October, he celebrated his birthday with a party of 200 at the Coconut Grove. His girlfriend hosted another party afterwards – she was Betty Grable, and soon became Jackie’s first wife.
It was a bad sign that Grable was the primary breadwinner in the marriage. Coogan’s mother and stepfather controlled nearly all the money Jackie had made, and shared little of it. Jackie finally sued, and although California law then said that the income of a child belonged to the parents. It was a case with a profile high enough to affect that law. In 1939, California passed the Coogan Law, requiring that half the net earnings of a minor be set aside in trust for him or her. It protected the next wave of child stars, including Shirley Temple, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland and Deanna Durbin.
Unfortunately, this all came too late to help Jackie Coogan. Of the $3,000,000 he earned between 1923 and 1936, his assets amounted to about $40,000, with just $519.00 in the bank.
Casting around for a second act
Nine months after the final settlement in 1940, Betty Grable filed for divorce. By January 1941, he was back living with his mother and stepfather at an estate purchased with Jackie’s money. Unable to find movie work, he joined the army as a private at $21.00 per month.
A glider pilot, Coogan experienced some horrific episodes in Burma. He won several decorations and was discharged in 1944. When the war ended, Jackie tried his hand at the nightclub circuit in New York, and appeared in plays and early live television.
in 1966, he auditioned for the role of Uncle Fester in The Addams Family, and was unsuccessful. Jackie craved the role, and its steady paycheck. He went home, got a costume, shaved his head, applied makeup and practiced a high-pitched voice. Auditioning again, he got the role.
This was rather a tragic comedown for a once beautiful child actor to now be thought of as an Addams monster. He somehow came to terms with the role, and professed to love doing the show.
In his adulthood, after the failed union with Betty Grable, Jackie Coogan went on to three more marriages, and fathered four children. He died following a heart attack in 1984.
New life for an old theater
The Italianate style St. Louis Block building that contained the Family Theater dates back to 1882. It appears in the National Register of Historic Places. Originally a dry goods store, it went through a long series of tenants, including theaters (The Family Theater, Liberty, Bethell), bars, a bowling alley, a bank and a boot shop. Today, it is home to the Windbag Saloon and Grill, a popular dining and watering hole. Even the street has changed. Main Street renamed as Last Chance Gulch in 1958. In the late 1970’s traffic bypassed it entirely and it became a pedestrian thoroughfare.
The lady is a madam
The St. Louis Block still stands inside the pedestrian mall at 17-19 Last Chance Gulch. From about 1955, its second story, accessed by a discrete Jackson Street entrance, was home to Dorothy’s Rooms. It enjoyed a reputation among ‘sporting men,’ as the cleanest and best run whorehouse in the state.
Owner Dorothy Baker was prominent enough to have her own Wikipedia page. The upstairs portion of the St. Louis Block hosted its first bordello in 1927. Big Dorothy ran her house above the theater from 1954 through 1973. The ‘Big’ followed from the fact that, in her prime, Dorothy weighed 240 lbs. She died less than a month after a police raid closed down the bordello for good.
Big Dorothy managed such a lengthy stay in business by keeping a low profile with the formally named ‘Dorothy’s Rooms.” It certainly didn’t hurt that she catered to politically connected men in town and generously supported children’s charities. Well liked, Dorothy had a local argument in her favor that she provided a needed outlet for men who might otherwise have resorted to violence in the community.
Epilogue
Jackie Coogan could have used a little charity in his hard post child star years, when he lived on a $6.25 per week allowance from his mother. Indeed, Big Dorothy comes across as a far more sympathetic character than Coogan’s mom. Dorothy had a lot of public support going for her in 1973. If she hadn’t died before trial, most likely would have resumed business as usual. She used to sit at the Chinese restaurant next door, telling the owner how difficult it was to find good help. A sign in Dorothy’s read, “It’s a beautiful day, now watch some bastard louse it up.”
Resources
Helena History Organization at http://www.helenahistory.org/family_theatre_reeves.htm
A terrific open source for Helena history is Helena As She Was, at http://www.helenahistory.org/?fbclid=IwY2xjawRODmhleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFzeEdub0VTZHpLRVlXOGpsc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHlmPUxtINT_l8l6kWylFc3RIpSDBLg69-exxejJxqXWX0BnEnWx9wjZmz_CL_aem_v_sPdN3NAnXB8crV-gcLZA
Helena Independent Record; Nov 30, 1925; p6. Other newspapers used for background include the Independent Record of December 26, 27 and 28, 1925.
American Heritage The Very Sad Story of Jackie Coogan; Neil Grauer; December, 2000; Volume 51; Issue 8
Windbag Saloon website https://www.windbagsaloon.com/index.html
Wikipedia page for Big Dorothy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Baker_(madam)
A good history for the St. Louis Block appears as a historic property record in the Montana History Portal at https://www.mtmemory.org/nodes/view/4077
The Historical Marker Database has an entry covering the St. Louis Block at https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=186668
Jackie Coogan’s obituary in the New York Times: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1984/03/02/026082.html?pageNumber=33