Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theater
Encyclopedia
Tenderloin, San Francisco, California
The Tenderloin is a neighborhood in downtown San Francisco, California, in the flatlands on the southern slope of Nob Hill, nestled between the Union Square shopping district to the northeast and the Civic Center office district to the southwest...
neighborhood. Opened as an X-rated
X-rated
In some countries, X is or has been a motion picture rating reserved for the most explicit films. Films rated X are intended only for viewing by adults, usually legally defined as people over the age of 17.-United Kingdom:...
movie theater by Jim and Artie Mitchell
Mitchell brothers
The brothers James "Jim" Lloyd Mitchell and Artie Jay Mitchell were pioneers in the pornography and striptease club business in San Francisco and other parts of California from 1969 until 1991, when Jim was convicted of killing Artie.They opened the O'Farrell Theatre in 1969 as an adult cinema...
on July 4, 1969, the O'Farrell remains one of America's oldest and most notorious adult-entertainment establishments; by 1980, the nightspot had become a major force in popularizing close-contact lap dancing, which would become the norm in striptease clubs nationwide. The late journalist Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author who wrote The Rum Diary , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 .He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to...
, a longtime friend of the Mitchells and frequent visitor at the club, claimed to be its night manager in 1985. He called the O'Farrell "the Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
of public sex in America" and Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
magazine praised it as "the place to go in San Francisco!"
Operation
The O'Farrell Theatre is open seven days a week and nearly every evening of the year. Customers must pay a comparatively steep admission price ($20–$50, depending on the time of day) and no alcoholic beverages are served, although a snack bar operates on the premises. The O'Farrell's main showroom is New York Live!, a continuous striptease show where one performer dances on stage while the others offer lap dances by asking customers, "Want some company?" The dancers then actually sit on the men's laps (a practice that is illegal in some other states) and insist on substantial tips ($20 is common). There are several themed rooms, such as the Ultra Room, a peep showPeep show
A peep show or peepshow is an exhibition of pictures, objects or people viewed through a small hole or magnifying glass. Though historically a peep show was a form of entertainment provided by wandering showmen, nowadays it more commonly refers a presentation of a sex show or pornographic film...
-type room where patrons stand in private booths watching women perform with various props such as dildo
Dildo
A dildo is a sex toy, often explicitly phallic in appearance, intended for bodily penetration during masturbation or sex with partners.- Description and uses :...
es; the Green Door Room (named for the Mitchells' classic hardcore film Behind the Green Door
Behind the Green Door
Behind the Green Door is a 1972 feature-length pornographic film, widely considered one of the genre's "classic" pictures. It was the first hardcore film widely released in the United States. It was the first feature-length film directed by the Mitchell brothers and starred Marilyn Chambers...
and its sequel; it served as the principal set of the latter), the darkened Kopenhagen Lounge, where the customers use flashlights to watch the performances, and private booths of varying sizes (although not all dancers make themselves available for private sessions with customers) and onstage lesbian simulated-sex performances.
At the O'Farrell, male employees (including managers) must adhere to a strict dress code: black bowtie, white shirt, black slacks and black shoes. These sartorial requirements began in 1986 when the O'Farrell's then-general manager, the late Vince Stanich, noticed that all of his male staff members were dressed differently (and often not altogether presentably).
History
The Mitchell brothersMitchell brothers
The brothers James "Jim" Lloyd Mitchell and Artie Jay Mitchell were pioneers in the pornography and striptease club business in San Francisco and other parts of California from 1969 until 1991, when Jim was convicted of killing Artie.They opened the O'Farrell Theatre in 1969 as an adult cinema...
opened the O'Farrell as an adult cinema on the site of a former two-story Pontiac
Pontiac
Pontiac was an automobile brand that was established in 1926 as a companion make for General Motors' Oakland. Quickly overtaking its parent in popularity, it supplanted the Oakland brand entirely by 1933 and, for most of its life, became a companion make for Chevrolet. Pontiac was sold in the...
car dealership. Upstairs they produced and directed the pornographic films they showed downstairs. Later, observing that the Condor Club
Condor Club
The Condor Night Club is a striptease bar or topless bar in the North Beach section of San Francisco, in California, USA. The club opened in 1964....
in North Beach had been a topless bar since 1964 apparently with legal impunity, the Mitchells decided to make their establishment primarily a striptease club by having their carpenter build showrooms.
