Who Was Roxy Rothafel?

Though his full name is now rarely heard, Stillwater native Roxy Rothafel had a significant influence on 20th century American popular culture. By the 1920s, Roxy was a household name, heard by millions each week on national broadcasts. Off the air, he was a leader in the development of movie palaces and the source of significant innovations ranging from film music composition to theatrical lighting. Roxy was one of radio’s first stars and pioneered the warm, personal style emulated by broadcasters ever since. He was one of the first to see the promotional power of using broadcasts to promote movies. His annual Christmas shows and Roxyettes precision dance line live on (as the Rockettes) at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, which Roxy founded.

The Rothapfel Family in Stillwater

Samuel Rothapfel, better known as “Roxy”, was born on July 9, 1882, possibly in Bromberg, Germany (now Bydgoszcz, Poland). Though Roxy would live to become one of the most famous people in the United States, the history of his early years is less clear. When Roxy was three years old, he and his family emigrated to Stillwater, which at that time was one of three Minnesota communities with a prominent Jewish population. By 1888, Roxy’s father Gustav Rothapfel had established his own boot and shoe shop on Second Street, and that summer he entered a “highly creditable” float in the town’s Fourth of July parade.^[1]

Stillwater residents recalled that the Rothapfel family didn’t appear to have much money during Roxy’s childhood. During their time in Stillwater, both Gustav’s shop and the family home relocated every few years. Of the Stillwater buildings closely associated with Roxy, only two are known to survive: the two-story red brick Delwer Building at 233 South Second Street, where the Rothapfels lived in 1890, as well as a house on West Oak Street.^[2]

At least one and perhaps two children died soon after birth during the Rothapfels’ time in Stillwater. Roxy’s mother Celia was in poor health for many of these years, and medical bills were a source of concern for the family. In 1890, a society of Jewish women in Minneapolis paid for Celia to be treated with surgery “for some female complaint” at St. Luke’s Hospital in St. Paul, followed by another surgery for breast cancer a few months later. Celia needed a third surgery in 1892, and the situation prompted a number Stillwater residents “to raise a purse of $50 with which to pay the expense of the operation” in Hudson.^[3]

Despite tragedies and challenges, local newspapers of the time also reflect the Rothapfels being involved in the daily life of the town. Gustav was a witness in a trial related to the shocking murder of Stillwater Messenger editor Victor Seward. Roxy’s younger brother Max took second place in the egg and spoon race at Stillwater’s Independence Day celebration in 1893. Gustav also seems to have struck up a relationship with Gazette editor Gus Easton, providing occasional jokes and stories for publication. Perhaps this inspired young Roxy, who grew up to cultivate strong relationships with reporters.^[4]

Roxy told a magazine that he first experienced theater at age seven, when he saw a play at Stillwater’s elaborate Grand Opera House. The experience “even then entranced him”. Creating that kind of magic for theatergoers would later become Roxy’s life’s work.^[5]

Five months after the death of Gustav and Celia’s infant daughter, Gustav sold his shop and family left Stillwater for New York. It appears that Gustav later regretted the move. The following summer the Gazette noted: “Gus Rothapfel writes from Chatham street, New York, that he would like to return to Stillwater as this city suits him better than any place he has ever been in.”^[6]

Roxy’s Career

Roxy was 14 when the family moved to New York, and he found jobs including newspaper copy boy, travelling bookseller, and a laborer. As his biographer would later write, “He had joined the hordes of New York City immigrants scraping together a meager existence, searching for something that a man with dreams but little education or training could accomplish.”^[7]

In 1901, Roxy’s mother Celia Rothapfel died. Roxy was 19 and soon enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, hoping that military service would give him new skills and a sense of purpose. After three and a half years, Roxy was discharged from the Marine Corps, but he would draw on his military experience—and seek to aid veterans—throughout his career. In the years following his discharge, Roxy worked in small towns as a traveling bookseller, insurance manager, hotel clerk, and bartender. It was at this time that Roxy met his wife Rosa Freedman and moved to Forest City, Pennsylvania. Rosa’s father owned a hotel and required Roxy to tend bar in order to court his daughter. The hotel also had an empty rear storeroom. Roxy converted the storeroom into the Family Theatre, a vaudeville, film, and roller-skating venue. This launched what became a legendary showbusiness career, and its success convinced Rosa’s father to agree to the marriage.^[8]

Roxy’s innovations inspired other theater owners throughout the country, and he was soon a respected voice in American showbusiness. In the early 1910s, his reputation led to jobs managing increasingly larger theaters including “movie palaces” in Milwaukee and Minneapolis. His biographer Ross Melnick observed: “It was in the Midwest, not New York, that was at the vanguard of film exhibition in 1911. Roxy is best known for his work in New York, but his career was established closer to his boyhood home in Minnesota.”^[9]

