Former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama wear 3D glasses during a Super Bowl party at the White House Family Theater in 2009.
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Presidents sometimes used it to rehearse important speeches such as the State of the Union address; and at other times, as a place for visitors to leave their hats, bags and coats. But for more than 80 years, the White House movie theater was primarily a place where the first family and their guests came to be entertained.
Demolition The White House Family Theater broke ground this week, along with the rest of the East Wing of the White House, home to the cozy shoebox-shaped auditorium, to make way for a new $300 million ballroom. It marks the end of an era in the history of American cinema.
An excavator works to clear debris Thursday after the East Wing of the White House was demolished in Washington, DC. The historic White House Family Theater was destroyed as part of President Trump’s effort to make way for a new ballroom.
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Since Franklin Roosevelt converted it from a cloakroom in 1942, the 40-seat private theater has shown everything from newsreels and documentaries to westerns and musicals. It has undergone several facelifts, the most recent ditching the cream and red floral curtains and beige walls and seats for a more complete look.ed movie palace“adorned with gold molding and dark wood trim following a renovation overseen by first lady Laura Bush in 2004.
“The best benefit of the White House is not Air Force One or Camp David or anything else, it’s the wonderful cinema I have here,” then-President Bill Clinton told film critic Roger Ebert in a 1999 article. interview.
April 14, 1989: President George Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush host a screening at the White House Cinema. The first lady shares a seat with her grandson Jebbie Bush.
George Bush Presidential Library and Museum/NARA
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George Bush Presidential Library and Museum/NARA
Jimmy Carter was also a big fan. In a single term, the 39th president projected at least 400 movies between this place and Camp David, beginning with All the president’s men – a film about the Watergate scandal – shortly after taking the oath of office. Richard Nixon saw pattonabout controversial World War II general George S. Patton, several times during the Vietnam War. The theater’s numerous screenings of Barack Obama ranged from Mandela: long road to freedom and selma to Julia and Julia and Star Wars Rogue One. President Trump’s elections have included Finding Dory and Sunset Boulevard. John F. Kennedy, who loved James Bond movies, saw From Russia with love the day before his assassination in 1963.
US first lady Melania Trump (right) and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos greet students for a screening of the film ‘Wonder’ at the White House cinema in 2018.
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Not all American presidents were movie buffs. According to a 1997 report New York Times interview With Paul Fischer, who worked as a White House projectionist from the 1950s to the 1980s, Lyndon B. Johnson slept through most of the screenings. (Fischer kept careful records of all the films shown at the theater. A sample of the Kennedy years in the White House can be seen here.)
“It was a place for the president to observe what America was seeing,” said Matt Lambros, author several books about historic movie theaters, in an interview with NPR. “To destroy it is to destroy a part of American history.”
The White House did not respond to NPR’s request for comment or confirm reports from other media about plans to build a new movie theater as part of the east wing redevelopment.
“We’re just going back on their word that a theater will be rebuilt,” Lambros said. “I hope that it is so and that the next hundred years of presidents can enjoy it.”