THE O'KEEFE CENTRE - Thirty Years of Theatre History

Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1991. Book. Very Good+. Hardcover. Signed by Author(s). First Edition. 4to. (ix) (ix) 310 pp. Personalized inscription by Hugh Walker, along with a personal dropped-in letter from Walker to Mary Rooney, the wife of Jim Rooney, the front doorman and a retired employee of the O'Keefe Brewing Company, on the demise of Mr. Rooney. Also dropped-in is a brief newspaper article from 1996, also written by Hugh Walker. Brown boards lettered in gilt on the spine; brown endpapers; headband; profusely illustrated with black and white photographs. Light wear at the corners of the dustjacket; price intact; aside from the author's inscription, no interior markings. Some of the finest performers in the world played the O'Keefe, from Harry Belafonte to Carol Channing and Katherine Hepburn, Richard Burton, Anne Murray, Julie Andrews, Robert Goulet, Richard Harris, Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, Diahann Carroll, Mary Martin, Cab Calloway, Chaim Topol, Juliet Prowse, Joel Grey, Rudolf Nureyev, Yul Brynner, Mickey Rooney, Marlene Dietrich, Liberace, Laurence Olivier, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong... The list goes on and on. The Contents are: Introduction by Herbert Whittaker; Part One: The Theatre: Beginnings; The Theatre: York Wilson's Mural; Some Technical Features; Staff; Booking Attractions; Subscriptions; Art Exhibitions; The Press; The Gift to Metro: Under New Management; The Board of Management: Learning the Ropes; The Second Fifteen Years; A Business Like No Other. Part Two: Performances: Musicals; Revues, International Artists, Jazz; Plays; Operas; Ballets; Canadian Opera Company; National Ballet of Canada; Symphonies; and Miscellaneous; followed by appendices..