The Variety Arts Theater in 1980 where we spent many happy hours.
This is the original Friday Morning Club at the same location prior to 1910.
Abolitionist and suffragist and incredibly accomplished Caroline M. Seymour Severance founded the Friday Morning Club in 1891, along with 87 other women. It became the largest women’s club in California, with membership of over 1,800 women by the 1920s. Their building eventually became the home of the Variety Arts Theater.
Victoria Jackson in 1988 when she was in the cast of Saturday Night Live. A few years earlier she hung out at the Variety Arts Theater the same time Geoff and I did.
It was said that the theater was haunted by a ghost named Pauline. Supposedly, this was the shade of stage and screen actress Pauline Frederick. She passed away in 1937 when a heavy fresnel lantern came loose, crashing down onto the stage and directly onto her. Now Geoff is telling me he made that up. The real story is in the book.