Title supplied by cataloger.; Herman J. Schultheis was born in Aachen, Germany in 1900, and immigrated to the United States in the mid-1920s after obtaining a Ph.D. in mechanical and electrical engineering. He married Ethel Wisloh in 1936, and the pair moved to Los Angeles the following year. He worked in the film industry from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s, most notably on the animated features Fantasia and Pinocchio. His detailed notebook, documenting the special effects for Fantasia, is the subject of a 14-minute short-subject included on the film's DVD. In 1949, he started employment with Librascope as a patent engineer. Schultheis was an avid amateur photographer who traveled the world with his cameras. It was on one of these photographic exhibitions in 1955 that he disappeared in the jungles of Guatemala. His remains were discovered 18 months later. The digitized portion of this collection represents the images Schultheis took of Los Angeles and its surrounding communities after he relocated to the area in 1937. Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin financed the United Artists Theatre/Texaco Building located at 933 S. Broadway, which was completed in 1927 by architects Percy A. Walker & Albert R. Eisen with interior design by C. Howard Crane. The Spanish Gothic style building included an ornate 50-foot high "dummy tower" to circumvent the local height restriction of the time, and all of the offices were leased to the California Petroleum Co. In 1979 Texaco Oil moved operations to Wilshire Blvd. In 1991 the building was designated as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument # 523. Dr. Gene Scott's University Cathedral leased the building until Greenfield Partners bought it in 2011 for conversion to an Ace Hotel. A car is parked on Broadway in this view looking east towards the United Artists Theatre. The theater marquee is visible, as are twin blade signs on either side of the building, one for United Artists, the other for Texaco. Other signs visible include Blackstone's, a Hungarian restaurant, and System Auto Parts.
Type
Image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;15 x 11 cm. Photographic prints
United Artists Theatre (Los Angeles, Calif.) Texaco, Inc Motion picture theaters--California--Los Angeles Office buildings--California--Los Angeles Architecture--California--Los Angeles--Spanish influences Automobiles--California--Los Angeles Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments Streets--California--Los Angeles Broadway (Los Angeles, Calif.) Downtown Los Angeles (Los Angeles, Calif.) Schultheis Collection photographs Walker & Eisen
If you're wondering about permissions and what you can do with this item, a good starting point is the "rights information" on this page. See our terms of use for more tips.
Share your story
Has Calisphere helped you advance your research, complete a project, or find something meaningful? We'd love to hear about it; please send us a message.
