Clay Theatre projectionist recalls celeb-rich history of 110-year-old SF theater set to close Sunday

The Clay Theatre is closing after 110 years of history. The Clay Theatre is closing after 110 years of history. Photo: Google Maps Photo: Google Maps Image 1 of / 18 Caption Close Clay Theatre projectionist recalls celeb-rich history of 110-year-old SF theater set to close Sunday 1 / 18 Back to Gallery

The single screen of a cinematic fixture in the heart of Pacific Heights will be fading to black this Sunday after over a century showing midnight cult classics and arthouse features.

The Clay has served as a hub for the late night genre, ritually screening low budget repertory classics with encouraged audience participation like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and Tommy Wiseau’s "The Room," which is hosted by manager and projectionist Michael Blythe and reportedly draws hundreds to the theater each month.

Landmark Theatres confirmed with SFGATE the Clay Theatre on Fillmore Street would show its last movie on Sunday, Jan. 26. When asked for the reason behind the closure, the theater did not provide any additional information. But according to a Datebook interview with Landmark’s president, Paul Serwitz, the theater had been steadily losing money for the last six years. (The chain took over the Clay in 1991.)

“Much of Landmark’s DNA is in older theaters like the Clay, but we’ve put many efforts into making the Clay work and are unable to operate it viably,” he told Datebook.

The Clay reportedly opened in 1910 as a nickelodeon movie house, later focusing on foreign programming when the theater rebranded as "The Clay International" in 1935. The art deco theater made San Francisco history in 1972 when it pioneered the first midnight movie in the city with a premiere of John Waters’ exploitation comedy “Pink Flamingos.”

Even so, this isn’t the first stumbling block in the Clay’s shaky history. The theater nearly closed in 2010 after Landmark reportedly decided it could no longer afford to continue operating it, and the San Francisco Film Society (now SFFILM) attempted to negotiate with landlord Balgobind Jaiswal to help keep it afloat.

But in what was supposed to be the Clay’s final hour, Jaiswal reportedly struck a deal with Landmark’s former CEO, Ted Mundorff. Though Jaiswal said it wasn’t "a permanent solution," reducing the cost of rent in order to keep things running was something he could do to "buy time" while they determined next steps.

Later that night, a sold-out audience gloomily filed into the theater for a midnight screening of “Rocky Horror” they thought would be their last. But the good news was jubilantly revealed onstage before the show began – and the crowd went wild.

“It went from a funeral to a celebration real quick,” said Blythe at the time. The next day, he changed the marquee to a simple declaration: “The show goes on!”

It’s unlikely history will repeat itself at the Clay’s (very) last screening of “Rocky Horror” this Saturday.

Over the decades, a slew of offbeat celebrities appeared at the iconic local theater. In 1985, the cast of spaghetti western satire “Lust in the Dust” – including Divine from “Pink Flamingos,” Tab Hunter and Cesar Romero – stamped their hands and feet in wet concrete outside of the Clay.

Around the same time, beatnik legend William S. Burroughs visited the theater and posed for a photo with staff, albeit impatiently and after a few too many drinks. (He reportedly snapped at the photographer to “take the goddamn picture.”)

Some of the other unique talent to visit the theater included “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” star John Cleese, J-horror filmmaker Takashi Miike (“Audition,” “13 Assassins”) as well as Carl Yorke – one of four actors Italian police reportedly thought had been killed in the making of the 1980 pseudo-snuff horror film “Cannibal Holocaust.”

On the more wholesome side, Pixar actors Dave Foley, who voiced Flik in “A Bug’s Life” and Terry in “Monsters University” and Janeane Garofalo, known for her role as Colette in “Ratatouille” also visited the theater in the past, according to Blythe. Months before the theater’s near-closure 2010, “Weird Al” Yankovic introduced a screening of his pre-“Anchorman” news station comedy “UHF.”

But Tommy Wiseau may have been the only celebrity to return to the theater on numerous occasions for Blythe’s monthly screenings of “The Room.”

“He’s a cool dude and has lots of history in San Francisco,” Blythe told SFGATE.

On one occasion, Blythe added, the actor-director was accompanied by costar (and Walnut Creek native) Greg Sestero before he wrote “The Disaster Artist,” which was adapted into a 2017 film starring James Franco.

While Blythe said he was “bummed” he didn’t know last month’s screening of “The Room” would be the last at the Clay, it seems possible he could keep the longstanding tradition going at another theater in San Francisco.

But he won’t say for sure.

Quoting Wiseau’s character in the film, Blythe joked, "I cannot tell you, it’s confidential."

Tickets are still available for “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” with a live performance by the Bawdy Caste this Saturday at the Clay Theatre. “Honeyland” will be the final movie to show on Sunday, with three screenings at 3:15, 5:20 and 7:25 p.m.

Amanda Bartlett is an SFGATE associate digital reporter. Email: amanda.bartlett@sfgate.com | Twitter: @byabartlett