The Mitchell brothers' classic adult film Behind the Green Door
Behind the Green Door
Behind the Green Door is a 1972 feature-length pornographic film, widely considered one of the genre's "classic" pictures. It was the first hardcore film widely released in the United States. It was the first feature-length film directed by the Mitchell brothers and starred Marilyn Chambers...
premiered at the O'Farrell in 1972, with the brothers' parents in the audience. The Mitchells produced and directed (and occasionally made cameo appearances in) many others of varying lengths, with mixed commercial and critical success.
In the 1980s, newly elected Mayor Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is the senior U.S. Senator from California. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served in the Senate since 1992. She also served as 38th Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988....
walked into the O'Farrell and said, "I want to check this place out." Jim Mitchell, in the lobby at that moment, reportedly said, "Sure, if you buy a ticket." Feinstein walked out. Soon after, raids occurred, ostensibly to restore safety and health of exotic dancers and resulted in obscenity charges being filed against the Mitchells. The brothers, apparently not lacking a sense of humor, changed their marquee to read, "For showtimes, call..." and displayed Feinstein's unlisted phone number.
In the early 1970s, the theater would stop its adult features at midnight on Wednesdays, then re-open as the 'Nickelodeon,' with five-cent admission and free popcorn. The audience of young hippies would be shown movies such as Marx Brothers or Abbott and Costello, Yellow Submarine, or other counter-cultural favorites, all non-pornographic, with much communal drinking and marijuana smoking, and general carousing. Inspections and disruptions by the fire department and police were common, but the shows usually continued until three in the morning or later.
The O'Farrell featured sex shows on stage until the courts ordered them to discontinue doing so. As well, the dancers in New York Live! originally were nude as they sat on customers' laps, but a judge instructed the O'Farrell's management to ensure that the girls, when doing lap dances, at least wore brassieres and underpants. Spontaneous onstage lesbian sex acts are still common at the O'Farrell.
The Mitchell brothers supported various cartoon artists, and when the 1984 Democratic National Convention
1984 Democratic National Convention
The 1984 National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California from July 16 to July 19, 1984, to select a candidate for the 1984 United States presidential election. At the convention Walter Mondale was nominated for President and Geraldine...
was held in San Francisco, they opened the second floor of the O'Farrell to a group of underground cartoonists covering the convention for the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
.
For a period in the early 1980s, the Mitchells, as a special attraction, featured "headliners," female porn stars who danced in the O'Farrell's Cine-Stage (a movie theater with a stage at the base of the screen). The management sold a separate admission ticket ($20) for those performances. On February 1, 1985, the Cine-Stage was raided by a dozen police officers during a headlining appearance by Marilyn Chambers
Marilyn Chambers
Marilyn Chambers was an American pornographic actress, exotic dancer, model, actress and vice-presidential candidate...
(star of Behind the Green Door); the district attorney declined to press charges. Police later retaliated against a journalist who had suggested that the raid occurred to derail an ordinance that would have stripped police from rights to license adult theaters. Perhaps because of the Marilyn Chambers incident (as well as the increasing financial burden of booking famous performers into the O'Farrell), the Mitchells virtually discontinued headliners. One exception was the late Megan Leigh (1964–90), a former house dancer who quit the O'Farrell in 1986 to begin starring in adult videos. Leigh returned at least once to dance in the Cine-Stage, presumably to sold-out crowds.
Over the years, the Mitchells were the defendants in over 200 court cases involving obscenity or related charges. Always victorious, they were represented by aggressive counsel (Michael Kennedy, then Artie Mitchell's wife Meredith and, following her dismissal, the late Tom Steel and his law partner Nanci Clarence).
Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author who wrote The Rum Diary , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 .He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to...
claimed in his 2003 book Kingdom of Fear that he had worked for a while as night manager at the club in 1985, an assertion repeated in some news articles.