It was probably inevitable that America’s best-known theater manager would wind up on Broadway, and starting in 1913, Roxy managed a succession of increasingly large, elaborate, and prominent new deluxe cinemas in New York City. By 1914, Roxy’s cinema innovations were being nationwide, with a wave of traditional theaters being converted to deluxe film venues. By this time, Roxy was so well-known and admired that his name being appropriated by other entrepreneurs for their own “Roxy” theaters around the world.^[10]

The Audience Experience at Roxy’s Theaters

Through most of Roxy’s career, an evening at one of his theaters featured far more than the movie on the screen. Among other things, audiences could expect staff costumes and decorations that reflected the theme of the film, large symphony orchestras performing original scores, and highly-trained choruses and dancers. Though Roxy did not personally know how to read music, he developed an encyclopedic knowledge of orchestra repertoire, which he used to select music for his productions.^[11]

Throughout his career, Roxy experimented with numerous technical innovations intended to draw the viewer more fully into the movie, such as lighting that changed colors throughout the film, and even scents that would be released through the ventilation system during certain scenes. Roxy focused on the quality of the presentation itself, combining live music and dance with the (silent) films to offer a more memorable audience experience. Roxy famously led his performers through grueling rehearsal schedules. He also re-edited the films he received from distributors, tailoring the films to suit his music and larger vision for the evening’s performance. A feature-length film would often be paused for a live stage performance that reflected or advanced the story. As Roxy wrote:

… the performance shall have a beginning and an ending. It should be arranged, as far as possible, to offer a complete and consecutive presentation, just as though the patrons were watching a dramatic or any other performance…. If the programs are arranged with care and worked up to the psychological point, the audiences will go away contented and carry with them a definite recollection of the entertainment.^[12]

Roxy successfully combined high artistic standards with commercial success: while operating under a for-profit model, he championed the work of an impressive range of artists including from modern composers Prokofiev, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky; conductors including Eugene Ormandy; dancers such as Martha Graham; and German movies that were risky choices amid the anti-German sentiment that followed World War I. Roxy was also the first to popularize the documentary film genre.^[13]

Radio Stardom and Larger Stages

In the early 1920s, the innovation of radio broadcasting quickly swept the United States. In 1922, AT&T launched the first ad-supported commercial radio station and soon wired Roxy’s Capitol Theatre to allow weekly live broadcasts of the theater’s performances. Acting as a radio host on the stage, Roxy connected with a new audience. Unlike other previous broadcasters who had a formal manner, Roxy’s broadcasts were warm and personal, a style that immediately proved popular and has been emulated by broadcasters ever since. Within a few months, the broadcasts by Roxy and the Capitol’s performers became known as “Roxy and His Gang.” Each Sunday night, the broadcast’s first hour would live from the Capitol’s stage in front of an audience. For the second hour, the broadcast would move to the theater’s broadcast studio while in-person audiences watched the main feature film. Practically overnight, the radio broadcast increased ticket sales at the Capitol Theatre and became a powerful promotional tool. After six months, the broadcasts had dramatically expanded Roxy’s reach: while 5,300 people could watch a Sunday evening show inside the enormous Capitol Theatre, the same production was heard by million listeners or more on the radio. A year later, Roxy and His Gang was reaching several million people across North America, making Roxy a household name.^[14]

Starting in 1924, “Roxy and His Gang” took their show on the road, performing from theaters across the country, often to raise funds for wounded veterans and other charities. The audience response was phenomenal: 35,000 people were waiting for the “Gang” when the performers’ train arrived at the station in Washington, D.C. In March 1925, Roxy and his colleagues returned to D.C. Among those in the audience were newly-elected president Calvin Coolidge along with the vice president and entire cabinet. The next day, Coolidge hosted Roxy and the other performers at the White House.^[15]

In 1927, during his astonishing radio success, Roxy opened his most impressive venue to date: the palatial 5,920-seat Roxy Theater. As biographer Ross Melnick notes, the Roxy Theatre’s opening could be considered the pinnacle of the movie palace era: “With its cavernous auditorium and rotunda, its battalion of well-drilled ushers, its ever-expanding stage shows, and its 110-piece orchestra and 110-member chorus, the Roxy exemplified the excess that defined the era’s movie palaces and the growing ties between American’s premier stages—one live and cinematic, the other floating through the air and into millions of homes.” The theater’s music library contained 50,000 orchestrations, allowing its music librarians to find the right music for any scenario Roxy’s team developed. A luxurious apartment within the theater supported the long hours worked by Roxy, a famous workaholic. The theater was also extensively wired for media technology to support Roxy’s continuing national radio broadcasts.^[16]

