Lights! Camera! Action!

Grant County Journal
Lights! Camera! Action!
May 16, 2011
Written by Janet Warren

Let me take you back to the days when movies were new. You have to be in a certain age group to remember those days, and even I don’t belong to that group. So I called Mary Lee. Actually, I called her son Jack who gave me her number. Jack said Mary usually doesn’t do interviews and that I would have to use my journalistic skills to pull one out of her. I called her and told her I wanted to ask her a few questions about the early days of movies in Ephrata. That is the extent of my journalistic skills but, luckily for me, it was enough. I never would have believed Mary Lee is 97 years old by talking with her on the telephone.
Mary and John Lee moved to Ephrata around 1939. John was an entrepreneur who always wanted to be in the movie business. He started out with a traveling movie circuit. He bought the very best projection equipment for the time and travelled to the smaller towns like Moses Lake (yes, Moses Lake used to be smaller than Ephrata) and Othello. Around 1940 he bought the Marjo Theater. Mary helped out in the ticket booth in those days, but as her family grew she mainly did the office work for her husband’s ventures. Mary remembers when they bought a new contraption called a popcorn machine and that was the only concession they sold. Those were the days of ushers showing you to your seat. The Nifty Costume Company delivered nice uniforms weekly for the ushers to wear.
Mary describes John as a “very friendly fellow” and he made connections wherever he went. He bought and ran the Sunset Theater in Soap Lake for a number of years, and also bought the Kam Theater (which is now a parking lot behind the Methodist church). Mary explained that the “theater business was very competitive and you had to watch your backside very carefully to make sure someone didn’t take your territory away from you.”
In 1950, the Lees built the Lee Theater in Ephrata. John ran it for a number of years and then eventually it was managed by Sun Basin out of Wenatchee where Jeff Fairchild worked. They ran the theater until one day in the 1980’s the oil in the tank ran out and they couldn’t heat it anymore. It stayed empty, except for some companies renting out the lobby for various businesses for over ten years. In 1990, Fairchild branched out and convinced John Lee into letting him open it back up, and he eventually purchased the theater from Lee. This is when the theater was renovated and two more screens were added. About five years ago, Fairchild sold it to a group of investors which included Lanith Merchant Whetstone. Lanith was a silent partner and didn’t have anything to do with the day-to-day operations. As you can imagine with its history, the Lee Theater fell into disrepair. Lanith mentioned a couple of negative reviews she read on the internet which talked about how dirty the theater was and how things were broken. “As hard as those reviews were to read,” said Lanith, “I knew they were true.” In February of this year, Lanith decided to come out of the shadows as a silent partner and take over management of the Lee Theater. She had a ready-made workforce with her family of 13 children. Lanith’s husband, Steve Whetstone, is a handyman who was willing to help her. The four older girls, Cassidi, Mandolin, Brindy, and Bailey took over The Reel and revamped the pizza. They now make their pizza dough by hand and carefully craft their pizzas. Mandolin, who is also my hairdresser as none of them have quit their day jobs, told me the girls have discussions of whether the pizza needs one or two more pepperonis to make it perfect. She does the same thing with my hair…”hmm, I think I’ll put one more highlight right here…” Mandolin’s husband, Matt, and Cassidi’s husband, Ryan, also help out at the theater. Other family members you might run into are: Geoff, 19; Zach 16; and Mikenzie, 14. When Brad, 21, gets home from his mission in Tennessee, he’ll have a summer job waiting for him. Eli, 11; Sarah, 9; and Jaxon, 5, are waiting in the wings.
You might have 12-year-old Sadie selling you your ticket. Lanith said she used to stand in the booth with Sadie to make it look official, but stopped doing it when she realized Sadie was better at it than she was. Thirteen-year-old Tucker sold me a soda once and was very professional. There was a learning curve, however. Fifteen-year-old Bailey tells the story of a customer asking for large sodas of four different flavors. She misunderstood and started putting all four sodas in one large cup. The customer laughed and said he didn’t think he would be drinking that soda. She was trying hard to give the customer what he wanted, and I think that was pretty creative.
Mandolin has some fun memories about the Lee Theater. When she was in high school she worked there and that is where she met Matt Hope and they became good friends. Mandolin left Ephrata for Alaska for a time and when she returned she realized she and Matt were more than just friends. Matt put on the reader board outside the theater: “Mandolin, Will You Marry Me?” and dropped to one knee in front of the theater with cars honking as they drove by. They are expecting their second child in August. When her mother told her she wanted to take over the Lee Theater, Mandolin and Matt had no misgivings. They work their day jobs and then are at the theater at night.
Mike and I went to see a movie Saturday night. The 9:30 showing, no less. I know, Ephrata is bringing out our wild sides. Sadie sold us our tickets, Cassidi talked to us until the first showing let out. Tucker went in and cleaned the theater between showings. It was clean. The floor wasn’t sticky, and the projector didn’t break. Lanith said they have now fixed all the broken things and scraped years and years of dirt layers off the floor. They replaced the reel-to-reel projectors. She knows eventually they will have to go to digital projectors, but they are taking one improvement at a time. She has a lot of ideas, including nine weeks of free movies this summer. Be sure to go by and sign up for their email list. There is a drawing weekly and some other specials you don’t want to miss!