The Stanford Theatre is a classical independent movie theater

Movie theater

A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....

 in Palo Alto, California

Palo Alto, California

Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...

. The theater features neo-classical Greek/Assyrian style architecture and generally screens films made between the 1920s and 1960s. Often an entire month is devoted to film festivals for various genres, directors, and actors, such as Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...

, Bette Davis

Bette Davis

Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...

, and Cary Grant

Cary Grant

Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...

.

History

Designed by architects Weeks and Day

Weeks and Day

Weeks and Day was an American architectural firm founded in 1916 by architect Charles Peter Weeks and engineer William Peyton Day ....

, the theater was originally opened in 1925. In 1987 was purchased and restored by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation

David and Lucile Packard Foundation

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation is a private foundation that provides grants to not-for-profit organizations. It was created in 1964 by David Packard and his wife Lucile Salter Packard. Following David Packard's death in 1996, the Foundation became the beneficiary of part of his estate...

. It is currently operated by the Stanford Theatre Foundation, led by David Woodley Packard

David Woodley Packard

David Woodley Packard, Ph.D. is a former professor and noted philanthropist; he is the son of Hewlett-Packard co-founder David Packard. A former HP board member , David is best known for his opposition to the HP-Compaq merger and his support for classical studies, especially in regards to the...

, the son of Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...

 co-founder David Packard

David Packard

David Packard was a co-founder of Hewlett-Packard , serving as president , CEO , and Chairman of the Board . He served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1969–1971 during the Nixon administration...

. The Stanford Theatre frequently accounts for as much as twenty-five percent of all classic film attendance in the USA.

External links

• Stanford Theatre official website
• The Stanford Theatre at Palo Alto History.com