theater

June 19, 1877

Charles Coburn

He was one of those classic character actors from the golden age of Hollywood but you probably didn’t know his name. Actor Charles Coburn was born in Macon in 1877 and grew up in Savannah. At age 19, after working in local theater, he headed off to Broadway. When his first wife died in 1937, […]

May 18, 1928

Pernell Roberts

As an actor, he was defined by two roles: the eldest of Ben Cartwright’s sons and the chief of medicine at a San Francisco hospital. Pernell Roberts was born in Waycross in 1928. He attended Georgia Tech and the University of Maryland with a two-year stint in the Marines in between. Roberts made his stage […]

February 27, 1930

Joanne Woodward

She gave the performance of a lifetime in just her third film—and won an Oscar at 27. Joanne Woodward was born in Thomasville and grew up there and in Marietta. She loved movies, and in 1939 she and her mother attended the Atlanta premiere of Gone with the Wind. Woodward went to Louisiana State University […]

December 25, 1929

Fox Theatre Opens

It’s one of Georgia’s great architectural treasures, and it opened on Christmas day in 1929. The Fabulous Fox Theatre on the corner of Peachtree and Ponce de Leon was originally built as the meeting hall for the Shriners, which explains its Moorish design. The initial cost was $2.2 million but it took the money of […]