Roxy’s Return to Stillwater

Following the 1929 start of the Great Depression, the Roxy Theatre’s shareholders became impatient with low ticket sales, sliding stock values, and Roxy’s expensive, elaborate productions. At the same time, his relationship with the Fox company, a significant Roxy Theatre shareholder, soured. Roxy began to develop a closer relationship with NBC and eventually announced that he would leave the Roxy Theatre to join a project to construct Rockefeller Center and its vast Radio City Music Hall. The new facility was envisioned as the heart of NBC broadcasting on radio and eventually television, and the Music Hall would feature Roxy’s stage shows on an even greater scale. The audacious project caught the imagination of a nation finding its way through the Great Depression.^[17]

This moment was perhaps the peak of Roxy’s fame. While Rockefeller Center was under development, NBC’s owner RKO sent Roxy and His Gang on an 80-city national tour in 1931. The tour stop in Minneapolis created an occasion for Roxy to accept a longstanding invitation to return to Stillwater, and the town planned an elaborate homecoming event. On the morning of March 13, Stillwater residents formed an automobile caravan to escort Roxy and 25 cast members from Minneapolis to Stillwater, stopping at various local sites from Roxy’s childhood. Upon arrival, Roxy was greeted by several hundred spectators on Main Street, as well as flags, signs, fire engines, and the city band.

The day’s highlight was a tribute luncheon at the Lowell Inn. Tickets were open to the public and quickly sold out. Businessman and former mayor Jacob Kolliner served master of ceremonies for event, and was successful enough that Roxy proclaimed Kolliner to be an honorary member of the “Gang”, an honor that had previously only been extended to the president and supreme court justices. (For the rest of his life, Kolliner would consider this to be one of the honors he appreciated most.) The lunch celebration continued for hours as Roxy led performances with his radio stars, shared stories of childhood pranks, and even conducted the Stillwater band. The homecoming was an emotional one for Roxy, who told the crowd that he had “had many thrills, gifts, trophies, and decorations from all parts of the world but never was as deeply touched” as at the celebration. Ernestine Schumann-Heink, a well-known opera singer and radio star, was equally pleased by the event and said she planned to return to Stillwater for a performance of her own. The locals were also pleased, noting that for one day Stillwater was in newspapers across the United States, including front pages in New York.^[18]

The End of Roxy’s Career

Misfortunes, both personal and professional, began to find Roxy. He suffered a heart attack in 1931 and an unspecified surgery in 1932. In December 1931, Roxy’s father Gustav died suddenly while Roxy was live on the radio; the theater orchestra covered the end of the broadcast while Roxy rushed to his father’s side.^[19]

Throughout 1932, Roxy, NBC, and others continued preparations for the opening of Rockefeller Center and its Music Hall. Roxy planned live stage performances on an even grander scale, made possible by expensive ticket prices. The high-price idea was a departure from Roxy’s past egalitarian approach, and ignored the severe financial challenges facing many audience members during the Great Depression. Additionally, critics agreed that the four-hour opening program was terrible. Within days, Roxy was back in the hospital, and the theater’s ownership announced a change to more conventional vaudeville and movies, with lower price tickets. Roxy returned to work in 1933, but his reputation had suffered. His salary was cut in half and his decisions were now subject to approval by a committee.^[20]

Increasingly frustrated with the theater’s ownership and financial constraints, Roxy abruptly resigned from Radio City and NBC in early 1934. Later that year, he began a CBS broadcast on a smaller scale and unsuccessfully attempted to turn around a struggling movie palace in Philadelphia. In 1935, Roxy had another heart attack and his CBS broadcasting contract ended. Things were finally looking up in early 1936, with NBC and CBS both developing concepts for new programs featuring Roxy. Those plans would never be realized. Roxy died of a heart attack at home on January 13, 1936. More than 2,000 people attended his funeral, and multiple radio stations and networks broadcast tribute programs.^[21]

Among the many published tributes was this one, in the New York Post: “It is difficult to conceive any idea of what American broadcasting might be today if Roxy had not pioneered in setting a form for its entertainment….. It is futile to deny the importance of the part he has had in the process of transforming ratio from an instrument of communication into a form of entertainment. So successful was the variety show pattern which he early imposed on broadcasting that even today it is still the standard radio form.”^[22]

Another Roxy legacy is the annual Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Starting with his first small theater in Pennsylvania, Roxy established an elaborate annual Christmas presentation. He continued the tradition at his later theaters, culminating with Radio City. The Christmas Spectacular features the Rockettes, a precision dance troupe formed in St. Louis in 1925. They were hired by Roxy for the Roxy Theatre in 1927, where they became known as the Roxyettes. The dancers moved with Roxy to Radio City in Rockefeller Center, and since 1934 have been known as the Rockettes.^[23]