Tim Curry has passed away at 80

[Robo Ga 15,617]

NOOOO! What a legend. Muppet Treasure Island is seriously one of my favourite movies of all time. His characterization of Long John Silver was brilliant- funny, frightening and deep all at once. Interesting for both kids and adults to watch. And I also have seen the behind the scenes where he is singing live and improvising with the other actors and puppeteers, it’s so cool to watch. Thank you Tim for your gifts to the world ❤️

[weed 79,172]

omg.... IT changed my life as a child, my first ever introduction to horror, scared me so fking bad lmao I was like 3 when I watched it w a babysitter. 

Rest in Peace to an icon, so talented.

[Ilia Malinin 3,048]

i loved rocky horror.  same with wild thornberrys.  the world needs to stop taking.

Edited 5 hours ago by Ilia Malinin

[Juanjo 2,297]

Another legend gone! RIP! 🤍🕊️

[gagacabana 8,048]

This can't be real 😭😭😭😭😭

[Donatellah 2,319]

wow this year sucks

[Ladle Ghoulash 54,943]

Rest easy, queen 

[NUTELLA 28,738]

23 hours ago, NUTELLA said:

I guess Christian wasn't prolific enough

Here's hoping Bunny was 🤞🏼

otherwise....

@PlastiscGuy

it seems the trio is now complete 💔

RIP

[Duella Dvil 11,733]

I'm actually probably sewer slide all right now but NO im at WORK instead of watching LEGEND and CLUE

[LG2008 6,330]

[Killa 18,863]

Two icons Just like that damn

[SleepingSun 1,486]

Damn. Yesterday Dolly Parton, today Tim Curry. This is too much. Rest in peace, icon!

[MOT 3,630]

Note that date of this article.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/the-last-picture-show-at-the-classic-cinema/a/149517584.html

 

[MOT 3,630]

3 minutes ago, MOT said:

Note that date of this article.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/the-last-picture-show-at-the-classic-cinema/a/149517584.html

 

Apologies. I think it's behind a paywall.

[MOT 3,630]

From the Irish Independent (note the date).

The Last Picture Show at the Classic Cinema

26 Aug 2003 12:11 AM

It's been an institution for years, one of the last surviving local cinemas and, of course, the venue for the Rocky Horror Show special nights which have taken place there for more than 20 years. Film Critic PAT STACEY talks to the man who ran the Classic, which closes its doors for good on Friday night

When the last patrons file out of the Classic cinema in Harold's Cross on Friday night having watched one of its current attractions - Veronica Guerin and American Pie: The Wedding - the projectors will stop rolling, the house lights will dim, and this special and much-loved Dublin picture house will shut its doors to the public forever.

The Classic, one of Dublin's two remaining two-screen suburban cinemas (the other is near-neighbour the Stella in Rathmines) is to close after 27 years under the ownership and management of Albert Kelly.

It's not a commercial decision. Albert, who started his working life in the cinema game as an apprentice projectionist at Dublin's Grand Central cinema during the war years, stresses that the Classic is doing better business than ever.

However, Albert's doctor told him that working seven days a week was becoming too much for a man of his age and advised him to call it a day.

Despite thriving ticket sales ( Veronica Guerin, the most popular film of the year, is still drawing a huge number of punters to Harold's Cross after six weeks on release), there is no possibility of the Classic continuing as a cinema without Albert.

"Nobody is interested in the business," he says. "It's a tough business, because you're working when everybody else is off and you're off when everybody else is working."

The Classic, which used to be owned by the now defunct Sundrive Cinemas group, opened its doors in 1953 under the name the Kenilworth. In 1976, Sundrive decided to close both it and its sister cinema, the Classic in Terenure, where Albert was manager.

Albert stepped in and bought the lease on the Harold's Cross property and renamed it the Classic. The rest is, as they say, history.

