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).

Byde-A-Wyle Theatre - Photo One
The pictures, exterior and interior, are provided by the Ronald W. Mahan & Joseph J. Musil Photo Theatre Collection.
Byde-A-Wyle Theatre - Photo Two