The popular musical “Beach Blanket Babylon” is closing on New Year’s Eve after a 45-year run. The show, famous for its colorful, oversize and detailed hats, is the longest-running musical revue in the nation, seen by more than 6.5 million people.

The Chronicle’s archive has hundreds of photos and negatives of the performers and the outrageous costumes, including some behind-the-scenes shots that haven't been seen in decades.

The first “Beach Blanket Babylon” was on June 15, 1974, at the Savoy Tivoli. Creator Steve Silver credited a bit of street busking with providing the inspiration.

“His big break came when he and some friends tap-danced on the sidewalk for the crowds on Union Street one evening,” long-time society writer Pat Steger wrote in 1994 for the show’s 20th anniversary. “The first night they made $25, the second night $80. After that, Silver and pals hired out to work parties as dancing trees or gorillas on roller skates.”

“At the first ‘BBB,’ which took place in the back room of the Savoy Tivoli, show-goers weren’t identified by a stamp on the hand, but by a dab of Coppertone tanning lotion,” she wrote.

“If you left your seat and returned, someone had to smell your hand to readmit you,” Silver told Steger.

The first show had a budget of $900. Musicians dressed up in French poodle costumes, and there was a ton or two of sand on the floor. The poodle costumes survived for years.

“Silver does not drop anything that still works and gets a laugh,” Steger wrote.

“It’s a very San Francisco thing,” said then-San Francisco Opera Director Lotfi Mansouri. “There’s a sense of joy and fun about the show, and there’s a flexibility that allows Steve to update it, to keep it current.”

Silver died of AIDS just a year later, in 1995, at age 51. After skipping one performance for his funeral, the cast went right back to work, with Silver’s wife, Jo Schuman Silver, taking over the reins.

“I’m the keeper of the flame,” Jo Schuman Silver told Carolyne Zinko in 2004. She was devoted to his legacy, Zinko wrote, and as obsessed with pop culture and detail as he was. She retained final say on everything related to the show.

Schuman Silver made the show even more topical, adding Arnold Schwarzenegger to the show on the night he announced his candidacy for governor and a song about then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom — to the tune of “I’m Getting Married in the Morning” — was added the day City Hall began performing same-sex weddings.

This year, Schuman Silver announced the show is ending — she felt it was time and didn’t feel comfortable handing it off to a successor.

But “Beach Blanket Babylon” will remain a San Francisco classic.

“It became a part of San Francisco on the day it opened,” said former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, a friend of Schuman Silver and a Chronicle columnist. “And it has remained a part of San Francisco to this minute.”

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• ‘Babylon’ gone: Our three-part podcast series on the legacy of “Beach Blanket Babylon” and the people who made it.

• Legacy: Jo Schuman Silver wants the “Beach Blanket Babylon” vision to live on after the show closes.

• Timeline: From street theater to Queen Elizabeth to the Oscars.

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From the Archive is a weekly column by Bill Van Niekerken, the library director of The Chronicle, exploring the depths of the newspaper’s archive. It’s part of Chronicle Vault, a twice-weekly newsletter highlighting more than 150 years of San Francisco stories. It is edited by Taylor Kate Brown, The Chronicle’s newsletter editor. Sign up for the newsletter here, and follow Chronicle Vault on Instagram. Contact Bill at bvanniekerken@sfchronicle.com and Taylor at taylor.brown@sfchronicle.com.