In February 1991, the theater entered the news after Jim Mitchell fatally shot Artie. Michael Kennedy defended Jim Mitchell and convinced the jury that Jim killed Artie because the latter was psychotic from drugs and had become dangerous (Artie had recently threatened to throw a Molotov cocktail
Molotov cocktail
The Molotov cocktail, also known as the petrol bomb, gasoline bomb, Molotov bomb, fire bottle, fire bomb, or simply Molotov, is a generic name used for a variety of improvised incendiary weapons...
into the O'Farrell's lobby; his brother, in 1996, established the "Artie Fund" to raise money for drug-abuse prevention). Jim Mitchell was sentenced to six years in prison for voluntary manslaughter
Voluntary Manslaughter
Voluntary manslaughter is the killing of a human being in which the offender had no prior intent to kill and acted during "the heat of passion," under circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed. In the Uniform Crime Reports prepared by the...
and released from San Quentin in 1997, after having served half his sentence. (See the article on the Mitchell brothers
Mitchell brothers
The brothers James "Jim" Lloyd Mitchell and Artie Jay Mitchell were pioneers in the pornography and striptease club business in San Francisco and other parts of California from 1969 until 1991, when Jim was convicted of killing Artie.They opened the O'Farrell Theatre in 1969 as an adult cinema...
for details.)
During the celebrations for the O'Farrell's 30-year anniversary in 1999, burlesque
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
star Tempest Storm
Tempest Storm
Tempest Storm is the stage name of an American stripper, burlesque star, and motion picture actress. Along with Lili St. Cyr and Blaze Starr, she was one of the best known burlesque performers of the 1950s and 1960s. She is regarded as having one of the longest careers as a burlesque performer,...
, by then in her 70s, danced on stage. Mayor Willie Brown declared a "Tempest Storm Day" in her honor. Marilyn Chambers returned to perform in the theatre on July 28, 1999 in what Willie Brown dubbed "Marilyn Chambers Day."
In 2004, two similar San Francisco clubs (the New Century Theater and the Market Street Cinema) were visited by undercover police officers, and some dancers allegedly propositioned them. The dancers were cited for prostitution and the managers for operating a brothel. The assistant manager at the Market Street Cinema told the police to investigate the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre. All charges were later dropped; these days, the authorities seem not to mind what transpires between the customers and dancers as long as it remains discreet.
When San Francisco's Commission on the Status of Women proposed in 2006 to ban private booths and rooms at adult clubs because of concerns about sexual assaults taking place there, several O'Farrell dancers spoke out against the ban.
As of 2006, Jeff Armstrong, its longtime business manager, continued running the O'Farrell; legal representation is provided by former San Francisco Supervisor and two-term District Attorney Terence Hallinan
Terence Hallinan
Terence Hallinan is an American attorney and politician from San Francisco, California. He is the second of six sons born to leftist attorney Vincent Hallinan and his wife Vivian....
.
Labor disputes
Originally, the O'Farrell Theatre's management paid their dancers a flat fee per shift; in the 1980s, they replaced that fee with the federal minimum wageMinimum wage
A minimum wage is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly remuneration that employers may legally pay to workers. Equivalently, it is the lowest wage at which workers may sell their labour. Although minimum wage laws are in effect in a great many jurisdictions, there are differences of opinion about...
but allowed the women to accept tips. In 1994, Vince Stanich (the ecdysiasts' boss) created a separate company, Dancers Guild International (DGI), and changed the dancers' status from paid employees to that of unpaid "independent contractors" who had to pay DGI "stage fees" of up to $300 per eight-hour shift. Many O'Farrell stripteasers considered Stanich's new policy unfair and possibly illegal; two of them, Ellen Vickery and Jennifer Bryce, filed a class-action lawsuit
Class action
In law, a class action, a class suit, or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued...
against DGI (the plaintiffs would ultimately number more than 500), arguing that Stanich's reclassification of the dancers as independent contractors was unlawful and that they were owed back wages as well as a refund of the stage fees. The case was settled in 1998; the dancers were awarded $2.85 million. Similar suits challenging independent contractor status have since been filed against numerous other strip clubs, and labor commissions as well as the courts have consistently ruled in favor of dancers and awarded past wages and stage fee reimbursements. The O'Farrell's management still adamantly opposes all attempts of the dancers to unionize.
After the 1998 case, the O'Farrell changed the performers' payment structure again: they posted a "suggested" fee of $20 per lap dance and $40 per private performance and set a "quota" of $360 per woman per night; the women were allowed to keep half the quota plus all tips. However, it has been recorded on some occasions for lap dances to cost as much as $240. Dancers claimed feeling pressured into paying $180 per night even if they had earned less than that amount, and another 370-plaintiff class-action suit began in 2002. In 2007, a judge ruled in favor of the dancers, declaring the quota system illegal and requiring the O'Farrell to pay any amounts employees could show they paid to fill their quotas, minus any amounts the employer could show the dancers had collected but failed to report. The O'Farrell was also ordered to reimburse dancers for required theme-oriented costumes.
