Tickets Please: Regent Theatre Ephemera

One day whilst perusing the myriad of assorted boxes haphazardly stacked to the ceiling in every nook and cranny of the Illawarra Historical Society’s offices, a strange recycled cardboard box, thoroughly enclosed with what looked like a couple of rolls of tape, and squished into a corner of some shelving, caught my eye.

I peeled some of the sticky off carefully, well – enough to get the box open – to find very densely packed printed ephemera including memorabilia from a movie house. The box also included items from the Crown Theatre, Wollongong R.S.L, and the Southern Cross Hall. Was it donated by a collector, or were they all venues that the same person, in a particular role, had been involved in somehow?

Most of it, as turns out, this was from the last days of the Regent.

This well-known Art Deco building at 197 Keira St, Wollongong, by Reginald Magoffin, was originally designed in the mid-late 1930s although interestingly, it was not actually constructed until the 1950s. Reasons given for the delays were “industrial, financial and political conditions“ but WWII also played a major part. Building progress was incredibly slow and the theatre did not finally open until 1957, through 23 years of planning and negotiations to complete the project.

The building features interior design of state significance by Marion Hall Best (and also Janet Single); the former considered one of Australia’s leading modernists. The main auditorium has lower circle and mezzanine seating, and now has capacity of over 1200 seats.  It is one of the few intact grand cinemas with dress circle, original furnishings and equipment, and it retains its original Cinemascope screen and 70mm projection equipment (one of four remaining in NSW). The Regent showed its first Cinemascope movie in 1961.

Herbert Wyndham Jones was a local entertainment entrepreneur who pioneered film exhibition from around 1930, showing silent movies- and quickly segueing into ‘talkies’. Herbert had originally been a store keeper in Corrimal.

It’s his son Maurice, however, that is remembered by most. He ran the ‘Civic Theatre’ in Wollongong, together with the ‘Princess Theatre’ in Corrimal. He also ran a picture show in Kembla Heights for a number of years.

Jack Miller recalls: “When I was at school the bloke that ran the movie shows in Kembla gave me a job working for him – I would switch the lights at beginning, end and intermission; then I would help in the projection room. Then on Saturday mornings I’d get the movies, put them on the bus, and send ’em back to Wollongong. I was hoping to get a job showing the movies in Wollongong but the bloke who was doing it told me it’s a dead-end job and not to take it. Maurice Jones was a nice bloke but drank too much. They’d come up here and get on the grog; he’d bring all his mates up.”

Herbert passed away in 1943, thus never got to see out his grand plans for the state-of-the-art venue he had envisaged.  His wife Emily Vaughan Jones, son Morry and daughter Rowena Milgrove carried on the business after he passed away and finally somehow got the theatre built through all kinds of trials and tribulations.

Who knows if the name it ended up with was the original plan of his father’s. For in an interview with John Martin (who was working as a journalist at the time, later News Editor WIN TV) Morry disclosed his concern that he’d made an error with his intention for the name, for in English Royal hierarchy, a Crown is superior to the Regent.

The Regent Theatre was developed to be the ‘fancier’ venue in the CBD,  and as such the name should perhaps have better reflected that hierarchy.  A number of people recall their other busy venue the Civic Theatre being “a bit lower class”  where you went “to meet…girls… canoodling in the front rows.” and it was even sometimes referred to as ‘The Flea Pit.”

Charley Slater, a projectionist for Morry, recalls “Mrs Emily Jones, Morry’s mother, invariably stationed…selling tickets and… keeping young riff-raff in order. Unlike many theatre managers, he liked to be involved in the technical side of the business so we got on well. “

Rowena Milgrove ran The  Regent until her passing in January 2004. As the last surviving picture theatre of that golden age in the city of Wollongong – the building is now heritage listed as of 2005. It was listed for sale by Gateway City Church in 2009 (I’m not sure if they did actually end up selling it), and is still open today, but as a religious organization, and entertainment venue;  renowned Australian musician and singer Paul Kelly was a recent performer.

Some excerpts courtesy of the WCC’s Town Hall Project archive.

Regent Theatre History, NSW Office of Environment and Heritage.