Beginning as a humble vaudeville hall in the Skowhegan-Madison trolley park, Lakewood Theatre has graced the southwestern shore of Lake Wesserunsett in Madison, Maine, since the turn of the 20th century. Under the masterful guidance of Herbert L. Swett, a Bangor native and Bowdoin graduate, Lakewood eventually developed into a nationally renowned playhouse that was called the “Broadway in Maine” by the New York Times in its heyday, from 1925 until World War II. In the years following the war, Lakewood was operated by Swett’s heirs and became a virtual who’s who of both Broadway and Hollywood, until it nearly went dark in the early 1980s. Operating today as a nonprofit community theater, Lakewood is the official state theater of Maine and the oldest continually running summer theater in the country.

In 1952, a small group gathered at the home of Dorothy Peetz in Lake Oswego, Oregon, and thought it would be fun for the community to have a little theater. They began to organize what was then known as the Oswego Players. What started as a little theater that traveled from pillar to post with costumes, props, and flats became the Lakewood Theatre Company at Lakewood Center for the Arts. The nonprofit theater attracts 40,000 patrons annually. Lakewood Center for the Arts, home of the city's annual Festival of the Arts, coordinates a large multi-exhibit arts education event to inspire and awe 25,000 visitors every year. Generations of people have made the Lakewood Center for the Arts a part of their daily lives through volunteerism or by attending classes, everything from ancestry to Zumba. Young actors that performed on Lakewood Theatre Company's stage later returned to direct their own productions.

Travel back in time to the early days of vaudeville, nickelodeons, movies, theatre organs and stars. Theatre Row on Dallas Elm Street is bustling and alive with beautiful theatres, crowds of enthusiastic patrons and movies, movies and more movies. But there is something murderously mysterious going on at the fabulous Rivertree Theatre. A cast of villains and other characters fill the pages of this intriguing saga, along with more startling stories of the many theatres that were along the fabulous Elm Street Theatre Row and the theatre organs that were in them. Shocking events and incredible performances await the reader on this journey through seven decades of Dallas entertainment history. Brilliant imagery fills each chapter. Extra features include a history of the theatre organ, an updated list of the theatre organs that were in Dallas, and a detailed list of all of the theatres that were along Elm Streets Theatre Row during 70 years of Dallas entertainment history. Special treats are the complete specifications and history of the famous Palace Publix Theatre Organ, its final resting place and many other exciting details of those unforgettable times and places.

Dallas was the show business capital of Texas and much of the South throughout the 20th century. More than 100 theatres served the city's neighborhoods, and Elm Street once boasted more than 15 vaudeville and movie theatres--second in number to Broadway. The quality of the show houses in Dallas were surpassed by few cities and all major, and most minor, Hollywood studios maintained Dallas offices. Notable names figuring in this history include Margo Jones, "Blind" Lemon Jefferson, Karl Hoblitzelle, Baruch Lumet, Bob Hope, Greer Garson, Linda Darnell, Howard Hughes, Clyde Barrow, Gene Autry, Oliver Stone, Pappy Dolson, Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald, Nicola Rescigno, Don Henley, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

This is the first complete biography of actress Peg Entwistle, known as the "Hollywood Sign Girl" because of her suicide fall from the HOLLYWOODLAND sign in 1932. It details her childhood, stage and film career, marriage and divorce, and her suicide and almost cult-like pop culture status today. Extensively researched and written with the complete cooperation of the Entwistle family, this work includes excerpts from interviews with Peg Entwistle's brother Milton and her cousin Helen Reid, both of whom recalled much of Peg's years living in Hollywood, her career and private life, and her final weeks. It also features many of Peg Entwistle's own words from extant letters to her family and newly discovered interviews with theatrical reporters. Nearly 30 previously unpublished images from the author's collection, the Entwistle family, and a number of other sources complete an intimate look at a life that was defined by far more than its famously unhappy end.