Location and murals
The theatre is located in the northwest part of the Tenderloin DistrictTenderloin, San Francisco, California
The Tenderloin is a neighborhood in downtown San Francisco, California, in the flatlands on the southern slope of Nob Hill, nestled between the Union Square shopping district to the northeast and the Civic Center office district to the southwest...
, at the corner of Polk and O'Farrell street at 37°47′5.8"N 122°25′9.5"W, a few doors down from the Great American Music Hall
Great American Music Hall
The Great American Music Hall is a concert hall in San Francisco, California. It is located on O'Farrell Street in the Tenderloin neighborhood on the same block as the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theater...
.
The entire exterior west and south faces of the theater are covered with two large murals. The west wall depicts a rainforest scene, and on the south wall is an underwater scene featuring a life-sized pod of whales and dolphins. These murals were painted in 1977 (Lou Silva with Ed Monroe, Daniel Burgevin, Todd Stanton, and Gary William Graham), 1983 (Lou Silva-solo), and 1990 by Lou Silva with the assistance of Joanne Maxwell Wittenbrook, Ed Monroe, Mark Nathan Clark, and Juan "Blackwolf" Karlos. Notable visitors, while the murals were in progress, included: Melvin Belli, Marilyn Chambers, Paul Kantner, Toshiro Mifune, Huey P. Newton, Hunter S. Thompson, and Edy Williams. The murals were sponsored in their entirety by Jim and Artie Mitchell.
Notable Dancers
- John C. HolmesJohn Holmes (actor)John Curtis Holmes better known as John C. Holmes or Johnny Wadd , was one of the most prolific male porn stars of all time, appearing in about 2,500 adult loops, stag films, and pornographic feature movies in the 1970s and 1980s...
, porn star, performed sex shows in the Ultra Room in the 1970s - Marilyn ChambersMarilyn ChambersMarilyn Chambers was an American pornographic actress, exotic dancer, model, actress and vice-presidential candidate...
, porn star, performed as headliner in early 1980s and 1999 - Megan LeighMegan LeighMegan Leigh Megan Leigh Megan Leigh (born Michelle Maira Schei on (March 2, 1964 – June 16, 1990) was an American stripteaser and star of adult videos.Leigh was born in Oakland, California, USA. She ran away from home for the first time at age 14 and by 16 was working at a Guam massage parlor....
danced as Eve in the mid-1980s; she later became a porn star and committed suicide in June 1990 - FallonFallon (porn star)Fallon is an American pornographic actress known as the first to perform ejaculating orgasms on film.- Adult film career :...
porn star, danced in mid-1980s - Blaze StarrBlaze StarrBlaze Starr is an American former stripper and American burlesque star. Her vivacious presence and inventive use of stage props earned her the nickname "The Hottest Blaze in Burlesque"...
famed stripper - Tempest StormTempest StormTempest Storm is the stage name of an American stripper, burlesque star, and motion picture actress. Along with Lili St. Cyr and Blaze Starr, she was one of the best known burlesque performers of the 1950s and 1960s. She is regarded as having one of the longest careers as a burlesque performer,...
famed stripper - Edy WilliamsEdy WilliamsEdwina Beth "Edy" Williams is an American television and film actress.-Early years:Born in Utah and raised in Oregon and Southern California, Williams began her career as a model and beauty pageant contestant...
Hollywood motion picture, adult motion picture, and television performer - Annette HavenAnnette HavenAnnette Haven is a former American pornographic actress popular during the 1970s and 1980s.-Biography:Annette Robinson was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, and raised in a sexually conservative Mormon family...
porn star - Nina HartleyNina HartleyNina Hartley is an American pornographic actress, pornographic film director, sex educator, feminist, and author.-Early life:...
porn star - Erica BoyerErica BoyerErica Boyer, legal name Amanda Margaret Jensen was an American pornographic actress...
porn star, danced as Super Vixen - Lily BuranaLily BuranaLily Burana is an American writer whose publications include the memoir I Love a Man in Uniform , the novel Try Lily Burana is an American writer whose publications include the memoir I Love a Man in Uniform (Weinstein Books, 2009), the novel Try Lily Burana is an American writer whose publications...
was involved in the class action suit and wrote about her experiences as dancer at the O'Farrell in her 2001 book Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America (ISBN 0-7868-6790-6).