That history is inextricably tied up with the cult musical comedy The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which has been running at the Classic in a late Friday night slot for an unbroken 21 years. It's an incredible phenomenon. Week after week, Rocky Horror fans, kitted out in full high-camp, high-heeled costumes, flocked to the Classic in their hundreds. They know every song and every line of dialogue off by heart, and audience participation is the order of the night.

Albert has got to know the Rocky Horror gang - one of whom has seen the film more than 800 times - well over the years and he admits that he'll miss these special occasions probably more than anything else.

Last Friday marked the Classic's final Rocky Horror screening and it was an emotional night for everyone concerned. All the old regulars, some of whom had re-arranged their holidays to be there, turned out to present Albert with a plaque honouring him as "a patron of the arts" and greeted him with a thunderous 10-minute standing ovation.

In fact there were so many people there that the cinema was simply too small to contain them. "The awful thing is we had to turn away about 150 people," says Albert, regretfully. About 80 guests were invited to a special after-show party.

If there's one thing more astonishing than the Classic's 21-year Rocky Horrorthon it's the fact that a small independent cinema, tucked away in a suburb far from the buzz of the city centre, managed to survive and even prosper through the rise of the multiplex, while so many other traditional picture houses either went to the wall or were gobbled up by the corporate beast. "We've been lucky," says Albert. "And it's better to be lucky than clever."

To be honest, he's being a little too modest here. It takes more than luck and a Friday night cult audience to weather the storm of running a small cinema in such a competitive market, and Albert has had to weather some incredibly choppy storms over the decades. He recalls, in particular, the tough years when "the barring system was rife".

In the old, pre-multiplex days, the Classic was what would have called a second-run cinema. Once a major film had completed its initial run in big houses like the Adelphi or the Capitol (both long gone, alas) it would go straight into the second-run houses, which meant that the Classic got its hands on films while they were still 'hot'.

But as the nature of cinemas in the city changed, so did the rules of the game. The big-gun cinemas and distributors decided to carve the spoils up between them by barring certain films from running in smaller houses, which could have spelled commercial death for the likes of the Classic - as indeed it did for other small cinemas outside the elite loop.

Through a canny booking policy that juggled commercial films, imaginative double-bills and more offbeat arthouse fare, Albert managed to steer the Classic through this rough patch.

He can't remember the first film he screened when he took over the running of the Classic, although I can clearly recall the first film I saw there. It was Enter the Dragon. My mates and I were especially thrilled, because it was over-15s and we were just 13.

Whenever the film turns up on television, I can immediately see my younger self sitting in the dark, slurping one of those wonderfully juicy orange ice pops they don't make anymore, while Bruce Lee kicked seven bells out of seventy opponents.

But then the Classic, which dates from an era when going to the pictures was a far more thrilling and magical experience than it is now, is the kind of place that lends itself to lasting memories.

After Friday, the Classic itself will be but a memory, albeit one that will be projected forever onto the mind's-eye screen of the cinemagoers who have passed through its doors and enjoyed its comfortingly traditional pleasures.

I don't know what the future holds for the property; Albert is precluded, for legal reasons, from telling me, although it will definitely not be demolished.

Albert used to make a point of being in the foyer of the Classic every evening to personally greet customers on their way in. He's pulled back a little in recent times, entrusting much of the day-to-day running of the cinema to his manager, Dave McCall.

But the closing of the Classic won't bring the curtain down on Albert's involvement with the cinema scene in Dublin. He's been in the business too long and loves it too much to let that happen.

Joking that he's actually 100 years old - and has been for a few years now - he says: "I won't be retiring. I've had three offers of booking, but I wouldn't be inclined to do 40 hours a week."

After 50 years as a functioning cinema, it would be nice if the Classic were to leave behind a more tangible legacy than mere memories and a handful of newspaper articles such as this one.

Perhaps some other enterprising cinema manager in Dublin might consider picking up Albert Kelly's baton and revivive the weekly late-night screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It may not bring back the Classic but it would certainly make a lot of men in stiletto heels and fishnet stockings extremely happy on Friday nights.